How to Brighten Dark Videos?

How to Make a Video Brighter - Best Ways in 2024

Every videographer sometimes has to work in poor lighting conditions. Plus, it certainly doesn’t help that the camera itself reduces the brightness of your background and objects in the frame. But don’t worry if your video turned out to be too dim! Making your video brighter in post-production is not too hard. You don’t have to have any experience in videography to do that.

Today, we will show you how to brighten dark videos in 7 easy-to-master ways: on an iPhone and Android smartphone, online, on a Mac computer, and on a Windows PC. There are options for all: occasional users, amateur videography enthusiasts, and professionals. What’s more, you will also find a lot of helpful life hacks for a video with perfect lighting. Let’s dive in.

How to Make Your Video Brighter While Shooting

It’s easier to avoid the problem than to solve it. That is why we have listed a few tricks for you to try during your video shoot. They will help your camera capture as much light as possible.

• Find a good light source If you are shooting indoors in the daytime, stand near an open window or in front of artificial light. At night time, any light source would be helpful: street lamps, a full moon, a reflecting surface, etc. However, try to avoid direct sun rays that would make you squint.
• Employ camera lighting Like shooting at night or live in a city with gloomy weather? We suggest investing in a camera LED light. It would help you make bright HQ clips even at the dark part of the day.
• Make the aperture of your camera as wide as possible This will allow the camera lens to capture more light. If your video camera has an f-stop setting, making it lower would increase the aperture. If you want to take a close-up picture, it’s better to avoid zooming in and walk closer to the object instead.
• Reduce the shutter speed This means that the shutter of your camera will be open longer allowing more light in. The speed of 1/30 of a second would be enough for recording regular human movements. However, you might get motion blur if you are recording rapid motion.
• Lower down the frame rate If you are shooting in low light, change your frame rate from the regular 30 down to 6 or as low as your camera allows. It will help to brighten the video a bit. You can even turn off the shutter speed if shooting a speaking video of yourself sitting in front of the camera. It would be better for videoing nature to keep the shutter speed and the frame rate lower than usual.

The tips above will help you make your video look better. But if after applying them you still feel that your clip is too dark, don’t get upset. We will teach you 7 ways of how to brighten dark videos in post-production.

Way 1. How to Brighten Dark Videos with Clipify

Clipify is a user-friendly video editor for PC that makes performing complex tasks easy and quick. With it, you can color correct and brighten videos, embellish clips and change their backgrounds, create voice-over videos and slideshows. The software is accessible to people of any skill level and guarantees professional-looking results. Besides, Clipify is free. Let’s move on to the detailed tutorial and learn how to brighten a video on Windows 10 and older with it.

Step 1. Download Clipify for Free

Have never used Clipify before? Today is a good day to start. Just click the Download button and you will get Clipify free of charge.

Step 2. Open Your Video in the Program

Once on the startup screen, click New Project and choose Blank Project. Click Add Videos and Photos and import the clip you want to brighten up.

Step 3. Make Your Video Brighter in an Instant

Select your video on the timeline and click Edit on the toolbar above. Go to the Image tab and drag the Brightness slider to the right. Adjust the Contrast, Saturation, and Hue sliders to further touch up your clip if needed.

Step 4. Export Your Brightened Clip

Satisfied with the look of your edited video? Save it for watching on your PC or for playing it on your living room TV. Clipify also supports alternative formats: for video hosting platforms, DVD, email, and socials.

Want to try something new with your video? Clipify will assist you with that. Apart from smart video enhancement, the program allows changing the speed of your clip, adding captions and title cards, spicing up videos with dynamic effects, and changing the background with Chroma Key. What’s more, the Video Wizard tool will help you make a cool video automatically if you don’t have much time to spend.

Way 2. Fix Dark Videos in Adobe Premiere Pro

If you are a professional looking for a powerful video tool, Premiere Pro might be exactly the program you need. Adobe Premiere allows editing footage up to 8K from whatever device you are shooting with. This makes the program perfect for short social media clips, ad campaign videos, and even movies. However, it might be challenging to figure out the program at first. Check out the tutorial below for a smoother start.

1. Import your video clip Once you run Adobe Premiere Pro, just drag and drop your video into the timeline, and it will appear in the preview window.
2. Increase the brightness of your video Find the Edit tab in the left menu and type Brightness & Contrast in the search field to find the effect. Drag the Brightness & Contrast effect onto the chosen video on the timeline. Adjust the effect settings in the upper left window.
3. Save your colorful video After you finish editing, click the Quick Export button in the top right and choose the format you want to save your video in.

Way 3. Increase Brightness of a Video in VLC

VideoLAN Client (VLC) is a free media player compatible with most operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, Android, iOS. The program allows playing all kinds of video files, as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, and VCDs. What’s more, you can use VLC to touch up your videos: crop them, color correct them, change their speed, and add subtitles. However, some of the listed tasks would require extensions. Thankfully, you need none to brighten your video in the software, so let’s jump into the quick tutorial.

