Deep Fried Photo Effect

Give any photo an extreme, crunchy "HDR" look in your browser. Deep Fried stacks two greyscale copies of your photo on top of it, one with the shadows lifted and blended Multiply, one with the highlights pulled down and blended Soft Light, the way you'd build it by hand in Photoshop. It's free with no watermark, and your photos are never uploaded: the processing (Rust compiled to WebAssembly) runs on your device.

Drop a photo here or click to choose a file, or paste from your clipboard

Layer 1: shadows (Multiply)

Lighten shadows

Tonal width

Radius

Layer opacity

Layer 2: highlights (Soft Light)

Darken highlights

Tonal width

Radius

Layer opacity

Export

Format

How to deep fry a photo

Drop a photo onto the editor, paste one from your clipboard, or click to choose a file.
It's fried straight away with near-maxed settings. Ease off any slider to taste; the preview updates as you go. Hold Hold to compare to see the original.
Click Download to save it at full size as a JPEG or PNG.

How it works

It's the classic Photoshop "fake HDR" stack, done for you. Two greyscale copies of the photo sit on top of the original. Each one gets a Shadows/Highlights adjustment, which brightens or darkens each spot based on how light its surroundings are rather than the pixel alone. That's what creates the gritty local contrast and glowing halos.

Layer 1: shadows lifted, Multiply: Lightening the shadows in this copy, then multiplying it over the photo, deepens everything except the darkest areas, piling on contrast and saturation.
Layer 2: highlights pulled down, Soft Light: Darkening the highlights in this copy, then soft-lighting it on top, crunches detail into the bright areas and adds even more local contrast.
Tonal width: How much of the tonal range counts as shadow (or highlight). Higher affects more of the image.
Radius: How big an area decides what's a shadow or highlight, as a percentage of the photo's size. Small radii give fine, crispy detail; large ones give big glowing halos.

Frequently asked questions

What does "deep fried" mean?

It's a meme term for images pushed so far with contrast, sharpening and saturation that they look crispy, glowing and over-processed. This tool gets there with an extreme HDR-style tone-mapping stack.

Are my photos uploaded?

No. Everything happens in your browser using WebAssembly, so your photos never leave your device.

Is it free?

Yes. It's free to use with no sign-up and no watermark on what you download.

Which file types can I use?

Any image your browser can open (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, and HEIC in Safari). Photos larger than 4096 pixels on a side are scaled down to fit.