Everything you need to know about Auto Contrast
Auto Contrast automatically analyzes your image and stretches its brightness range to use the full spectrum from black to white. This instantly improves flat, washed-out, or low-contrast images without manual adjustments.
Parameters
- Strength
Controls how much of the correction is applied. At 0, no change occurs. At 1.0, the full contrast stretch is visible. Use intermediate values for a more subtle enhancement. - Clipping
Percentage of the darkest and brightest pixels to ignore when calculating the range. A small clipping value (0.5–2%) helps avoid extreme outliers (like specular highlights or dead pixels) from skewing the result. Higher values produce a more aggressive contrast boost.
How It Works
The plugin scans the image histogram, finds the darkest and brightest significant pixels (after clipping), and stretches those values to span 0–255. The detected range is shown below the sliders (e.g., "Auto range: 23 → 241").
Tips
- Works best on images that don't use the full brightness range
- Increase clipping if the image has very bright highlights or very dark shadows you want to ignore
- Use lower strength (0.5–0.7) for a natural look, full strength for maximum punch