The fastest way to fix lighting in a photo is the editing app that came with your phone, used in a set order: dark areas first, bright areas second, overall brightness last. Most badly lit photos have both problems at once, such as a face in shadow under a sky that's too bright, and that order fixes one without wrecking the other. Steps for iPhone, Google Photos and Samsung Galaxy come first. After them: Snapseed for lightening one spot, AI relighting for harsh sun, flash and backlight, and habits that prevent the problem.
5 ways to fix lighting in a photo
Phone editors handle most dark or washed-out shots, and an AI editor takes over when the light itself is wrong. As of September 2026, the options are:
| Method | Works on | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjust in Apple Photos | iPhone, iPad and Mac | Comes with the device | Dark or washed-out shots that still hold detail |
| Google Photos (Enhance, Adjust, Portrait light) | Phones on Android 8.0 or iOS 18 and up, with 3 GB of RAM or more | Free, no subscription | One-tap fixes and faces lit unevenly from one side |
| Tone in Samsung Gallery | Any Galaxy with the Gallery app | Comes with the phone | Quick brightness and highlight fixes |
| Snapseed | iPhone with iOS 17 or later, and Android | Free app | Lightening one face or one corner only |
| Smart Editor in Toybox AI | Phone or computer browser; Pro plan and up | HD edit: 85 credits, currently | Harsh sun, flash and backlight that sliders can't rescue |
Which lighting problem you have
Name the problem before you move anything, because each one starts with a different slider. Zoom in on the face or the main subject, then on the brightest area.
| What you see | Likely cause | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| The whole photo is dim, but nothing is pure black | Underexposed indoor or evening shot | Exposure, then Brilliance |
| Faces are dark, the sky or window behind is fine | Backlight | Shadows up, then Highlights down |
| A white sky or window with no detail | Highlights clipped | Highlights down; crop or replace if it stays white |
| Deep shadows under eyes, noses and hat brims | Midday sun from overhead | Shadows up a little; AI relighting for strong cases |
| Shiny foreheads, dark background | Camera flash at close range | Highlights down; AI relighting to warm it up |
| Orange or blue cast over everything | Lamps, shade or colored signs | Warmth, then Exposure |
A photo that is dark but still shows texture in the shadows usually comes back well. A face gone fully black, or a sky blown to flat white, holds nothing a slider can recover, so pushing it only turns it gray. At that point, retake the photo or let an AI editor redraw the light.
How to fix lighting in a photo on iPhone
Apple's built-in Photos app can correct lighting in a photo with no extra download. Apple's iOS 18 guide names Exposure, Brilliance, Highlights and Shadows as lighting adjustments.
- Pick the picture in Photos, then tap Edit.
- Choose Adjust. Try the auto-enhance button first and see if it gets you most of the way.
- Swipe to Shadows and drag it right until faces and dark corners show detail.
- Swipe to Highlights and drag it left until the sky or window regains some color.
- Set Exposure last, to bring the whole frame to a natural brightness.
- If the picture now looks gray and flat, go back to Shadows and pull it left a little, since lifting shadows also lifts the darkest tones.
- Tap Done. To undo everything later, open the photo and choose Revert to Original.
Apple's Photos guide for Mac explains the less obvious sliders. Brilliance lifts dark areas, pulls bright ones back and adds contrast, with no change to saturation. Photos on a Mac also has Black Point, which sets the level where the darkest tones turn pure black, the fix for a washed-out look after brightening. Moving Shadows and Highlights before Exposure keeps you from blowing out the bright parts while you lighten the dark ones.
How to brighten dark photos on Android
To brighten dark photos on Android, reach for Google Photos first. Most of its editing features ask for Android 8.0 or newer and 3 GB of RAM, and since May 2024 Google hasn't charged a subscription for Portrait light and several other AI editing tools.
- Open the shot in Google Photos and tap Edit.
- Try the suggested edits first: Enhance, Dynamic or AI Enhance. AI Enhance generates a few results to choose from, so keep the best one and tap Save.
- For manual control, open Adjust and use Brightness, Contrast and HDR effect. Tap Search and type a tool's name if you can't find it.
- For a face lit from one side, open Portrait light. Google requires 4 GB of RAM or more for its Add light and Balance light options.
- Choose Save as copy, which leaves the unedited version in your library.
On an iPhone, Google Photos puts the same tools under a Lighting category and needs iOS 18 or later. There, AI Enhance works only in the US, and only when your Google Account's language is English (United States).
Samsung Galaxy phones
Samsung Gallery keeps its light controls under Tone. With the photo open, tap the pencil to edit, then the sun icon for Tone, and move the slider for Brightness, Exposure, Contrast or Highlights. For a separate edited file, tap the three dots (More options) and choose Save as copy. Samsung also makes Galaxy Enhance-X, a separate Galaxy Store app whose tools include Brighten, for Galaxy phones on Android 14 and One UI 6.0 or newer.
Lighten one part of a photo with Snapseed
Global sliders brighten everything, including parts that were already fine. Snapseed, Google's free editor, lets you lighten dark photos in one spot only, such as a face in the shade of a tree or the dark end of a room.
