A spotlight effect lights one person and lets everything around them fall into shadow, the way a stage light picks out a singer in a dark theatre. It sends the eye straight to your subject, whether that is a portrait, a speaker on a stage or one face in a group photo.
This page opens Add light with the Spotlight look already picked: one bright white light close in front of your subject and a little above, with the rest of the photo turned right down. The light falls on the shape of the face and shoulders, so it reads as a real light rather than a bright circle pasted on top. You then drag it onto your subject and set how far it reaches.
How the spotlight look is set up
The Spotlight look is one light and a dark Overall light. In the panel it shows as Overall, for the whole photo, and Light 1, the spotlight itself, with the looks under the picture. It starts like this:
| Setting | Starts as | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Strength | Turned right down, far below 100 % | How dark the rest of the photo goes |
| Overall Colour | White | The colour of what the spotlight does not reach |
| Light 1 Colour | White | The colour of the spotlight |
| Place | Above the middle of the picture | Where the light comes from |
| Depth | In front, close to the subject | How far in front the light sits, and how wide it spreads |
| Reach | Short | How far the light carries before it fades |
| Strength | Well above 100 % | How bright the subject is where the light falls |
Because the light follows the shape of your subject, the forehead, cheeks and shoulders turned towards it brighten most, and the parts turned away stay in shadow. That shading is what makes a spotlight effect photo look lit on a stage rather than edited.
It works best on photos of people. In a photo with no person and no clear subject, the light falls evenly on the whole picture, so you still get a pool of light but no shading.
Aiming the light at your subject
Drag the light's round handle on the picture to move it, or choose the light and tap the picture where it should go. The picture shows the hint "Drag a light, or tap to move the chosen one." until you first move a light. The chosen light shows a soft disc in its colour, which marks where its light reaches the background.
With a handle focused, the arrow keys move its light by 1 % of the picture, or 5 % with Shift. A light can sit a little outside the picture, and its handle then stays on the nearest edge, so you can light a face from just out of frame.
- Colour: White, Warm white or any other swatch, or any colour you like.
- Strength, from 0 to 300 %: how bright the spotlight is.
- Depth, from Behind to In front: where the light sits from front to back. The handle grows as the light comes forward.
- Reach, from Short to Long: how far the light carries before it fades to nothing.
A wider or tighter pool of light
There is no beam to aim: the spotlight is a point of light, and two controls set how much of the photo it covers. Reach sets how far it carries before it fades, so a short Reach gives a tight pool on the face and a long one lights the whole person. Depth sets how far in front it sits; a light further out also spreads wider and lights the subject more evenly.
| If the photo looks | Try this |
|---|---|
| Too dark around the subject | Raise the Overall Strength, or drag Reach towards Long |
| Not dark enough around the subject | Lower the Overall Strength towards 0 % |
| Too bright on the face | Lower Light 1's Strength |
| Lit too evenly | Drag Depth back towards the subject, and move the light to one side |
| Lit from the wrong place | Drag the light, or tap where it should be |
To highlight part of an image in another colour, open Light 1 and pick a swatch such as Amber or Violet. For two people, press Add light, drag the new light onto the second face and give it the same settings; a photo holds up to 6 lights. A light in the hatched part of Depth sits behind the subject, so it lights only the background: a soft glow on the wall behind a speaker.
The light brightens what is already in the photo, and cannot bring back detail lost in deep shadow. If your subject is very dark, brighten the photo first. It does not blur anything either; to soften the background, use Blur image before you add the light.
Saving the spotlit photo
When the spotlight effect looks right, press Download in the bar above the picture. The picture saves at once, at full size, in its own format: a JPG stays a JPG and a PNG stays a PNG, 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.
Press Hide handles to check the clean result without the handles and the reach disc; the file never has them. A light you switched off with Light on is left out of the file, as it is left out of the preview. The spotlit copy is drawn fresh, so it carries no camera, date or location details.
- It works on one photo at a time. Press Replace for the next one: the light and the look stay as you left them.
- As soon as you open a photo, a small copy of it goes to our server to work out its shape. The server holds it only in memory, deletes it as soon as the shape is sent back, and never stores or logs it.
- It is free, with no account and no watermark. On the Free plan our server works out the shape of up to 20 photos a day.
- It works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Very large pictures may be too big for your browser.
Add light to image is the same tool opened on Studio, with Spotlight and the other looks beside it. The golden hour effect gives a warm low sun instead, and the neon light effect lights a face with magenta and cyan from either side.
Light your subject now
Select a photo above and the Spotlight look is on it as soon as its shape is back. Drag the light onto your subject, set its Reach, and press Download. The spotlight effect is free, with no account and no watermark.
