I posted a photo comparison this morning to see what people preferred. Usually, this is an iPhone vs Pixel comparison, but this time it was the same iPhone photo (a) as it came out of the camera app and (b) after a few edits in Lightroom.

• 4 people preferred the unedited photo
• 11 people preferred the edited photo

It's slightly imperfect since I got a little too aggressive with the saturation on the edited image, but even still, the numbers still went that direction (i fixed the edit to be a little more subtle at the top of this post).

I did this test because I think that night modes on all cameras I've used so far are good at getting lots of image data, but are not to the point where they produce a pleasing image right off the bat. In most cases, the night mode photos I am happy with are the ones that I edit to look better.

And for all the hype that Apple got for making their night photos "not look like day" I still think they look too much like daytime before edits are made. This isn't a slight on what Apple's doing, or what Google or anyone else are going with night modes, just that we've got a long road ahead of these getting better over time, and that's pretty exciting because even in this early stage they feel like magic.