A Simple Secret for Brightening Your Christmas Photos
Have you been looking for a simple way to edit your Christmas photos without having to learn the in’s and out’s of photography? Below I’ll show you examples of how I edited 5 images using both the Lightroom Mobile app, and 1 example of how I edited using the Photos app on my iPhone.
While I would love for great lighting to follow me around, especially when I want to take some photos, unfortunately that’s not how it usually happens. Winter lighting is not my favorite light either, so taking Christmas photos at home can be a little extra challenging. Which is why we will focus on editing!
About the Christmas Decor Photos:
I took these photos of Christmas decorations both during the day and night time with my iPhone 11 Pro, using the Camera app, and did not change any settings.
using the Photos app
While my recommendation is to use Lightroom Mobile (which is a free app, with an option to pay for the premium features), you can absolutely edit images right in your Photos app.
In the Photos app, you have three options:
- Use their auto enhance feature, or
- Go into the details and click “auto” on the editing tools, or
- Manually enhance each item.
For this photo, I increased the Light & Color tabs.
I think it’s fairly obvious from the above example why I recommend using the Lightroom Mobile app to lighten and brighten your Christmas photos.
brightening christmas photos in the Lightroom Mobile App
The below images were edited with presets from The Luxe Lens, with only one click edits. While I could have edited further with the tools from the preset collection, I wanted to make this tutorial super simple for non-photographers. Check out the preset collection I used here.
Side note: if you need to learn how to install Lightroom presets on the mobile app, read this blog post.
Scroll to the bottom for info on each preset.
Brightening Photo #1
Give Em Light
Brightening Photo #2
Light & Cool
BRIGHTENING PHOTO #3
Soft & Dreamy
Brightening Photo #4
Open The Details
Brightening Photo #5
Muted Matte
As you can see from these 5 Christmas photos, just applying one click Lightroom Presets is super simple and can save a ton of time! Of course you can also make as many adjustments as you’d like, including changing the white balance to set a different mood.
These 5 images were edited with The Luxe Lens’ INTERIOR DESIGN & REAL ESTATE LIGHTROOM PRESETS and I used the following presets:
- Give ‘Em Light – Raised blacks reveal hidden shadow details, while a lifted tone curve brightens the room
- Light & Cool – Soft and cool, with reduced contrasts, brightened shadows, and slightly modified individual color tones
- Muted Matte – Desaturated and warm, with reduced highlights and whites
- Open The Details – High dynamic range with boosted shadows and highlights
- Soft & Dreamy – A subtle tone curve boosts the overall light while a clarity reduction adds creamy-soft over-toning
The collection comes with 27 presets, and if you use Lightroom Classic, there will be another 25 tool presets included (these do not work with Lightroom Mobile).
Did you know? If you sign up for my emails, you’ll receive discount codes from me from time to time.
Stay tuned for another blog post using the tool presets combined with the regular presets from the Interior Design & Real Estate Lightroom Presets!
These are such good tips! For anyone reading this comment, I highly recommend the Lightroom app even if you aren’t familiar with Photoshop. I love it so much.