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Make a photo black and white

Grayscale, high contrast, two-tone or sepia, previewed live and made on this device.

Turns photos black and white as grayscale, high contrast, pure black and white for scans, or sepia. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark, and your files are not uploaded: everything runs in your browser on your device. The size limit is your device’s memory, and phones hold less; give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, and then it works offline.

Drop photos to make black and whiteor click to choose files. Batches welcome.
    Working…

    Done

    Your files are processed on this device and never sent to a server. Reload the page to clear everything from memory.

    How it works

    1. Drop one or more photos (JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF or JPEG XL).
    2. Pick a look: grayscale, high contrast, pure black and white, or sepia. The first photo previews it.
    3. Download the converted photos, one by one or as a zip.

    In your browser, not on a server

    Your browser decodes each image (libheif or the Squoosh decoders step in for HEIC, AVIF and JPEG XL) and draws it on a canvas in your tab. Each pixel’s brightness is computed with the Rec. 709 weights, the way the eye weighs red, green and blue. High contrast stretches the tones to the full range; pure black and white picks the split point with Otsu’s method, which finds the threshold that best separates ink from paper. The browser then saves the canvas as JPG, PNG or WebP.

    Compared with upload-based tools: Photo filter sites upload your pictures to apply a filter a phone could do offline, and many add a watermark or keep the images. Here the photos stay on your device, the limit on how many you convert at once is your device’s memory (phones hold less), and the result is not recompressed more than once.

    Verify it yourself. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, then turn off Wi-Fi or switch to airplane mode and run the tool again. Or open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd-Option-I on a Mac), pick the Network tab, and watch it while you convert. The panel above does the same count for you.

    Questions

    Are my photos uploaded?

    No. Each photo is decoded, converted and saved by code running in your browser tab. Your files are not uploaded, and the page works offline after one visit and a short wait.

    What is the difference between the looks?

    Grayscale keeps every tone of the original as a shade of grey. High contrast stretches those tones so the darks are deeper and the lights brighter, which suits portraits and street photos. Pure black and white uses only two colours, ideal for a scanned document, a signature or a stencil. Sepia gives the warm brown of an old print.

    How do I make a signature or scan clean black and white?

    Choose Pure black and white and PNG. The split between ink and paper is chosen automatically from the image, so grey paper becomes white and pen strokes become solid black. Photograph the page in even light for the cleanest result.

    Does it keep transparency?

    Yes, when you save as PNG or WebP. JPG has no transparency, so transparent areas become white.

    Is the location and camera data kept?

    No. The converted photo is a new image drawn by your browser, so EXIF data such as GPS location, camera model and date is not carried over.

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