iPhone Photography: A Workflow Guide

My workflow guide details how I use Halide Mark II for RAW captures, Adobe Lightroom Classic for advanced editing, and Luminar Neo for creative touches, enhancing my iPhone 11 Pro photography.

As an avid photographer, I'm constantly exploring ways to enhance my craft, especially when using a device as accessible and powerful as the iPhone. In this post, I'll share my refined workflow for post-processing iPhone photographs, leveraging the capabilities of apps like Halide, Adobe Lightroom Classic, and Luminar Neo. I think my approach combines the ease of mobile photography with more involved editing techniques.

Halide has recently become my favourite app for capturing images with my iPhone 11 Pro. The current version, Halide Mark II, offers advanced RAW shooting capabilities, allowing me to capture more detail and dynamic range. Halide provides manual exposure, ISO, focus, and white balance controls, enabling greater post-processing flexibility and higher-quality images than standard HEIC or JPEGs.

Kingston Mill Historic District
Kingston Grist Mill, Kingston Mill Historic District · January 6, 2020 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

Luminar Neo offers AI-driven editing tools, customisable presets, and layer-based adjustments, catering to beginners and professionals for creative and efficient photograph enhancements.

I have used Adobe Lightroom in all its iterations since about 2003. I currently use Adobe Lightroom Classic via the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography subscription. I get access to both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. Adobe Lightroom Classic is a comprehensive photo editing and cataloguing software. It offers advanced editing tools, colour grading, batch processing, and RAW file support. Key features include non-destructive editing, lens and camera-based corrections, detailed organisation, and robust preset capabilities, catering to professional photographers and photography enthusiasts.

Avalon Beach, Seven Mile Island
Avalon Beach, Seven Mile Island · August 23, 2023 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

1. Capturing the Perfect Shot with Halide Mark II

Shoot in RAW1 Format: The Halide Mark II app for iPhone offers robust RAW photography features. RAW images preserve more details, particularly in highlights and shadows, generally display more colour detail, and are sharper than JPEGs. However, can they be grainier in low light or night settings? The first step in my workflow is using Halide Mark II to capture RAW images. In the settings, I can choose between RAW+HEIC, RAW, and HEIC options. HEIC captures a processed file, while RAW+ HEIC captures both a HEIC and a RAW image. I have Halide Mark II set to capture RAW images. Halide Mark II uses the DNG format for RAW. This format retains all the data from the sensor, providing a wide range of possibilities during editing. RAW image capture is also the fastest capture mode in Halide Mark II.

Sourland Mountain Spirits
March 21, 2021 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

Lens Selection: Depending on the scene, I switch between the 6mm f/2 lens for a tighter frame (great for portraits) and the 4.25mm f/1.8 for wider angles, capturing landscapes or urban settings. The 6mm lens, with its tighter field of view, is perfect for portraits and detailed shots, offering a more focused perspective. The 4.25mm lens, on the other hand, captures more expansive scenes, making it ideal for landscapes and architectural photography. Both lenses provide superb image quality, but I prefer the 6mm f/2 for landscape and cityscape photographs.

Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Exposure Range: 171000 - 1s
Native ISO Range: 32 - 3072
Focal Length: 4.25mm (26mm FF FOV)
Image Size: 4032 x 3024
Autofocus Systems: Contrast, Phase
Flash: Yes

Aperture: ƒ/2.0
Exposure Range: 145000 - 1s
Native ISO Range: 21 - 2016
Focal Length: 6mm (51mm FF FOV)
Image Size: 4032 x 3024
Autofocus Systems: Contrast, None, Phase
Flash: Yes

In the Photos app, Apple labels the lenses by their full frame equivalent focal length: Ultra Wide Camera — 13mm ƒ/2.4; Wide Camera — 26mm ƒ/1.8; Telephoto Camera — 52mm ƒ/2. In Adobe Lightroom, Adobe labels the lenses by their native focal length: iPhone 11 Pro back camera 1.54mm f/2.4, iPhone 11 Pro back camera 4.25mm f/1.8, iPhone 11 Pro back camera 6mm f/2.

Apple labels the iPhone 11 Pro lenses by their full-frame equivalent focal length to give users a more familiar reference point, as full-frame measurements are commonly understood in photography. This helps in comparing the field of view with 35mm DSLR cameras. On the other hand, Adobe labels them by their native focal length, which is more technically accurate for the sensor size of the iPhone. This approach precisely measures the lens itself, disregarding sensor size or full-frame equivalency, which aligns more with technical standards in digital imaging.

Low ISO for Reduced Noise: In automatic mode, the Halide Mark II app automatically chooses the optimal combination of ISO and shutter speed. However, there are some tricky situations where you may override those settings. I strive to keep the ISO as low as possible, reducing grain and preserving image quality. The high end of the range is too noisy to produce usable images, even with noise reduction in Adobe Lightroom. Higher ISO settings are reserved for low-light situations where it's unavoidable. I set Halide Mark II to manual mode to adjust the ISO manually.

