To add light to an image, pick a look and drag the lights where you want them. Each light has its own colour and strength, and it falls on the shape of the person in the photo: a cheek turned towards it brightens, while the side turned away stays in shadow. A light can even sit behind someone, so only the background glows around them.
The tool opens on the Studio look, a soft white light high on the left and a blue glow on the wall behind on the right. From there you can relight a photo for a profile picture, a social post or just a better mood, free, with no account and no watermark. Below: what each look suits, how to place a light in front of or behind your subject, which photos work best, and when another tool is the better choice.
Pick a look that suits the photo
The quickest way to add light to an image is to start from a look, which sets every light at once, together with the Overall light that covers the whole photo. The looks sit in a strip of small previews under the picture, and the one you picked is named above it. Press a look and the photo changes straight away. Change anything afterwards and the name becomes Custom, so you can always press the look again to go back to where it started.
| Look | How it lights the photo | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | A soft white light high on the left, and a blue glow on the wall behind on the right | A clean portrait or a profile picture |
| Window | Soft, slightly cool daylight from just outside the left edge, carrying a long way | A calm, natural look indoors |
| Golden hour | A low amber light from the left, and a warm glow behind on the right | A warm, late afternoon portrait |
| Neon | Magenta from the left and cyan from the right, on a darker photo | A bold post or a thumbnail |
| Spotlight | One white light close above the face, with the rest of the photo turned right down | Making one person stand out |
| Campfire | A warm orange light low in front, below the face, under a cool night light | A moody evening shot |
| Blue glow | A blue glow behind the head and a gentle white light on the face | A cool, modern profile picture |
Two-tone, Green glow, Party, Halo and Violet night are in the same strip. Three looks also have pages of their own, which open with that look picked and explain it in depth: the golden hour effect, the neon light effect and the spotlight effect.
Place each light where you want it
Every light has a round handle on the picture. Drag the handle to move the light, or choose the light in the Lights list and tap the picture where it should go. A light can sit a little outside the picture, so its light seems to come from just past the edge; its handle then waits on the nearest edge. With a handle focused, the arrow keys move it by 1 % of the picture, or 5 % with Shift.
Choose a light in the list and its controls open in place:
- Colour: a swatch such as White, Warm white, Amber, Pink or Blue, or any colour you like.
- Strength, from 0 to 300 %: how bright the light is.
- Depth, from Behind to In front: where the light sits from front to back.
- Reach, from Short to Long: how far the light carries before it fades.
Press Add light for one more white light in the middle of the picture, up to 6 lights in all. Each light's row has a switch to turn it off and on again without losing its place, and Remove light takes it off the photo. The chosen light also shows a soft disc in its colour, which marks where its light reaches the background.
Light in front of your subject, or behind it
Depth is what makes this more than a colour filter. Towards In front, a light shines on your subject from further out and spreads wider, like a lamp moved back across a room. Drag Depth into the hatched part near Behind and the light moves behind the subject: only the background glows in its colour, and the subject keeps the Overall light.
That is how the glow looks work. A coloured light behind the head, with a soft white light in front, puts a ring of colour on the wall around a person while the face still looks natural. Try it with any light: drag its Depth back and forth and watch the colour move from the face to the wall.
The Overall light has its own Colour, such as White, Warm cream or Sky, and a Strength from 0 to 300 %. At 100 % the photo is as shot. Lower it and everything the lights do not reach goes darker, which makes coloured lights stand out; raise it and the whole photo gets brighter.
| If the photo looks | Try this |
|---|---|
| Too dark away from the lights | Raise the Overall Strength towards 100 % |
| Washed out near a light | Lower that light's Strength or Reach |
| Lit from the wrong side | Drag the light across, or a little past the edge of the picture |
| Coloured on the face when it should glow behind | Drag that light's Depth into the hatched part |
| Too colourful | Pick a paler Colour, such as Warm white, or set the Overall Colour to White |
Which photos work best, and saving the result
It works best on photos of people, such as a portrait or a selfie. In a photo with no person and no clear subject, the light falls evenly on the whole picture instead of wrapping around anything. It opens JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, GIF, BMP, TIFF and ICO pictures, one at a time, in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Very large pictures may be too big for your browser.
When you add light to an image and like the result, press Download in the bar above the picture. The photo saves at once, at full size, in its own format: a JPG stays a JPG and a PNG stays a PNG, while an iPhone HEIC photo becomes a JPG, and a GIF, BMP, TIFF or ICO picture becomes a PNG. The new file's name ends in _light, so it sits beside your original. A light you switched off is left out of the file, as it is left out of the preview.
- Press Hide handles to see the clean result. The saved file never has the handles or the reach disc.
- Press Replace for the next photo. The lights and the look stay as you left them.
- The relit copy is drawn fresh, so it carries no camera, date or location details.
When another tool is the better choice
Adding light is not the same as fixing a dark photo. If you only want a dull or underexposed picture lighter all over, Brighten image does it in one step, and it takes a batch of pictures at once. If a photo is a little too cold or too warm, Adjust image colour has a Warmth slider that shifts the whole picture evenly.
This tool also draws no lens flares or light rays, and it does not blur the background. To soften part of a photo, Blur image blurs, pixelates or covers the area you choose.
Light your photo now
Select a photo above, press a look, and drag the lights until the photo looks the way you want. Then press Download to save it at full size. It is free, with no account and no watermark.
