Fix a dark or washed-out photo, without uploading it
Set brightness and contrast until the product looks the way it does in front of you, or start from a preset for a dark shot, a flat one or a white background. It all runs in your own browser, so the photo is never sent to a server.
- No upload — runs in your browser
- Free, no account
- JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF, BMP, SVG, AVIF, HEIC
- Up to 100 MB per file
Drop image here or click to browse
Accepted: JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF, BMP, SVG, AVIF, HEIC · Single image only
Nothing leaves this device.
The photo is decoded and adjusted by your browser. No upload, no server copy, no expiry timer.
Pick the problem you can see and the adjustment is already applied when the image loads.
Too dark or too bright
Flat or too harsh
Product shots
How to fix a dark or washed-out photo
Drop your photo in
It decodes on your device. The original and the adjusted version sit one toggle apart, so you can judge the change instead of guessing it.
Pick a preset, or move the sliders
Each preset is a starting point for one typical problem — an underexposed shot, a flat one, a grey white background. Brightness and contrast stay editable afterwards.
Download the adjusted image
Pixel dimensions never change. Keep the original format, or export as JPEG or PNG.
What each preset changes
Every preset below is one click in the tool. The numbers are the brightness and contrast offsets it applies, on a scale from -100 to +100 — a starting point, not a final answer.
| Preset | What it fixes | Adjustment | Use this preset |
|---|---|---|---|
Too dark or too bright Brighten | A photo shot indoors or in the evening that came out one stop too dark. The small contrast bump stops the lift from looking hazy. | Brightness +25 · Contrast +5 | |
Too dark or too bright Brighten a lot | A badly underexposed shot — a phone photo against a bright window, or a product in its own shadow. Watch the highlights at this strength. | Brightness +45 · Contrast +5 | |
Too dark or too bright Darken | An overexposed photo where the whites have gone flat and detail is disappearing into the bright areas. | Brightness -20 · Contrast 0 | |
Flat or too harsh Add punch | A flat, greyish photo with no real black and no real white. Pure contrast, no exposure change. | Brightness 0 · Contrast +30 | |
Flat or too harsh Strong punch | A very soft, hazy image — shot through glass, in fog, or with a dirty lens. The strongest contrast move here. | Brightness +10 · Contrast +45 | |
Flat or too harsh Soften | A harsh photo shot in direct sun, where shadows are black blocks and highlights have no texture left. | Brightness 0 · Contrast -25 | |
Product shots White background | A product on white paper or a white sweep that came out grey. Lifts the background towards white while keeping the product readable. | Brightness +18 · Contrast +12 | |
Product shots Flat lay | An overhead flat lay under soft, even light, which usually reads dull and needs both a lift and more separation between objects. | Brightness +12 · Contrast +20 |
- Too dark or too bright
Brighten
A photo shot indoors or in the evening that came out one stop too dark. The small contrast bump stops the lift from looking hazy.
- Adjustment
- Brightness +25 · Contrast +5
- Too dark or too bright
Brighten a lot
A badly underexposed shot — a phone photo against a bright window, or a product in its own shadow. Watch the highlights at this strength.
- Adjustment
- Brightness +45 · Contrast +5
- Too dark or too bright
Darken
An overexposed photo where the whites have gone flat and detail is disappearing into the bright areas.
- Adjustment
- Brightness -20 · Contrast 0
- Flat or too harsh
Add punch
A flat, greyish photo with no real black and no real white. Pure contrast, no exposure change.
- Adjustment
- Brightness 0 · Contrast +30
- Flat or too harsh
Strong punch
A very soft, hazy image — shot through glass, in fog, or with a dirty lens. The strongest contrast move here.
- Adjustment
- Brightness +10 · Contrast +45
- Flat or too harsh
Soften
A harsh photo shot in direct sun, where shadows are black blocks and highlights have no texture left.
- Adjustment
- Brightness 0 · Contrast -25
- Product shots
White background
A product on white paper or a white sweep that came out grey. Lifts the background towards white while keeping the product readable.
- Adjustment
- Brightness +18 · Contrast +12
- Product shots
Flat lay
An overhead flat lay under soft, even light, which usually reads dull and needs both a lift and more separation between objects.
- Adjustment
- Brightness +12 · Contrast +20
The three tone problems this fixes
Brightness and contrast are two different problems with two different fixes. Naming which one you have is most of the work — on a product shot, look at the background and at the darkest part of the product.
ProblemFixed Underexposed — the whole photo is dark
Everything sits in the lower half of the range: a white background reads grey, and the product's own shadows turn into one solid dark shape.
Raise brightness first, then add 5–10 points of contrast to stop the lifted photo looking hazy.