Wind blowing the leaves, Blue Spring Road
Wind blowing the leaves, Blue Spring Road · Thursday 15 October 2020 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro at 4.0 sec, · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

Manual Mode for Precision: Manual mode has become my go-to in challenging lighting or when I want more creative control over the shot. In Halide Mark II, I use the manual mode to gain control over ISO and shutter speed. To set the ISO, I swipe left or right on the ISO button to adjust the iPhone's sensitivity to light. For the shutter speed, I swipe on the shutter speed button to determine how long the detector is exposed to sunlight. This control is crucial, especially in challenging lighting conditions, as it lets me balance the ISO and shutter speed to achieve the desired exposure, whether capturing fast-moving subjects or shooting in low light, ensuring the best possible image quality.

Squash Soup
Squash Soup · February 15, 2020 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

2. Initial Edits in Adobe Lightroom

Choosing the Right Adobe Profile: Depending on my subject, I select an Adobe profile—Landscape, Neutral, or Portrait—to start the editing process on the right note. Adobe Lightroom profiles apply foundational colour and tone adjustments, offering a starting point for further editing and styling.

Balanced White Balance: Adobe Lightroom's Auto white balance corrects image colours based on lighting conditions for a natural and balanced colour tone. I initially set the white balance to Auto. Then, I make fine adjustments to ensure the colours in my photo are as true to my vision as possible.

April 22, 2020 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

Auto Adjustments as a Baseline: Adobe Lightroom's "Auto" tone automatically adjusts exposure, contrast, and other settings for an optimal balance in the image. The Auto setting provides a quick start to adjusting exposure, contrast, and other basics. I then tweak the shadows and highlights to suit my imagination.

Source Brewing
Source Brewing · December 16, 2020 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 4.25mm f/1.8

Enhance with Noise Reduction: Adobe Lightroom's Denoise AI reduces noise while preserving details, particularly useful in low-light conditions. I use the Raw Details feature if my image is exposed at low ISO. The Raw Details feature enhances the sharpness and clarity of RAW images, allowing for finer control over texture and edge definition, thus significantly improving image quality without adding unwanted artefacts.

July 4, 2021 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

Lens Corrections: Adobe Lightroom offers Lens Corrections profiles for the iPhone 11 Pro, automatically compensating for common optical issues like distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. When I import photos taken with the iPhone 11 Pro, Lightroom detects the specific lens used – wide, ultra-wide, or telephoto – and applies tailored corrections based on the lens's characteristics. This feature ensures that images look more natural and appropriate to what the eye sees, improving general image quality. It's useful for architectural and landscape photography, where straight lines and accurate colour rendition are essential.

September 1, 2022 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

3. Elevating the Image with Luminar Neo

Applying a Personal Touch: Once I complete all the basic edits, I import the image with the Raw Details enhancements into Luminar Neo. In Luminar Neo, I apply the long exposure preset from the "Easy Landscape Collection". This step is where creativity comes into play, using advanced tools to give the photo a unique character. I usually set the slider to 43% with this preset as a starting point for further changes via the "Edit" menu.

November 20, 2023 · Apple iPhone 11 Pro · iPhone 11 Pro 6mm f/2

4. The Finishing Touches

Cropping for Composition: The final step often involves cropping the image to enhance its composition, focusing on the subject, or ensuring it adheres to the rule of thirds.

5. Optional Advanced Steps

I sometimes engage in local adjustments. The key is to enhance the image without overdoing it.

Conclusion

This workflow has consistently provided me with high-quality results, balancing iPhone photography's quick and intuitive nature with the depth and precision of experienced post-processing. Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting, I hope this guide inspires you to explore the potential of your iPhone camera and bring your creative visions to life.


  1. On iPhone 12 Pro and later Pro models with iOS 14.3 or later, you can take photos in Apple ProRAW. Halide Mark II provides this functionality for previous models. 

Mastering The Tool

Use whatever is best for your photographic editing.

As an amateur photographer, I spend significant time tinkering with my camera gear and editing my photographs. When I started post-processing in 2009, I settled on Adobe Lightroom as my go-to digital editing tool. This decision was based on recommendations from more experienced amateurs and professional photographers.

Over the course of the next fourteen years, I dabbled with various other editing programs like Capture One, Aperture, Luminar, and even the open-source Darktable. But I always found myself circling back to Adobe Lightroom. Not necessarily because it's unequivocally superior, mind you. The truth is, I'm unsure whether it is or isn't, and I'm perfectly okay with that uncertainty. What keeps me anchored to Adobe Lightroom is that I lack concrete reasons to dive into a complete overhaul of my workflows and editing process for shiny new software. The prospect doesn't seem worth the effort.

