--- title: "Brighten Image Online – Free, No Upload | brighten.video" description: "Brighten a dark photo without washing it out: lift exposure and shadows, keep the highlights and save a full-size JPEG, PNG or WebP. Free, private, no upload." url: https://brighten.video/brighten-image --- Free · runs in your browser # Brighten an image online Open a dark photo, press Auto brighten and compare it with the original before you save. The picture is lightened in your browser and never leaves your device. To brighten an image, open it in the tool above and press **Auto brighten**. It measures how the light is spread across your photo and lifts the exposure and shadows until the middle tones sit at a natural level, while bright skies and lamps are rolled gently into white instead of being clipped. Turn on **Before and after** to check, then select **Export photo** and **Download photo**. The same controls work whether you call it brightening, lightening or fixing an underexposed picture: a quick fix for the usual problem, a **Strength** slider, and a full set of sliders under **More options** for exact work. Your original file is never changed. You get a new copy at full size, in JPEG, PNG or (in browsers that can write it) WebP, saved without the location, camera and date details that phones tuck into photos. ## How to brighten a photo in three steps 1. ### Open the dark photo Drop the picture onto the tool or choose **Select photo**. JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF open in every modern browser; iPhone HEIC photos open where the browser can read them, which in practice means Safari. 2. ### Press Auto brighten or a quick fix **Auto brighten** (**A**) reads the photo and sets a natural lift. For a known problem pick **Night photo**, **Dim room**, **Backlit** or **Slightly dark**, then drag **Strength** until it looks right and compare with **Before and after** (**B**). 3. ### Export and download Select **Export photo**. Under **Export settings** choose JPEG, PNG or WebP, the **Quality** and the size; **Full size** keeps every pixel. When **Your photo is ready** appears, choose **Download photo**, or **Share** on a phone. ## Brightness, exposure or shadows: why a single slider often looks grey Most quick photo editors offer one brightness slider that adds the same amount to every pixel, or scales the stored values directly. Dark areas come up, but so does pure black, and the result looks foggy and flat. The reason is that image files are gamma encoded: a mid-grey wall that reflects 18% of the light is stored at about 46% of full scale, so “add 20%” means something very different in the shadows than in the highlights. ### What each control here actually does * **Exposure** converts the photo to linear light, multiplies it by a number of stops (+1 doubles the light) and converts it back, which is what a longer exposure in the camera would have done. Contrast between light and shade stays believable, and colours keep their hue. * **Shadows** lifts only the darkest quarter of the range, so a face in shade comes up while a bright sky behind it is left alone. * **Midtones (gamma)** bends the middle of the curve and leaves pure black and pure white where they are. It is the gentlest way to open up a slightly dim picture. * **Brightness** moves everything evenly with the end points pinned. It suits small corrections after the other three have done the heavy lifting. **Auto brighten** combines these for you, and every value it sets is visible and editable under **More options**, along with a **Histogram** of the photo, **Highlights**, **Blacks**, **Whites**, **Contrast**, **Saturation**, **Vibrance** and **Noise reduction**. ## Lighten a backlit photo The classic dark photo is a person standing in front of a bright window, a sunset or a white sky. The camera exposed for the background, so the face is a shadow. Brightening the whole picture evenly fails here, because the sky is already near white and clips long before the face is bright enough. Press **Backlit** instead. It pushes **Shadows** hard, pulls **Highlights** down and adds only a little exposure, which changes the relationship between subject and background rather than lifting both. If the window still looks white, open **More options** and lower **Highlights** further; if the face looks flat, add a few points of **Contrast**. A face that was recorded as solid black has no detail left to recover, but most phone photos hold far more in the shadows than they show. ## Brighten a photo on iPhone or Android without an app Both phones have capable editors built in, and for a single quick fix they are the obvious place to start. ### iPhone and iPad (Photos app) Open the photo, tap **Edit**, then the adjustment dial. Tap the magic-wand **Auto** button for a quick fix, or scroll through the sliders: **Exposure** and **Brilliance** brighten the picture overall, **Shadows** opens up the dark areas, and **Highlights** pulls bright ones back. Tap **Done** to save; you can revert later because the Photos app keeps