Free browser-based utility
Light, Shadow and Shine
Darken part of a photo into a natural shadow, lighten a shaded area, add a highlight, or tone down shine and glare. Apply it to the whole photo, a box or a lasso, or paint it on with a brush; preview it, then save a new PNG, JPEG or BMP.
Processed locally — your image stays on your device.
Which effect?
Shade darkens the way a real shadow does. Light in a photo adds up in "linear light", not in the numbers stored in the file, so this tool converts to linear light, multiplies, and converts back; a shadow made this way keeps its colour instead of turning grey or muddy. By default it takes away half the light at full strength. For a shadow that matches one already in the photo, choose Pick lit area and tap a sunlit part of a surface, then Pick shaded area and tap the same surface in shade: the tool measures how much light, and what colour of light, the shade takes away, and uses that.
Lighten does the opposite with the same measurement, for lifting a shadow or brightening a face in shade. It cannot bring back detail that is pure black in the file.
Add shine brightens toward white, like the highlight on a glossy ball, a wet surface or polished metal. Use a small soft brush and a low strength, and build it up. The tool does not know the 3D shape of what you paint, so place highlights where light would really catch it: on the curve facing the light.
Glossy surface adds the kind of shine you see when the gloss of a 3D model is turned up: a highlight that sits where a curved surface faces the light, and follows its fine texture. Choose the area (a lasso around the object works best), then drag the sun mark to where the light comes from. Roundness says how domed the object is, Bumpiness how much the shine follows the photo's fine detail, Glossiness whether the shine is a broad sheen or a sharp hot spot, Light size whether the light is a small bulb or a large window (a bigger patch of full shine), and Shine colour whether it is white or, for metal, the object's own colour. A photo does not record the real 3D shape, so the tool estimates it from the outline and the light and dark detail; it works best on one smooth material, such as a face, an apple, a bottle or a car door.
Reduce shine tones down glare and hot spots, such as shine on skin, reflections on glasses or a flash on a polished surface. It compares each pixel with a blur of the area around it and brings only the brighter-than-surroundings parts down, so the rest of what you paint is unchanged. At full strength the shine is replaced by the surrounding level; texture inside a bright spot that was burnt out to white cannot be recovered.
Formats and size
The tool opens PNG, JPEG and BMP images, and HEIC photos in Safari on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, and saves as PNG, JPEG or BMP. PNG keeps transparency; JPEG and BMP fill transparent areas with the background colour you choose. Each JPEG save loses a little detail, so for repeated editing PNG is the better choice.
Pictures up to 4096 × 4096 pixels are edited at full size, which includes ordinary 12-megapixel phone photos. A larger picture can be edited as a reduced copy at the largest size that fits; the tool tells you the size before it starts.
Private by design
Your image is opened, edited and saved inside your browser. It is not uploaded to a Doodleden™ server, and nothing about it is stored. Undo history lives only in this page while it is open.
Files are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to or stored by Doodleden™. This site is funded by advertising; our ad partners use cookies and similar technologies as described in our privacy policy.
