Free Online Image OptimizerDarken an image
Text can be hard to read over a bright photograph, and a larger font does not solve the lack of contrast. Drop in an image, adjust the slider until your headline is clear, then download the result.
Text can be hard to read over a bright photograph, and a larger font does not solve the lack of contrast. Drop in an image, adjust the slider until your headline is clear, then download the result.
Drop your image here
One at a time here, because choosing how dark is something you do by looking at it rather than by setting it once for twenty.
The preview updates as you drag. Forty per cent black gives white text enough contrast on most photographs; a bright sky needs more, while a dusk shot needs much less.
One file, darkened and compressed in the same pass, ready to put a headline on.
Step by step, with screenshots: How to darken a photo so text can sit on it
Put a dark layer between the photograph and the words. Contrast is what makes text legible, and white lettering on a bright sky has almost none of it however heavy the font — an outline or a drop shadow only papers over the problem. Drop the picture in, pull the slider until the title reads comfortably, and download the darkened copy to write over. Around 40% is the usual starting point: a glaring beach wants more, a photograph taken at dusk far less.
To keep text easy to read. White text often disappears against bright areas of a photograph. A dark overlay creates contrast that a heavier font weight cannot. Hero images, title slides and social cards commonly use this technique.
No. Black is the default because darkening is the usual job. A white overlay lightens a picture behind dark text, while applying the same brand colour to a set of photographs gives a presentation a consistent look.
No. The overlay is applied by your browser, on a canvas, before anything is uploaded -- the CDN that does the compressing cannot lay one image over another. The darkened copy is then sent for optimisation, just like every other image processed here.
Yes. The overlay affects only non-transparent pixels, not the whole rectangular canvas. A logo on a transparent background is tinted while its background remains transparent.
Not here. Choosing an opacity is a judgement about one photograph -- forty per cent is right for a beach and far too much for something shot at dusk -- and applying one setting to a batch could give poor results. The Compress images in bulk tool takes twenty at a time.
The darkened copy is uploaded to be optimised, stored at a random unguessable address, and deleted automatically. Nothing reads the contents.