Brightness
Brighten or darken an image.
Runs in your browser, nothing is uploadedFree, no signupNo watermark
Drop an image here
or click to choose one. It never leaves your device.
Before and after
See what changes
OriginalBrightenedDrag the handle across the image. The right-hand side is this tool's output, not a mock-up of it.
- Before
- Original
- After
- Brightened
Three steps
How to use the brightness
- 01
Drop in the image
Add a photo that is underexposed or washed out.
- 02
Slide lighter or darker
The preview updates live, so you can judge by eye rather than by number.
- 03
Download
The adjustment is applied to the pixels and saved into the file.
Why this one
What makes it different
Live, full-size preview
Exposure is judged by eye, and a thumbnail lies about shadow detail, so the preview is the real image.
Both directions
Darkening is as common as brightening, particularly for images that are about to sit behind white text.
One control, no menus
The single most common photo fix should not require opening an editor and finding a levels dialogue.
How this tool handles your files
- Where it runs
- Your browser, not a server
- Uploads
- None, ever
- Account
- Not required
- Watermark
- Never added
The short version
About brightness
Exposure is the adjustment people reach for first and the one with the least room to manoeuvre. A photograph records a limited range of light, and brightening does not add information that was never there: it stretches what exists, which works well for a mildly dark image and produces grey mush from a genuinely black one.
Questions
Brightness FAQ
Can I recover a photo that is too dark?
Partly. Brightening lifts detail that was recorded faintly, but areas that were recorded as pure black hold no information and will only become grey and noisy.
What is the difference between brightness and contrast?
Brightness moves every tone up or down together. Contrast pushes light and dark tones further apart. A flat image needs contrast; a dark one needs brightness.
Why does my brightened photo look grey and flat?
Brightening raises the black point along with everything else, so the darkest areas stop being properly black. Add a little contrast afterwards to put the depth back.
Does adjusting brightness reduce quality?
The adjustment itself is minor, but large corrections on an already-compressed JPEG will make its existing artefacts more visible in the shadows.
Free, and staying free
The tools are free because the icons are the business.
Thridy is a library of thousands of 3D icons in one consistent style, free for commercial use with no attribution and no account. The tools exist so you never have to upload an image to somebody else's server to resize it.
Keep going
More image tools
Blur Image
Apply a smooth Gaussian blur by any amount.
Pixelate Image
Pixelate an image or hide part of it in blocks.
Sharpen Image
Bring out edges and detail with a sharpen pass.
Contrast
Increase or soften the contrast of an image.
Saturation
Make colours richer or more muted.
Grayscale
Convert an image to black and white.