Photo Editor

What this tool does

Photo Editor gives you the core adjustments of a desktop editor in the browser: light, colour, detail and effects sliders plus one-click filters. Preview changes instantly, hold to compare with the original, and export the edit at full resolution.

Most photos only need a few corrections to look their best: a little more exposure for a dark indoor shot, warmer colour for a cold-looking portrait, extra contrast and sharpness for a product image. Installing a full editor for that is overkill, and many online editors require uploading private pictures.

This editor applies every adjustment with its own pixel maths. Exposure is applied in linear light, so a +1 stop change doubles the light like a camera would; contrast uses the standard 259-based contrast curve; saturation and hue use the colour matrices defined in the W3C Filter Effects specification; sharpening is an unsharp mask. The preview is a downscaled copy for speed and the export re-runs everything on the full-resolution photo, locally.

How to use Photo Editor

1. Drop or paste a photo, or press Try a sample image.
2. Start with a filter such as Punchy, Warm or Black & white if you like, then fine-tune.
3. Use the Light sliders (Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Fade) to fix the tones.
4. Use the Colour sliders to correct white balance with Temperature and Tint, or boost Vibrance.
5. Add Sharpen, Vignette or Film grain under Detail and effects.
6. Hold Hold to compare to see the original, then choose a format and press Download.

Tips for better results

• Vibrance boosts muted colours more than already-saturated ones, so it is gentler on skin tones than Saturation.
• Pull Highlights down and push Shadows up to recover detail in high-contrast scenes such as a bright sky.
• Sharpen at 20-40 for screen use; heavy sharpening creates bright halos along edges.
• Your slider settings are remembered, so you can apply the same look to the next photo.

Common use cases

• Brightening dark phone photos taken indoors or at dusk.
• Giving a set of product photos a consistent, crisp look.
• Turning a portrait into a moody black-and-white image with a vignette.
• Correcting the blue cast of photos shot under shade or the orange cast of tungsten light.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Pushing exposure so far that highlights clip to pure white; detail there cannot be recovered.
• Over-saturating, which makes skin look orange and skies look artificial.
• Exporting a heavily edited photo as a low-quality JPG; use 85-92% to avoid banding in smooth areas.