The Magical Mobile Darkroom: Editing on Your iPhone or iPad
with Shelley Vandegrift
November 9 – 19, 2026
Course Description
Transform your photographs directly on your iPhone or iPad in this four-session online workshop with Shelley Vandegrift. Meeting twice a week with a small group of 14 students, Shelley teaches you how to shape light, color, and contrast—using Lightroom Mobile and Photoshop mobile—to create refined and expressive images without relying on a desktop workflow.
Through step-by-step demonstrations and guided practice, you move beyond basic adjustments into more creative techniques, including masking, compositing, and adding texture. You work entirely on your mobile device while building a flexible, efficient editing workflow. Shelley also shows how Distressed FX+ can extend your creative options with texture and color overlays, helping you develop a more personal visual style.
This workshop provides an engaging, focused environment for learning and creative exploration. Whether you are new to mobile editing or looking to expand your approach, you leave with practical skills and a stronger creative direction.
Topics to be covered include:
- Lightroom Mobile workflow and navigation
- Photoshop Mobile tools for layered editing
- Adjusting exposure, contrast, and color
- Using masking tools for selective edits
- Compositing and combining images on a mobile device
- Adding texture and color overlays with Distressed FX+
- Building a flexible, creative mobile workflow
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Open to anyone wanting to process images directly on their mobile device or tablet. Familiarity with Lightroom or Camera Raw is a help.
What You Should Know:
Participants should have an understanding of the basics of working with their iPhone and iPad.
Special Notes:
Class will meet 12:30 – 2:30 pm (Mountain Time) on Mondays and Thursdays starting November 9 and ending November 19 (four online group sessions). Enrollment is limited to 14 participants.
Zoom Video Conferencing software (available for no charge from Zoom.com) will be used to facilitate the class sessions. Further details will be emailed to registrants.
Santa Fe Workshops always aims to produce a high-quality experience for our online attendees. That said, variables including regional and local internet provider speeds, traffic on Zoom's servers, and your own computing hardware can contribute to a less-than-ideal streaming event. While we do our best to minimize the impact of these variables, they are outside the control of Santa Fe Workshops.
Policies:
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
For the convenience of participants, recordings of each class session are posted privately for one month after the end of each session. Santa Fe Workshops takes the recordings down after one month to protect the intellectual property of our instructors.
about
Shelley Vandegrift’s journey into photography began at age 10, mesmerized by the magic of her father’s darkroom. This early exposure sparked a lifelong passion for blending the creative artistry of capturing images with the technical precision of post-production. The emergence of digital photography provided the perfect medium for Shelley to unite her love of photography with her expertise in computer technology. Today, she channels this synergy into her photographic art and teaching imaging software, artistic post-processing, and infrared photography.
Shelley is known for making complex techniques accessible to all. She has lectured for Skylum and DxO software, earned the 23rd Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Digital Manipulation and Collage, and co-authored Infrared Photography: Digital Techniques for Artistic Images, 2nd Edition.
Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including The Beauty of Invisible Light at the Commons Gallery, as well as in B&W Magazine, A. Smith Gallery, the Latino Cultural Center of Dallas, PhotoPlace Gallery, and the Art Travelers Gallery at Dallas Love Field Airport.
Through her evocative art and empowering teaching, Shelley inspires others to discover the magic of photography and craft their own creative stories.
Website: vandegriftphotography.com
Instagram: @vandegriftphotography
