Fix overexposed photoDarken a photo that came out too bright

An overexposed photo has two parts, and they need different answers. Most of it is just brighter than it should be: the detail is all there, sitting too high in the tone range, and it can be brought down. Some of it may be pure white — the camera's sensor filled up and recorded the maximum — and there the detail is not in the file at all.

Exposure comes down from the measured median, as a gain in stops, so the middle of the picture lands where a well-exposed frame does. The Too bright preset then pulls the upper half of the tone curve down by a half-sine — strongest in the bright tones, nothing at pure white and nothing at black — so washed-out skies and faces get their shape back without the shadows sinking. Every step is a chip in What changed, and each one can be switched off.

• We can't rebuild a blown highlight. Where the sensor clipped to pure white there's no detail left in the file, and no amount of correction invents it — what we can do is stop the rest of the photo from suffering for it.
• Very bright JPEGs often have blocky banding in the sky; Clean-up can soften the blocks, it cannot add tones that were never saved.

• Brighten a dark photoOpens with Brightness under your hand and the shadow lift already measured.
• Improve image qualityA quality report first: grain, JPEG quality, blocking, edge energy, clipping and resolution, each with its fix.
• The one thing correction cannot undoWhere a histogram stacks against the right wall, the detail is gone from the file.
• Real estate photo enhancementWindow held, room light balanced, shadows opened, verticals straightened by hand — a whole listing in one batch.