Exposure Fix

Backlit subjects come out as silhouettes. Indoor low-light shots come out muddy. Bright snow scenes blow out the highlights. Drop your photo, get back a balanced exposure with shadow detail recovered and highlight clipping pulled back. Works on JPG even when the original was shot without RAW data.

How auto exposure works

The model analyses the histogram, finds clipped shadows and highlights, and applies a tone-curve adjustment that pulls them back into the visible range. It's not magic — true blown-out highlights (pure white) and crushed shadows (pure black) have lost data — but most "bad exposure" photos still have recoverable information that the auto tools just need to pull out.

For photos shot in RAW (the camera's full sensor data), more recovery is possible. Most phones now shoot HEIC with embedded HDR data; we use that when available for better recovery.

When to use this

1. Backlit portraits: face in shadow against a bright window. Dramatic recovery available.
2. Indoor low-light shots: brighten without making them noisy.
3. Snow / beach photos: tame the over-exposed highlights.
4. Sunset photos: balance the dark foreground without losing the sky drama.

What about colour?

Exposure correction is one axis; colour balance is another. For a dual fix, run this then Color Correction — or use Restore Old Photo which bundles exposure + colour + sharpening into one pass for old photos.

Manual control

Default is auto. Premium accounts get a manual mode with shadow/highlight/exposure sliders for fine-tuning, plus tone-curve editing for advanced users.