the original. ### Android (Google Photos) Open the photo in Google Photos, tap **Edit**, then the adjust tools. **Brightness** and **Shadows** do most of the work, with **Highlights** and **White point** for the bright end. Samsung Gallery has a similar **Adjust** panel with brightness, exposure and shadow controls. Tap **Save** or **Save as copy**. ### When the browser tool is the better choice Use the tool on this page when you want the same result on any device, a before-and-after split to judge it, a histogram to see what is clipping, or a copy without location data to send to someone. It also opens photos sent to you as files, screenshots and pictures from a camera’s memory card, and saves them at full size as JPEG or PNG. ## Keep the quality: format, size and noise * **Full size** is the default under **Export settings**, so the new photo has the same pixel dimensions as the original. Pick 4096, 2048 or 1080 px only when you want a smaller file for the web or a message. * **PNG** is lossless, so nothing is lost on saving; files are larger. **JPEG** at 90% **Quality** or more is visually indistinguishable for most photos and opens everywhere. **WebP** is smallest, but Safari can’t write it, so it only appears where your browser supports it. * Brightening reveals the grain that dark areas already contained. If the lifted shadows look speckled, raise **Noise reduction**, or move **Blacks** slightly left so the darkest corners go cleanly black. * On iPhone and iPad, Safari limits how large a canvas can be (about 16.7 megapixels). A larger photo is saved at the biggest size allowed there; a computer saves it at full size. ## Your photo stays on your device Nothing is uploaded. The browser decodes the picture, the grading runs on your device’s graphics chip, and the new file is written straight back to your downloads or your phone’s share sheet. The saved copy carries no EXIF, GPS or XMP data, so the place a photo was taken and the camera details are not passed on to whoever receives it. If the original carried a location, the tool says so in the export panel. ## Brighten a dark video too The same engine brightens video frame by frame, with sound kept and the same before and after. If the photo came from a clip that is also too dark, see [how to fix a video that is too dark](https://brighten.video/video-too-dark), or the [night video enhancer](https://brighten.video/night-video-enhancer) for footage shot after dark. ## Brightening photos: common questions ### How do I brighten a dark picture without losing quality? Use Exposure or Shadows rather than a flat brightness boost, keep Full size under Export settings, and save as PNG (lossless) or JPEG at 90% Quality or above. The only loss is the noise that brightening reveals, which Noise reduction smooths. ### How do I lighten a photo on iPhone? In the Photos app, tap Edit, then the adjustment dial, and raise Exposure, Brilliance or Shadows. Or open this page in Safari, choose Select photo, press Auto brighten and save the copy with Share. ### Is there an automatic photo brightener? Yes. Auto brighten measures the light in your photo and sets exposure, shadows and highlights for a natural result. It runs on your device; nothing is sent to a server, and you can change every value it picks. ### Does brightening change the resolution? No. The new photo is saved at its original pixel size unless you pick a smaller size under Export settings. The one exception is Safari on iPhone and iPad, which caps very large photos at about 16.7 megapixels. ### Can I brighten an iPhone HEIC photo? In Safari, yes: it reads HEIC, and the result is saved as JPEG, PNG or WebP. Chrome, Edge and Firefox can’t read HEIC files, so set the iPhone camera to Most Compatible, or export the photo as JPEG first. ### Does the saved photo keep its location and camera details? No. The copy is written without EXIF, GPS or XMP metadata, so the place it was taken, the camera model and the date are left out. The colour profile is kept so it looks the same. ### Can I brighten several photos at once? Not yet: the tool opens one photo at a time. Each takes a few seconds, and Adjust again keeps your settings if you want to fine-tune before saving another version. ## More ways to fix a dark video * [ Brighten a video online Lift a dark clip in your browser with Auto brighten and a live before and after. ](https://brighten.video/) * [ Brighten a backlit subject in a video Rescue a person filmed in front of a window, sunset or bright sky. ](https://brighten.video/brighten-backlit-video) * [ Fix a video that is too dark Why clips come out dark, and the quickest way to rescue one. ](https://brighten.video/video-too-dark) * [ How to brighten a video on iPhone Use Exposure, Brilliance and Shadows in the Photos app, and revert to the original at any time. ](https://brighten.video/brighten-video-iphone) * [ Fix underexposed footage with exposure in stops Exposure, shadows and scopes for footage shot a stop or two under. ](https://brighten.video/fix-underexposed-video)