Professional Profiles

The 6 LinkedIn Photo Filters & What They Say About You

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Does the new LinkedIn profile picture photo editor & filters increase or decrease your picture's professionalism?

To the surprise of us who thought photo filters were more of an “Instagram thing,” LinkedIn rolled out six filters that you can apply to your profile photos.

(In addition, you can straighten and crop photos. You can also edit brightness, contrast, saturation, and vignette — all from within the LinkedIn web and mobile apps.)

But the question arises: do the new LinkedIn photo filters increase or decrease your picture’s professionalism?

Here’s what we found.

Original Picture (No Filter)

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - No Filter

Spotlight Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Spotlight Filter

Adjectives: Sharp, polished, fresh

LinkedIn’s Spotlight filter seems to increase a picture’s contrast and brightness, giving it an instantly sharper, more lively look.

The Spotlight filter does make an ordinary picture look more like a professionally-taken one. You could say this built-in LinkedIn photo filter adds professional polish.

Prime Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Prime Filter

Adjectives: Dreamy, moody, nostalgic

The Prime filter is a bit moody or gloomy, though it has artistic appeal.

Given how the Prime filter mutes or washes out the colors of the photo, it changes the overall vibe to a greater extent than most of the others.

Studio Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Studio Filter

Adjectives: Deep, heavy, sentimental

The Studio filter adds deep yellow/red tones and heavy contrast.

The result can have almost a romantic feel to it (reminiscent of a sunrise), depending on how much yellow and contrast were in the original photo.

Classic Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Classic Filter

Adjectives: Clean, vintage

The Classic filter is reminicient of Instagram’s Inkwell filter, which transforms a picture into gray tones while also punching up contrast and brightness.

The Classic filter gives pictures a quick, clean, pulled-togetherness that might work especially well when the original isn’t as high-res or color-balanced as one would like.

Edge Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Edge Filter

Adjectives: Serious, dark

The Edge filter is a combination of heavy contrast and exaggerated blue tones.

It’s possible this filter could add a sense of solemnness and seriousness to photos when it is called for. However, users should tread carefully. Too much blue can quickly take on negative connotations that may transfer to the photo’s subject: sadness, rebelliousness, or coldness — depending on the picture that you start with.

Luminate Filter

LinkedIn Profile Picture Photo Editor - Luminate Filter

Adjectives: Light, ethereal, uplifting

Finally, the Luminate filter does just what you think it should: it illuminates the photo with warm (pink/red), soft light.

While it may not complement everyone’s profession, this filter may certainly add a sense of charm and wisdom to an author, speaker, or thought leader’s aesthetic.

That concludes our summary of the new LinkedIn photo filters. Consider giving these a shot, and we’ll see you back at Photofeeler with your newly edited pics!

Photofeeler is a tool for testing profile pics, as seen in Time, Forbes, The Today Show, and more. Know for certain how you’re coming across in your dating pictures. It’s free to use here.

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