A little editing turns a good aurora shot into a great one. Shooting in RAW gives you the latitude to recover colour and detail that a JPEG throws away.

Here's a simple, honest editing workflow — no over-processing.

Shoot RAW first

RAW files keep all the sensor data, so you can adjust white balance, recover shadows and reduce noise without wrecking the image. If your camera or phone can shoot RAW, use it.

The core adjustments

Keep it real

The aurora is already spectacular — resist cranking saturation until it looks fake. The best edits look like a slightly enhanced version of what was there.

Free tools

Lightroom, Darktable (free), or your phone's built-in RAW editor all work. Start subtle and build up.