What is exposure?

Exposure is how much light a photo captured. Cameras count it in stops, also called EV: one stop more doubles the light, one stop less halves it. Changing the exposure afterwards works the same way, which makes it the natural fix for a photo shot too dark or too bright.

Tool description

Open a photo and set the exposure in stops, in tenths of a stop. Positive values brighten, negative values darken. The preview updates as you drag, and the compare button shows the original next to the edit. Download the result at full size as PNG, JPG, or WebP.

Features

  • Exposure in stops (EV), the same unit as on a camera
  • Scales the light itself, so colors and contrast stay natural
  • Full size download, made in your browser

How it works

Image files don't store light directly: their values are gamma encoded, so value 128 holds only about a fifth of the light of value 255. The tool turns every color value back into light, multiplies it by 2 to the power of the stops (2 for +1 EV, 0.5 for -1 EV), and encodes the result again. That's what a longer or shorter camera exposure does, so the edit looks like a photo taken with different settings. Light that goes past white clips to white, as it would in the camera.

Tips

  • Watch the brightest areas as you raise the exposure: past white they turn flat. If they matter, raise it less and lift the shadows instead.
  • Lowering the exposure can't bring back areas that are pure white in the original. There's no detail left in them.
  • Most photos that are only a bit dark need 0.3 to 0.7 EV.