A Portraits
Window light and ring lights leave a hard edge down one cheek. The pass evens the falloff and keeps the nose and chin shadows that give a face depth.
Free online tool Google sign-in
Remove Shadow
from Photo
Erase harsh shadows from faces, backgrounds and product shots. 2 free a month, then from $4.90.
Live example — drag to compare
Shadow remover
Ready. Drop a photo or pick an example — you get a before/after you can download.
No photo handy?
Settings Adjust
Model
Output
Cost5 credits per photo
- Free plan, no card
- No watermark
- Photos deleted after processing
02
Four scenes, four kinds of shadow
Each preset is tuned for a different failure mode. Left frame is the original, right frame is the output.
B Product shots
Marketplace listings get rejected for grey, uneven backdrops. Product mode flattens the sweep behind the object without eating its edges.
C Documents
Phone scans carry your own shadow across the page. Document mode rebuilds the paper white so OCR and printers stop choking on it.
D Passport photos
A shadow on the backdrop is the most common ID rejection there is. Passport mode clears the wall behind the head and holds the background neutral.
03
How it works
Three steps. Nothing to install, no card, and the free plan covers 2 photos a month.
- 01
Upload your photo
Drag in a JPG or PNG. Nothing is stored — the file is processed and discarded.
→ Nothing is written to disk
- 02
Let the AI relight it
Shadows are detected and removed while original texture and colour are preserved.
→ Texture and colour stay put
- 03
Compare and download
Slide to compare before/after, then download the full-resolution result.
→ 10–30 s per photo
Before you shootFewer shadows in camera = better result
Turn away from the window
Side light from a single window is what carves a hard shadow down one cheek. Face it instead of standing beside it.
Step away from the wall
A metre of gap between you and the backdrop is enough to drop the head shadow behind you — the top reason ID photos get rejected.
Kill the direct flash
On-camera flash flattens the face and throws a hard outline. Bounce it, or shoot in open shade instead.
Shoot flat objects from above
Photographing a page at an angle puts your own arm in the frame. Hold the phone parallel to the paper.
04
Who keeps coming back
Four jobs where a shadow costs money — a rejected listing, a rejected passport, an unreadable receipt.
Portraits and selfies
Harsh window light and nose shadows on faces.
Passport and ID photos
Most rejections are caused by shadows on the face or backdrop.
Product and e-commerce shots
Remove the shadow the phone casts across the product.
Documents and book pages
Flatten the shadow your hand casts when photographing a page.
A shadow is rarely just cosmetic — in each of these it costs a re-shoot, a re-application or a lost sale.
If yours is an ID photo, the passport photo shadow guide walks through the official backdrop rules as well. For bright reflections rather than dark patches, use the glare remover instead.
06
This vs Photoshop vs your phone
Search “how to remove shadows in Photoshop” and you mostly get hour-long dodge-and-burn tutorials. Your phone’s eraser has its own ceiling. If you just want the shadow gone, this table should help you pick a lane — including the cases where you should not use us.
Approach
Best for
What it costs you
ShadowFix Fastestthis site
Portraits, product shots, documents and ID photos — anywhere you want the shadow gone and everything else left alone.
Upload, pick a mode, download. Roughly 10–30 seconds a photo, no retouching skill needed. 2 free AI photos a month, no card — the tint and red-eye tools are unlimited.
PhotoshopDodge & Burn, Generative Fill
Retouchers who need pixel-level control over every edge, and who are already fluent in masks and curves.
Selections, masks, matching the colour back — often 20–60 minutes a photo, on top of a subscription. Genuinely better if you know what you are doing.
LightroomShadows slider
Global exposure fixes — when the whole frame is underexposed rather than one area being in shadow.
Fast, but lifting globally flattens contrast and turns the picture grey. A hard cast shadow does not come back this way.
Phone AI erasersGalaxy AI, iPhone Clean Up
Wiping one small object or a thin shadow out of a shot you just took, without leaving the camera roll.
Free and instant, but it erases rather than relights — a large shadow leaves smearing. Availability depends on your handset and OS version.
Photo editing appsgeneric “shadow remover”
When the shadow is already faint and you only need to nudge the brightness a little.
Most of them only lift the dark pixels — the shadow edge stays visible, and the export usually costs you a quality step.
Short version: if you need one shadow gone and you are not a retoucher, start here. If the shot matters enough to warrant an hour of masking, Photoshop still wins on control.
07
What kind of shadow is it?
Not every dark patch is the same problem. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you whether a slider will fix it — or whether the area has to be rebuilt.
Cast shadow
A hard-edged shape thrown onto a wall, table or backdrop by something outside the frame — you, a lamp, a window frame. The edge is sharp and the shape is recognisable.
Slider fix? No. Lifting exposure just makes a grey patch with the same outline.
Harsh face shadow
Light from one side carving a dark half down the nose, under the chin or across one cheek. Common with a single window, midday sun or a hat brim.
Slider fix? Partly — but you lose skin texture and the face goes flat before the shadow leaves.
Background shadow
An uneven backdrop: darker on one side, or a halo behind the head from standing too close to the wall. The subject is fine, the wall is not.
Slider fix? No. A global lift brightens the subject too, and the gradient stays.
Document shading
A page photographed by hand: one corner in shade, a soft gradient across the paper, sometimes the outline of your own arm over the text.
Slider fix? Rarely. Push it far enough to clear the shade and the text starts blowing out.
08
Where the shadow came from
Four things cause almost every unwanted shadow in a phone photo. Two of them you can avoid next time; two of them you usually cannot.
01
Direct sun
Midday sun is a small, hard light source directly overhead. It carves shadows under the brow, nose and chin, and it does it fast — a cloud passing overhead changes the whole frame.
