Curves
Fade the contrast for a soft, matte look.
This runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
About Curves
Applies a fixed tone curve at a strength you choose, lifting shadows and lowering highlights for a faded, matte look, rendered in your browser with nothing uploaded.
Start with what this isn't. There's no draggable curve editor here, no control points to place, no per-channel graph. It's a single slider called Strength, from 0 to 1, applying one fixed curve shape. What that curve produces is the faded, low-contrast look associated with film stock and a lot of editorial photography: raised blacks, softened whites, a gentler middle.
Each channel value is scaled to a 0-to-1 range, and the curve then adds to it below mid-grey and subtracts above. The adjustment is largest at the quarter-tones, around value 64 and value 191, tapering to nothing at pure black and pure white. At full strength a quarter-tone shadow shifts by roughly a fifth of the entire range, which is a lot.
Two caveats come with it. The curve is computed separately for the halves either side of mid-grey, so a high Strength can leave a visible step where they meet — in a clear sky or a gradient it reads as a band. And the direction is fixed: this reduces contrast and cannot add it. Somewhere between 0.15 and 0.3 gives the look without the artefacts.
How to use Curves
- 1Drop an image on the panel or click to choose a file.
- 2Set Strength between 0 and 1; lower values are subtler and cleaner.
- 3Apply preview, then look closely at any large area of smooth tone.
- 4Download to save the graded image.
What it won't do
- One fixed curve shape and one strength value — no control points, no per-channel curves.
- Only reduces contrast; there's no setting that increases it.
- High strengths can leave a visible step at the midtones in smooth gradients.
Common questions
Can I draw my own curve here?
No. This page has one Strength slider and one fixed curve shape — there's no graph to drag and no control points to add. If you need precise tonal control, the levels tool gives you a black point, a white point and a gamma, which covers most of what people actually reach a curve editor for.
Does this add contrast or remove it?
It removes it. Shadows are lifted and highlights pulled down, compressing the image into a narrower range to produce that flat, matte finish. If you want the opposite — deeper blacks and brighter whites — raise contrast in the brightness and contrast tool, or bring the black and white points inwards in levels.
Why is there a band across my sky?
The curve treats the two halves of the tonal range independently, and at high Strength they stop meeting smoothly at mid-grey. In a photo full of texture nobody notices. In a clear sky, a studio backdrop or any smooth gradient, that step shows up as a line. Keep Strength under about 0.3 for those images.
What Strength value should I start with?
Try 0.2. It's enough to see the faded effect without introducing artefacts, and it holds up when the image is viewed on someone else's screen. The slider moves in increments of 0.05 so you can work up gradually. Past 0.5 the picture starts reading as washed out rather than styled.
Related tools
Why this one doesn't upload your file
There is no server to upload to. This page is a static file, and the work happens in your browser using the same graphics and WebAssembly code that renders every other site you visit. Your file is read from disk into memory, processed, and handed back as a download. Once the page has loaded you can disconnect from the network entirely and it keeps working. The longer explanation