How to fix grainy images and overexposed photos
Night shots, indoor events and old phones leave photos full of grain. Upload one and the noise is smoothed while edges stay sharp. Tone down highlights if the photo is also too bright.
Before
After
How to fix grainy photos
Grain is random speckle that appears when a camera has too little light and boosts the signal. Good noise reduction smooths the speckle without smoothing away edges.
Upload the grainy photo
Night shots, concert photos, indoor pictures and scanned prints all work.
Set noise reduction
Start around 70 percent. Push higher for very noisy photos, lower if fine detail like hair starts to look painted.
Fix brightness
If the photo is also too bright, raise Tone down highlights and lower Brightness until the sky or skin has detail again.
How noise reduction keeps the photo sharp
PhotoPolisher splits the photo into brightness and color. Color noise, the red and green speckles, is removed almost completely because colors in real scenes change slowly. Brightness noise is reduced with an edge-aware filter: in flat areas like sky and walls it averages out the grain, and near edges like a roofline or an eyelash it holds back so the edge stays crisp.
The Noise level in the result panel is measured from your photo before and after, so you can see how much grain was removed.
How to fix an extremely overexposed photo
An overexposed photo has areas that are too bright. If they are only very bright, the detail is still there and Tone down highlights brings it back. If they are pure white, the camera recorded no detail at all and those areas can only be made grey, not restored.
Check by lowering Brightness: if clouds, skin or a white shirt show texture as you go, it can be saved. If they stay flat, retaking the photo with lower exposure is the only real fix.
Overexposed film
Scans of overexposed film usually look washed out and low in contrast rather than clipped, because negative film holds a lot of highlight detail. Lower Brightness and raise Tone down highlights to bring back density. Grainy film scans also respond well to noise reduction around 40 to 60 percent.
Questions
Something else on your mind? Get in touch.
How do I fix grainy photos for free?
Upload the photo on this page and keep Noise reduction around 70 percent. It runs in your browser and there’s no watermark.
Why are my photos grainy?
The camera didn’t get enough light, so it amplified the signal, and amplified the random noise with it. Night and indoor photos are the usual cause.
Can it fix an extremely overexposed photo?
It can bring back detail in bright areas that weren’t fully clipped. Pure white areas have no detail left to restore.
Will noise reduction make my photo blurry?
The filter is edge-aware, so edges stay sharp. At very high settings fine textures like grass can soften, so lower the slider if that happens.
Does it work on scanned film?
Yes. Film grain is reduced the same way as digital noise.
Clean up a grainy photo
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