Welcome to Week 24 of 2025!
In today's e-mail, you'll get:
TIP OF THE WEEK: 5 Editing Fails to Avoid
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Desaturated Film Look
RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: How to Take Photos of Artwork
TIP OF THE WEEK
Five Common Editing Fails to Avoid
50% of your photo's success depends on good editing.
Sadly, most people don't edit their phone photos. And even if they edit their photos, most people don't know the right way to do it.
The good news is it's super easy to make your phone photos look pro with some fast editing tricks that I'll share today.
The best way to learn is by fixing the 5 most common editing mistakes.
Editing Fail #1: Not Editing Your Photos
I can't start without mentioning the single most effective way of making your photos look awesome: EDIT THEM!
Download Lightroom Mobile (it's free) and edit your photos before posting or sharing them. I promise, this is a photographer's best habit.
Editing Fail #2: Too Much Vignetting
When you first discover the Vignette tool in Lightroom (making the edges of the photo darker), it's hard not to go overboard with it.
I know from experience.
When I was in photography school in 2007, Lightroom had just come out and all of us new students got vignette-happy in our editing. When I look back at my photos from that era, I cringe from the excessive vignetting!
Why do we do this? I don't know.
But I do know that most new Lightroom users go too far with vignetting. So be careful. Too much vignetting makes a photo look over-processed and artificial. Ick.
Editing Fail #3: Not Fixing Light & Shadow Stains
Light and shadow "stains" are created when mixed colour lighting and unwanted shadows hit your subject. Correcting for this is an advanced technique but so crucial to learn (because it ruins our photos so often).
In the photo on the left, I had yellow lights in the kitchen mixed with blue evening window light on the right. On top of this, my arm was casting a shadow on the bowl. All this makes light and shadow staining on my subject.
You can fix this (neutralize the colour and brighten the shadows) by applying masks in Lightroom Mobile:
Paint in brightness over the shadows, and paint in some white balancing on the colour stains. It will neutralize the "stains" and salvage your photo. And in my case, make my food photo look so much more appetizing!
*Note: masks are a premium feature in Lightroom.
Editing Fail #4: Making Photos Too Bright
This is an easy mistake - overexposing your photos and blowing out the highlights. This is one of the most common editing mistakes, but really easy to correct.
Here's how to fix it: Look at the brightest parts of the person's face - is it almost flat white? If yes, then you know you've gone too bright with your editing.
Be careful not to kill all the colour with your overexposing. Always preserve the highlights on skin tones!
Editing Fail #5: Texture Too Crunchy
When you edit, you might be motivated to REALLY show off the part of the image you want your viewers to REALLY notice. Cranking up the editing to show it off is called editing too literally and it's making your photos look amateur.
For example, if the crunchy texture of the cookies is what you want to showcase, let the right light amplify the natural texture so it speaks for itself. Don't overdo it with boosting the texture, clarity and sharpening in Lightroom. Otherwise, your photo will be nauseatingly sharp.
Instead, work with visual techniques already present in your environment to naturally amplify texture. Your viewers will appreciate it.
Want to establish good editing habits?
I'll show you in 30 minutes how to master Lightroom to create successful editing habits for your phone photos.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Desaturated Film Look
I didn't take many iPhone photos this week because I've been so busy with client work, so it was hard to pick an iPhone photo to share. But I had taken this one landscape photo.
I felt it was a bit of a boring photo so I jazzed it up by experimenting with a different editing style in Lightroom. I created a desaturated grainy film look and added some colour tinting to it. Sometimes a boring photo just needs an extra somethin'. ;)
If you'd like this Lightroom preset, reply to this e-mail and I'll send it to you.
RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE
How to take photos of artwork
My daughter draws a LOT so I started an Instagram account for her when she was five to showcase her work. In this video, I show how I take photos of her artwork with my iPhone camera to get quick, easy results that look great for Instagram.