- Brush. Choose the Dodge & Burn or Exposure brush, then paint the dark face with a finger. Zoom in to make the brush smaller for edges like hair.
- Selective. Tap the dark area to drop a control point, pinch to size the red overlay, then swipe to raise Brightness for that area only.
- Tune Image. Shadows adjusts only the dark tones and Highlights only the bright ones, a good first pass before the brush. Snapseed's current App Store and Play Store listings call this tool Adjust.
For a dark background behind a well-lit person, do the reverse: leave the person alone and lift only the background. For shadows that fall across a face or an object, the dedicated guide to removing shadows from a photo goes further.
How to fix harsh lighting in photos
Harsh lighting is the one problem sliders can't fully solve. Midday sun puts dark pockets under eyes and noses, flash flattens faces and blacks out the room, and a backlit person turns into a silhouette. Lifting shadows helps a little but also adds grain, and the light still comes from the wrong direction.
An AI editor that takes plain sentences can redraw the light instead. Say where the light should come from, how soft it should be, and what must not change. Enter any of these in Smart Editor's "What should change?" box, or reuse the wording in any other editor that takes typed instructions:
Relight this photo as if soft window light is coming from the left. Brighten the woman's face and the front of her sweater so her features are clear, and keep the bright window behind her from turning white. Keep her face, expression, hair and pose exactly the same.Soften the harsh midday sun on the two people at the picnic table. Lighten the dark shadows under their eyes and noses, reduce the shine on their foreheads, and make the light look like a bright overcast day. Keep their faces, clothes and the park behind them the same.Remove the flat, harsh look of the camera flash. Tone down the bright shine on the faces, bring back the warm lamp light in the living room behind them, and keep all four people, their expressions and the table exactly as they are.Name one light source and one direction per instruction. "Soft light from the left" gives the editor something to aim at, while "better lighting" leaves it guessing.
How to brighten night photos
To brighten night photos that are already taken, raise Exposure and Shadows, then stop before the grain gets distracting. Dark night shots have little information to lift, so the noise grows faster than the detail.
The better fix is at the moment you shoot. On iPhones that have it, Night mode switches on by itself in dim scenes and chooses the exposure time. Keep the phone steady until the capture ends; if two crosshairs show up, bring them together to cut down on movement. On a Galaxy Z Fold6, Samsung puts Night under MORE in the Camera app. When a dark restaurant or party photo only gets grainier as you push Exposure, stop and describe the light instead: "brighten the room as if the overhead lights were on, keep everyone's face and outfit the same".
Take better-lit photos next time
Each of these takes a second before you press the shutter.
- Tap the face, then drag. On iPhone, tap the face on screen, then slide your finger up or down beside that spot to brighten or darken the shot. To keep that setting for the next few shots, touch and hold the spot until AE/AF Lock shows on screen.
- Turn the person toward the light. A window beside or in front of your subject lights the face. A window behind them makes a silhouette.
- Move into open shade at midday. The shade of a building gives even light without the dark eye sockets of overhead sun.
- Use flash only for backlight. Tap the Flash control and choose On when the sun is behind your subject, so the face gets its own light.
Good light is also the first step in making a photo look finished. The rest of that checklist is in making a photo look professional.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Photo looks gray and flat after brightening | Blacks were lifted along with the shadows | Add a little Contrast, or raise Black Point in Photos on a Mac |
| Grainy speckles after brightening | Too little light in the original | Brighten less, or use Night mode next time |
| Sky or window stays white | The bright area has no detail left | Crop it, or replace the sky |
| Skin looks orange or green | Colored light from lamps or signs | Adjust Warmth before Exposure |
| Add light or Balance light is missing in Portrait light | The Android phone has less than 4 GB of RAM | Use Brightness and HDR effect instead |
| Faces shifted after an AI relight | The whole image is repainted on every edit | Switch to "Original photo" and list each face that must stay the same |
| Smart Editor refuses the file | It's HEIC or another format, or it's over 10 MB | Save it as a JPG under 10 MB; for future iPhone shots, choose Most Compatible under Settings, Camera, Formats |
Relight a photo in Smart Editor
Toybox's Smart Editor changes a photo based on a typed request, so it can move the light source, not just brighten the frame. It runs on OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 and is included with Pro and higher plans.
- Sign in, open Smart Editor, and add the dark or harsh photo under "Your image" (a JPG or PNG of 10 MB or less).
- Describe the light in "What should change?": its direction, its softness, and the parts of the photo that must not move.
- In "More options", HD uses 85 credits and 4K uses 110 at current prices. Shape can stay on "Original", which keeps your photo's proportions.
- Press "Apply edit". The relit version usually takes about 30 seconds.
- Put the result beside the original file and zoom in on eyes, hands and lettering.
- For a small correction, leave "Editing" on "Latest result" and type only that change, for example "a little less bright on the left side".
Each run repaints the entire image, so small things can drift while the light changes. When a face looks different, select "Original photo" as the image to edit and repeat the request with the words "keep his face exactly the same" added. Relighting can't add detail that a blurry photo never had, so for soft or pixelated shots see how to enhance photo quality instead. Current plan and credit prices are listed on Toybox pricing.