1. Open your media in VLC Run the software and go to the Media drop-down menu. Click Open File and pick the video you would like to make more colorful.
2. Adjust the brightness of your clip Go to the Tools drop-down menu and choose the Effects & Filters tool. Switch to the Video Effects tab and check the Image Adjust checkbox. Now, drag the Brightness slider to the right to increase the brightness. Adjust the other sliders on the tab to achieve a better effect.
3. Convert your video into the needed video file Click the Media drop-down menu and choose the Save/Convert tool. Click the Add button and find the file you want to convert. Hit Save/Convert and find the destination folder you want to save your video to.

Way 4. Adjust Video Brightness Online

Prefer online video editors? Try the multi-purpose Kapwing. The application has a minimalistic interface with a lot of helpful tools, artistic effects, built-in soundtracks, stock videos, and photos. Besides, it is available on any computer, smartphone, or tablet. As for fixing the brightness in a video, the editor makes this task very easy and gives pretty impressive results. However, this editor won’t work properly unless you have a stable connection to the Internet. If that isn’t your case, follow the steps and check out Kapwing for yourself.

1. Import your video clip Once you are on the startup screen of Kapwing online video editor, just drag your video from a folder on your computer or upload it from your smartphone.
2. Make your video brighter Select your video on the timeline and go to the Edit tab. Click Adjust. In the new window, use the Brightness slider to fix your video. Use the other sliders for better color balance.
3. Export your clip to your device Hit the Export Video button in the top right and you will be able to save your video or share it online. However, mind that the free version allows exporting files only up to 250MB.

Way 5. Brighten a Video on an iPhone

If you feel more comfortable editing your clip on the go, check out Videoleap Editor for iPhone and iPad. This app will help you with all the basic editing tasks: cropping and formatting your video, combining multiple footages, adding embellishments, applying filters, and even enhancing your video with powerful tools. However, not all the app’s tools are available in the free version which applies to the Adjust tool as well. Besides, there is a layer limit. Still interested? Dive into the detailed tutorial and brighten up your video with this milti-purpose video editor.

1. Upload your video clip Run the app and hit the plus icon on its startup screen to open the clips you want to enhance.
2. Move on to adjusting your video’s brightness Switch to the Adjust tool and set the Brightness slider. Use the rest of the sliders as well to achieve a more natural effect.
3. Save your edited video Hit the Export button in the top right. Select the resolution and frames per second setting for your clip. Then, hit Save or share your video via TikTok or a messenger.

Way 6. Edit Video Brightness on Android

In case you are in the Android squad, we suggest you try InShot. This multi-purpose video app is one of the best in its category. The editor gives much creative freedom through the countless editing tools it has: from basic instruments like cropping, rotating, and splitting videos to more advanced ones like freezing frames, adding the PIP effect, and reversing videos. The downside to this editor is that it watermarks your clips if you don’t have a subscription. Besides, there are constant ads at the top of the preview window, which might be distracting.

1. Open your clip with InShot Once you are on the startup screen of the application, tap the Video button and choose the footage you want to edit.
2. Start making your video brighter Find the Filter tool on the toolbar and choose Adjust. Pull the Lightness slider to the right to make your video brighter. Use the Contrast, Warmth, Tint, and Saturation sliders to balance out the colors in your video.
3. Export your touched-up video clip Tap the export icon in the top right, choose the resolution and frame rate for your video, and hit Save to export your enhanced clip to your smartphone library.

Way 7. Make a Video Brighter on Mac

Finally, if you are a Mac user who wants a familiar program for video editing, go with iMovie. This application comes in the iLife package that is built into every Apple PC. iMovie is perfect for making short clips for family occasions and social media posts. Thanks to its premade trailer templates, title cards, and diverse library of effects, even a newbie in video post-production can easily make impressive clips. Experienced editors will enjoy the tools to enhance videos, make voiceovers, and create the picture-in-picture effect. Check out the tutorial and learn how to brighten a dark video with this editor.

1. Import your video Once on the startup screen, hit the plus icon and make a new Movie project. Select the clip you want to edit.
2. Make your footage brighter Hit the color palette icon on the toolbar. Pull the gray circle on the multi-band slider to the right to increase the brightness of your video.
3. Save your enhanced clip Click the export icon in the top right corner and save your project as a movie. Choose the name, resolution, and format for your video. Pick the folder where you want to keep your video. Otherwise, you can share your clip on Facebook, Youtube, and other socials.

Closing Words on Making a Video Brighter

Now, you know how to brighten a dark video in 7 different ways. All of them will take just a couple of minutes if you follow our lead. However, if brightening isn’t the only thing you want to do to your video, we would recommend that you go with Clipify. This editor has everything you would require for making a perfect clip. Besides, all the features are intuitive, so you won’t even need any tutorials to figure out how they work. But no matter what editor you end up with, we hope this guide was helpful for you.