Image Quality Enhancer
Sharpen, boost clarity, fix color cast, brighten shadows, or upscale an unclear or low-resolution photo
Drop an image to improveTap to choose an image to improve
or click to browseor tap to choose
Large files (over 50 MB) may take longer or run out of browser memory
About Image Quality Enhancer
Improves an unclear, flat, or low-resolution image using real pixel-level adjustments — sharpening, contrast/clarity, automatic color-cast correction, shadow brightening, and literal pixel upscaling. Everything runs directly in your browser; the image never leaves your device. Built for the common "this old photo/scan looks dull, make it clearer" request, not a full photo editor.
Upload an image, tick whichever quality issues apply (you can combine several), optionally pick an upscale (1.5×, 2× or 4×, each showing the output size in pixels), then click Apply. Apply stays off until there is something to do. Drag the slider over the picture to compare original and result, then download. The file is saved with an -enhanced suffix (and the upscale, such as -enhanced-2x) so it never overwrites your original.
Pixel Increase (upscale) resamples the image to more pixels at the browser's highest-quality smoothing — it makes a small image usable at a larger size, but it does not invent detail a low-resolution source doesn't have. For a genuinely blurry or noisy source, Sharpness and Clarity together usually help more than upscaling alone.
Watch: Image Quality Enhancer in Action
- What does each option actually change?
- Sharpness applies an edge-aware unsharp mask. Clarity gives a mild contrast and saturation lift. Color balance scales red, green and blue so the average colour becomes neutral. Shadow remove lifts pixels darker than about the middle grey. Pixel increase resizes the canvas to 1.5, 2 or 4 times its width and height, and shows the output size before you apply.
- Will upscaling make my blurry photo sharp?
- No. Pixel increase makes more pixels by smoothing between the existing ones, so the picture gets bigger but not more detailed. A blurry source stays blurry at 2x or 4x. Sharpness afterwards can improve edge contrast, but cannot bring back detail that was never recorded.
- What do the Amount and Noise protection sliders do?
- Amount sets how strongly real edges are boosted. Noise protection sets how big a difference from the blurred copy must be to count as an edge; below that, areas are pulled slightly smoother instead of sharpened. Raise it for grainy or heavily compressed photos.
- Can I apply several adjustments together?
- Yes. Tick as many as you like and press Apply once; they run in order from upscale to shadows. You can also press Apply again afterwards to work on the result; the ticks clear after each Apply, so nothing is applied a second time by accident. Apply stays off until something is ticked or an upscale is chosen.
- What format is the result?
- It matches your original: JPEG stays JPEG at 92 percent quality, PNG stays PNG, and iPhone HEIC photos are saved as JPG. If the browser cannot write the original type, the file is saved as PNG and named accordingly. The name gets -enhanced added (for example photo-enhanced-2x.jpg), so it never overwrites your original.
How to use Image Quality Enhancer
Drop in a picture and you see the Original with its size in pixels. Tick the adjustments that apply: Sharpness, Clarity, Color balance or Shadow remove. Ticking Sharpness reveals two sliders, Amount (0 to 100 percent) and Noise protection (0 to 30). Pixel increase offers No change, 1.5x, 2x and 4x, and each shows the output size in pixels (a preset that would be too big for your browser is greyed out). Apply stays off until you tick something or pick an upscale.
Press Apply, and a slider lets you drag between the original and the result, with both sizes shown underneath. Adjustments run in a fixed order: upscale, sharpen, clarity, color balance, shadows. After Apply the ticks clear, and the next Apply works on the latest result, so nothing is applied twice by accident. Download saves the result with -enhanced added to the name (and the upscale, such as -enhanced-2x), so your original is never overwritten. Start over clears everything.
When to use it
It is useful for a faded scan with a colour cast, a photo taken against a window where faces sit in shadow, a soft snapshot that needs crisper edges, a flat-looking picture that needs more punch, or a small image that must reach a slightly larger pixel size for a form or layout.
When not to use it
It cannot repair a badly blurred, heavily compressed or tiny picture, because nothing here adds detail that the photo lacks. For restoring faces, removing objects or true resolution gains, a dedicated restoration program is the right choice. For plain brightness, saturation or crop edits, an ordinary image editor gives finer control.
Tips for best results
Raise Noise protection when a photo is grainy, since sharpening then leaves low-contrast grain alone and gently smooths it. Use Color balance on pictures with a clear overall cast, not on a sunset or green forest, where the scene really is one colour. Apply works on the previous result and clears the ticks afterwards, so tick only what you want to add next.
Limitations
Upscaling offers 1.5x, 2x and 4x (not when the result would be too large for the browser) and works by resampling the existing pixels with the browser's best smoothing, so it enlarges without adding true detail. Color balance assumes the average of the picture should be neutral grey, so it can overcorrect. Shadow remove brightens dark tones only; it does not erase a shadow object. The output keeps your file's format.
Privacy
Every adjustment is a calculation on the pixel values of your picture inside your own browser, using a canvas, with no upload and no outside processing service. The original and the result stay in the open page until you download or start over. Nothing is sent to remote software that analyses or recreates your photo, because no such step exists in this tool.
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