Brighten a Photo Online
Lift a dark or underexposed photo into the light — adjust brightness and exposure live, free and right in your browser.
Drop an image to enhance
Drag & drop, paste, or pick a file
PNG · JPG · WebP · GIF · BMP — enhanced on your device
Brightening underexposed photos
Indoor shots, backlit scenes, and quick phone snaps often come out darker than they looked in person. Brightening lifts the whole image — or just the shadows — so faces and detail are clear again. This tool gives you two complementary controls: Exposure and Brightness.
Exposure multiplies the light, brightening highlights and shadows proportionally for a natural result, while Brightness adds a flat lift that's great for opening up dark areas. A small contrast boost afterwards keeps the brightened photo from looking washed out.
How to brighten a photo
- Open your photo. Drag it onto the tool, choose a file, or paste it. The page opens already brightened a little.
- Lift the light. Raise Exposure for a natural lift, or Brightness to open the shadows. Add a little Contrast if it looks flat.
- Download. Save the brighter image in its original format.
Exposure vs brightness
Reach for Exposure first — it brightens the photo the way more light would have, keeping tones balanced. Use Brightness to rescue very dark shadows. If you just want the whole thing fixed automatically, press Auto-enhance.
How brighten works in this tool
- Opens with
- Brightness +32, Exposure +14
- What it uses
- Exposure + Brightness (Light), two complementary lifts.
- Brightening uses two different maths: Exposure is multiplicative (2^(exposure/100)), so it lifts highlights and shadows proportionally for a natural, more-light look, while Brightness is a flat additive lift in 0–255 space that is better at opening up very dark shadows.
- Lifting an underexposed indoor, backlit or night shot brings faces and detail in the shadows back into view — the kind of fix that suits photos that looked fine to your eye but came out dark.
- Pushing brightness hard can flatten the image, so a small contrast boost afterwards keeps the brightened photo from looking washed out; this page opens with Brightness +32 and Exposure +14 as an editable starting point.
- All lifting works on the tones the image still holds — areas that are already pure white stay clipped, and detail there cannot be brought back by brightening.
Tip
Reach for Exposure first for a natural lift, and use Brightness to rescue the darkest shadows. Brightening a very dark photo reveals hidden grain — that's expected; add a little Denoise to smooth it.
More ways to enhance
Frequently asked questions
How do I brighten a dark photo?
Open it and raise the Exposure and Brightness sliders, or press Auto-enhance to lift it automatically. A little contrast afterwards keeps it punchy.
What's the difference between exposure and brightness?
Exposure multiplies the light proportionally for a natural result; brightness adds a flat lift that's better for opening up very dark shadows.
Will brightening make my photo grainy?
Pushing a very dark photo hard can reveal noise. Add a little Denoise to smooth it, and avoid over-brightening.
Where is my image processed?
The enhancing happens in your browser, so the new file is created on your own device. How any data associated with the tool is handled is described in our privacy policy.
More image tools
Crop an image
Crop to any ratio or an exact pixel size.
Image toolResize an image
Change dimensions to exact pixels or presets.
Image toolCompress an image
Shrink file size without visible quality loss.
Image toolRotate an image
Rotate 90°, flip, or straighten a tilted photo.
Image toolConvert HEIC to JPG
Turn iPhone HEIC photos into universal JPG.
Image toolConvert image format
PNG, JPG and WebP — convert any to any.