diff --git a/esphome/components/light/light_color_values.h b/esphome/components/light/light_color_values.h
index 81dcb614a6..c696ed8516 100644
--- a/esphome/components/light/light_color_values.h
+++ b/esphome/components/light/light_color_values.h
@@ -169,12 +169,18 @@ class LightColorValues {
       const float cw_level = gamma_correct(this->cold_white_, gamma);
       const float ww_level = gamma_correct(this->warm_white_, gamma);
       const float white_level = gamma_correct(this->state_ * this->brightness_, gamma);
-      *cold_white = white_level * cw_level;
-      *warm_white = white_level * ww_level;
-      if (constant_brightness && (cw_level > 0 || ww_level > 0)) {
-        const float sum = cw_level + ww_level;
-        *cold_white /= sum;
-        *warm_white /= sum;
+      if (!constant_brightness) {
+        *cold_white = white_level * cw_level;
+        *warm_white = white_level * ww_level;
+      } else {
+        // Just multiplying by cw_level / (cw_level + ww_level) would divide out the brightness information from the
+        // cold_white and warm_white settings (i.e. cw=0.8, ww=0.4 would be identical to cw=0.4, ww=0.2), which breaks
+        // transitions. Use the highest value as the brightness for the white channels (the alternative, using cw+ww/2,
+        // reduces to cw/2 and ww/2, which would still limit brightness to 100% of a single channel, but isn't very
+        // useful in all other aspects -- that behaviour can also be achieved by limiting the output power).
+        const float sum = cw_level > 0 || ww_level > 0 ? cw_level + ww_level : 1;  // Don't divide by zero.
+        *cold_white = white_level * std::max(cw_level, ww_level) * cw_level / sum;
+        *warm_white = white_level * std::max(cw_level, ww_level) * ww_level / sum;
       }
     } else {
       *cold_white = *warm_white = 0;