Could I streamline my workflow with different software? Maybe. Could I achieve more nuanced edits with a more advanced tool? Probably. However, these reasons are not compelling enough to warrant a shift in my current process. My focus is crafting captivating photographs, not on finding dazzle in an ever-evolving landscape of editing software.

Yet, none appear to be the perfect fit if you believe some on social media. This comes from an excess of choices and is likely connected to the concept of Overchoice. One tool might excel in certain aspects, another boasts a particular feature, and another touts a sleeker interface. The outcome? A trifecta of dissatisfaction.

Even if I were to edit my images on a more advanced app, my photographs could still possess imperfections. A fancier app won't magically make me into a better photographer.

So, my advice is simple: use whatever is best for your photographic editing. Master it.

Photo Editing on iOS is a mess

Why I think the iPhone and iPad are useless image editing machines. #iOS

[exif id="19914"]

I edit a lot of images on my iPhone 6. Most of them are images taken on the phone with the native camera app or imported and then edited in one of the several apps. Sometimes I used the non-destructive editing tools and the "Edit In.." feature to edit my images via third-party editing tools that I access right from the Photos app.

The challenge is that only a few of the popular third-party editing tools or filter apps support this feature. Here is the list of third-party non-destructive editing tools and filter apps that support "Edit In..".

  • Afterlight
  • Photoshop Express
  • Litely
  • Camera+
  • ProCam

Here are the other apps I have installed in a "Darkroom" folder on my iPhone.

  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Snapseed
  • RNI Films
  • AnalogFilm
  • VSCOcam
  • Darkroom
  • Prime
  • Photogene
  • Filters

If more apps were supported, my iPhone editing workflow would be simple. I would snap an image in the native camera app, then use the "Edit In..." feature of Photos to non-destructive edit or apply a filter.

But instead, my workflow involves snapping a photo in the native camera app, launching one of the filter and editing apps, opening the image in that app, making changes, and exporting a JPEG version of the edited image to Photos. If I want to use multiple apps to edit images, I end up importing and exporting copies of each successive image.

iOS edits JPEG images only. JPEG is a lossy compressed image format. Did you know that each time a JPEG image is edited and saved, it's re-compressed and image detail is lost? Only a few iOS photo editing apps — Afterlight and Darkroom are the standouts — use the “Edit in …” share sheet for non-destructive editing. Doing more than minimalist editing on an iPad or iPhone requires repeated import/exporting of JPEG images. I end up with several copies of the same image in various Photos folders.

Some editing and filter apps, such as Snapseed, Darkroom and Prime, allow the user to do non-destructive editing of images. However, the images have to be opened from Photos directly via those apps. Other than these three apps, I don't know of any other apps that allow this.

The situation is worse if I want to edit images taken with a DSLR or other interchangeable lens camera. The Apple Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader will import standard photo formats, including JPEG and RAW, but iOS doesn’t allow the photographer to edit RAW images. Just JPEG. I shoot images in RAW only. That makes the iPad almost useless to take on a photo excursion. Unless I set my Nikon to capture images in RAW and JPEG, I will not be able to make edits in the field. I guess Apple expects me to buy high-capacity SD cards or assumes that users only shoot JPEG. What's the point of editing the JPEG version of a RAW if I can't sync the changes back to the RAW image?

So I solved this problem by first importing my images to Adobe Lightroom on my iMac and then syncing them over to my iPad for editing in Adobe apps.

Here are the three Adobe iOS apps I use for photo editing RAW DSLR image on the iPad/iPhone.

The workflow is simple. I copy the DSLR images I want to work on into a specified collection in Adobe Lightroom. I then wait for the photos to sync to Adobe Creative Cloud. When I feel that the images have been copied, I launch the Adobe Lightroom Mobile app on my iPad. I wait for the photos to sync down to the iPad from Creative Cloud and then start working on minor edits and adjustments. If I need to do a bit more advanced editing — remove objects, work with layers etc. — I push the image to Adobe Fix or Adobe Mix. Adobe Fix/Mix pulls over the image with all current Lightroom edits. When I have finished my edit, the changes are synced back to Adobe Creative Cloud and available in Adobe Lightroom on my iMac.

Using these apps to edit the images in Adobe Lightroom requires a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud and sufficient storage on an iPad or iPhone. On a 64GB iPhone, this isn't a problem, but I have already exhausted the storage on my 32GB iPad. Before I start editing images on my iPad, I spend some time, removing unnecessary synced folders and images from Adobe Lightroom Mobile.

I can use the share sheet to export images from Adobe Lightroom mobile to other iOS editing apps, but none of the changes syncs back to Lightroom. The "Edit In..." feature only works with other Adobe apps.

If the photographer is willing to shoot and edit JPEG images only, is happy with reduced image quality, doesn't mind the extra administrative tasks of removing old edits, then the iPad and iPhone could be used as a mobile editing studio. But for me, using my iPad or iPhone as a serious mobile editing platform has too many limitations.