Avoidable — move into open shade
02
You, standing in the light
Photographing a document, a flat-lay or a product from above puts your own body between the lamp and the subject. Your outline lands right in the frame.
Avoidable — shoot from the side of the light
03
One ceiling light, one window
Most rooms are lit by a single source. Anything lit from one side has a dark side, and standing near a wall puts a second shadow behind you.
Hard to avoid indoors
04
The phone itself
Holding a phone close over a page blocks the light with the handset and your hand. On-camera flash does the opposite — it flattens the face and throws a hard outline behind it.
Hard to avoid handheld
09
When a shadow gets you rejected
In some places a shadow is not a matter of taste — it fails a rule, and the submission bounces back.
Passport & visa photos
Most authorities require a plain background, evenly lit, with no shadow across the face and none behind the head. Standing too close to the wall is the single most common cause of a rejected application.
Fix a passport photoMarketplace listings
Amazon and several marketplaces expect a clean white background on the main image. A sweep shadow at the base of the product reads as a dirty background and can hold up the listing.
Clean a product shotScanned paperwork
Uploaded contracts, IDs and forms get read by a person or by OCR. A shadow across the page lowers contrast exactly where the text is, and the upload comes back as unreadable.
Flatten a document
05
Why you can trust this
Four claims. Every one of them you can check yourself, right now.
Two tools never upload anything
Tint and Red-eye run entirely inside your browser. Switch off your wi-fi, reload the page and use them again — they still work. Nothing ever reaches a server, so there is nothing for us to keep.
AI tools discard the file immediately
Shadow, glare and passport need a server to run. The image is processed in memory and dropped the moment the result comes back. Not written to disk, not used for training, not shared.
Browser tools cost us nothing, so they are unlimited
The AI tools cost real money per image, which is why the free plan is only 2 a month. We would rather tell you the actual reason than pretend the limit is a feature.
Free output is the full output
No watermark, no reduced resolution, no locked download button at the end. What the free tier produces is the same file a paid plan produces — you just get fewer of them.
06
Pricing
Two free AI runs a month to see if it works on your photos. The two browser tools really are unlimited and free forever — they cost us nothing.
Lite
4.90/ month
Billed $58.80 annually
- 20 photos a month
- 1K · 2K · 4K output
- No watermark, full resolution
- Commercial use
Pro Most picked
9.90/ month
Billed $118.80 annually
- 60 photos a month
- 1K · 2K · 4K output
- No watermark, full resolution
- Commercial use
Max
24.90/ month
Billed $298.80 annually
- 200 photos a month
- 1K · 2K · 4K output
- No watermark, full resolution
- Commercial use
Free plan: 2 AI photos a month with a one-click Google sign-in, no card — and the tint and red-eye tools are unlimited on every plan, because they run in your browser. See the full comparison →
07
Questions
Everything people ask before they upload the first file.
Q.01 How do I remove a shadow from a photo?
Upload the photo, pick the mode that matches what you shot (portrait, product, document or passport), and download the result. It takes about 10 to 30 seconds and needs no editing skill. The free plan covers 2 photos a month after a one-click Google sign-in.
Q.02 Can AI actually remove shadows, or does it just brighten them?
Brightening only lifts the dark pixels, which leaves a grey patch with the same outline. The AI here rebuilds the lighting in the shadowed area so the texture and colour underneath match the rest of the photo — that is why a hard cast shadow disappears instead of turning grey.
Q.03 Can it remove a shadow from a face without making the skin look plastic?
That is what the Portrait mode is for. It relights the shadowed side while keeping pores, hair detail and skin texture. It does not smooth skin or alter facial features.
Q.04 How do I get rid of my own shadow in a photo of a document?
Use Document mode. It flattens the lighting across the page so the paper reads as an even white and the text stays sharp, including the area where your arm or phone blocked the light.
Q.05 Can I remove a shadow from a passport or ID photo?
Yes, and it is one of the most common uses. Removing a shadow is a lighting correction, which is normally accepted — unlike changing facial features, which is not. A shadow behind the head or across the face is the top reason applications get rejected.
Q.06 Is there a shadow remover app for iPhone or Android?
You do not need one. This runs in the phone browser — open the page, tap the upload area and pick a photo from your camera roll. Nothing to install.
Q.07 Is it really free, and what is the catch?
The browser-based tools, tint and red-eye, are unlimited forever because they cost us nothing to run — they never leave your device. The AI tools cost real money per image, so the free plan is only 2 a month. No watermark and no reduced resolution on any tier.
Q.08 Will removing the shadow change the rest of my photo?
No. The model is instructed to leave composition, colour and texture alone and only rebuild the lighting where the shadow was. If you compare with the slider you should see everything outside the shadow unchanged.
Q.09 Do you keep my photos?
We never store the image itself — it is held in memory for the request and discarded when it ends. To run the AI it is sent over TLS to our processing provider, fal.ai, and we do not permit training on it. We do keep a link to your finished result for up to 7 days so that re-uploading the same photo does not cost you credits twice. The tint and red-eye tools never upload anything at all; you can turn off your wi-fi and they still work.
Q.10 I photographed an old printed photo and my own shadow is on it. Can this fix that?
Usually yes. That is a cast shadow over a flat surface, which is the easiest case. Use Document mode rather than Portrait, even though the picture is of a person — the mode describes what you photographed, not what is in the image.
Q.11 Why not just use the Shadows slider in Lightroom?
The Shadows slider is a global adjustment. It lifts every dark pixel in the frame, which flattens contrast and turns the picture grey long before a hard shadow disappears. It works well when the whole photo is underexposed, not when one area is in shadow.
Q.12 What file types and sizes work?
JPG, PNG and WebP, up to 10 MB. Use the original file rather than a screenshot or a re-saved copy — there is more detail left in the shadow for the model to work with.