What is image brightness?

Brightness is how light or dark a photo looks overall. Raise it to rescue a dim shot, lower it to give a washed out one more depth. A good brightness change moves the midtones, like faces, walls and grass, and leaves the deepest blacks and the brightest whites where they are, so nothing turns into a flat white or black patch.

Tool description

Open a photo and drag the Brightness slider: right to brighten, left to darken. The preview updates as you drag, and the compare button splits the view between the original and the edit. When it looks right, download the result at full size as PNG, JPG, or WebP.

Features

  • Brightens or darkens the midtones while pure black and white stay put
  • Live preview with a before and after comparison
  • Full size download, made in your browser

How it works

Every color channel goes through the same smooth tone curve. It bends most in the middle and flattens toward the ends, so a moderate change never pushes bright areas into flat white or dark areas into flat black. That's the difference from the old style of brightness, which adds the same amount to every pixel and clips the highlights right away.

Tips

  • Small steps go a long way: 10 to 30 fixes most photos that are a bit dark.
  • If only the dark areas need help, a shadows adjustment lifts them and leaves the rest alone.
  • Transparent PNG images keep their transparency. Download them as PNG or WebP to keep it.