ProblemFixed Flat — no real black, no real white
The exposure is roughly right but everything is crowded into the middle of the range, so the photo looks grey and lifeless even on a good screen.
Leave brightness alone and raise contrast. Add punch is the preset for exactly this.
ProblemFixed Clipped — blown highlights, crushed shadows
Pixels have been pushed past pure white or pure black. Those areas hold no detail at all any more, so no later edit can bring them back.
Back the slider off until texture reappears in the brightest and darkest areas, and reshoot if there is nothing left to recover.
What brightness and contrast can and cannot do
Brightness is a global shift: every pixel moves by the same amount. That is not the same as recovering a shadow. If only one corner of the photo is dark, raising brightness lifts the already-correct parts too, and the photo goes hazy before the dark corner looks right. Lighting the shot better is the real fix; this tool makes an evenly dark photo evenly correct.
A colour problem is not an exposure problem. If whites read cream, green or blue, no amount of brightness will neutralise them — that is white balance, and it is worth fixing first, because a neutral photo is far easier to judge for exposure.
Contrast is destructive at the ends of the range. Pushing it stretches the tones outwards until the brightest pixels reach pure white and the darkest reach pure black, and once they are there the original values are gone. Pulling the slider back down afterwards only greys the flat areas out; it does not restore texture.
Raising contrast makes edges look crisper, which is easy to mistake for sharpness. It is not the same operation — if the photo is genuinely soft, sharpening it works on edge detail rather than on the whole tonal range, and over-contrasting a soft photo just makes the softness more obvious.
Formats and limits
- Input: JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF, BMP, SVG, AVIF, HEIC. Output: the original format, or JPEG or PNG.
- Files up to 100 MB. Very large photos still process, but each slider change takes longer.
- Animated GIFs and SVGs export as a single static frame, rendered as PNG.
- Clipping cannot be undone. Once an adjustment pushes pixels to pure white or pure black, lowering the slider again will not bring that detail back — reload the original instead.
Brightness and contrast FAQ
Is my image uploaded to a server?
No. The photo is decoded and adjusted by your browser. It never leaves your device, and there is no copy to delete afterwards.
What is the difference between brightness and contrast?
Brightness shifts every pixel up or down by the same amount, so the whole photo gets lighter or darker together. Contrast stretches the tones away from the midpoint or squeezes them towards it, making darks darker and lights lighter — or flattening both. A dark photo needs brightness; a grey, lifeless photo needs contrast.
What do the presets do?
Each preset applies a fixed brightness and contrast offset chosen for one typical problem: Brighten lifts an underexposed shot, Add punch rescues a flat one, White background pushes a grey backdrop towards white. They are starting points — both sliders stay editable afterwards.
How do I make a grey background white for a marketplace listing?
Start with the White background preset, then raise brightness a few points at a time until the backdrop reads white and stop before the product's edges start disappearing into it. If the backdrop is white but tinted cream or blue, that is a colour cast, not an exposure problem, and white balance is the tool for it. A marketplace that requires a pure white background is usually better served by replacing the background outright.
What is clipping, and can I undo it?
Clipping is what happens when an adjustment pushes pixels past pure white or pure black. Those pixels all become the same value, so the texture that was there is gone. Lowering the slider again does not restore it — it only turns the blown area grey. Reset adjustments appears as soon as a setting is changed and takes the image back to neutral, the untouched original you opened; once you have downloaded and re-opened a clipped file, the detail is not recoverable.
What image formats are supported?
Input: JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF, BMP, SVG, AVIF, HEIC. The output keeps the original format when the browser can encode it. For formats without encode support (HEIC, HEIF, AVIF, BMP, TIFF, animated GIF) it falls back to PNG, and you can always pick JPEG or PNG yourself.
Does adjusting brightness or contrast reduce image quality?
Pixel dimensions never change and the adjustment is a single pass, so the loss is minimal. Re-encoding to JPEG is lossy, though — if more editing is coming, export PNG and compress at the end. Extreme slider values are the real quality risk, because clipping and banding are permanent.
Does this work on mobile?
Yes, on every modern mobile browser. A large photo takes longer per adjustment, because the whole image is recalculated on your device.
Next steps
- White BalanceNeutralise an orange, green or blue cast before you judge the exposure.
- Sharpen ImageRecover edge definition in a slightly soft product shot.
- Compress ImageBring the adjusted file back under a marketplace's size limit.
- Resize ImageSet the exact pixel dimensions a listing asks for.
- Amazon Main Image CheckerCheck the finished image against Amazon's main-image rules before you list it.
- Etsy Listing Image CheckerCheck a listing photo against Etsy's requirements before you publish.
Fix your photo's exposure now
No account, no upload, no watermark.