How to Selectively Brighten Part of a Photo on iPhone
Cleanr by MRVL includes a selective adjust feature that lets you brighten specific parts of your photo by painting over them with a brush mask, available in the AI Pro tier.
What is Selective Adjust in Cleanr
Selective Adjust is a brush-based tool in Cleanr's AI Pro plan that lets you target brightness, contrast, and saturation adjustments to just the areas you want to edit. Instead of brightening your entire photo, you paint over the region you want to lift, and the changes apply only to that selection. This is useful when you want to brighten a face in shadow, bring out detail in a dark corner, or make one part of your image stand out without washing out the rest.
How to Use Selective Adjust for Brightening
Open your photo in Cleanr and tap the Adjustments section. Scroll to Selective Adjust and select it. Choose your brush size and opacity, then paint over the area you want to brighten. As you paint, you'll see a live preview of the changes. Use the brightness slider to lift the exposure on just that masked region. You can adjust the brush size to be precise or cover larger areas. The tool works on iPhone and Android, and changes render instantly so you can see exactly what you're doing before you save.
Free Alternative: Full-Photo Brightness Adjustments
If you don't have AI Pro yet, Cleanr's free tier includes a global brightness slider in the Adjustments panel. This brightens your entire photo evenly. You can also use Auto-Enhance, which is a one-tap tool that automatically optimises your photo's colour, sharpness, and exposure. For more precision without a subscription, the Plus tier (£3.99/month or £29.99/year) gives you unlimited adjustments and no watermark on exports.
When to Use Selective Adjust vs Other Tools
Use Selective Adjust when you need surgical precision: brightening a subject's face while keeping the background moody, lifting shadows in one corner, or making a product pop in product photography. If your entire photo is too dark, start with Auto-Enhance or the brightness slider first. If you want to change the background completely, try Cleanr's background removal or sky replacement presets instead. Selective Adjust is best when the composition is right but one area needs a targeted lift.
Other Selective Editing Features in Cleanr
Beyond brightness, Cleanr's selective adjust tool also controls contrast and saturation on a brush mask. You can saturate a flower while keeping the background muted, increase contrast on a face, or combine multiple selective adjustments on different parts of the same photo. The AI Pro tier also includes generative fill (paint a region and let the app content-aware fill it), face retouch (automatic blemish and skin smoothing), HSL colour adjustments (brighten just the reds or blues), and tone curves for advanced exposure control.
Pricing and Access
Selective Adjust is part of the AI Pro plan at £12.99/month or £99.99/year. The free tier gives you access to global brightness sliders, auto-enhance, and 15 other tools, so you can test Cleanr's editing quality before committing to a paid tier. Cleanr also offers a Core Lifetime purchase (£4.99) if you want the core toolkit forever, though selective adjust is only in AI Pro. As of June 2026, there's no watermark on any free exports, and you can batch process photos in Plus and Pro tiers.
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Frequently asked questions
Can I brighten part of a photo with Cleanr's free tier?
The free tier includes a global brightness slider that brightens your entire photo. For selective brightening of just one area, you'll need AI Pro (£12.99/month). However, the free tier also includes Auto-Enhance, which intelligently optimises exposure across the whole image.
Does Cleanr add a watermark when I brighten photos?
No. Cleanr doesn't watermark any exports, whether you're on the free tier or paid. You keep full ownership of your edited photos.
What's the difference between Selective Adjust and global brightness?
Global brightness (free tier) adjusts the entire photo. Selective Adjust (AI Pro) lets you paint over specific regions and brighten only those areas, so you keep shadows where you want them and lift highlights precisely.
Can I undo selective adjustments after I save?
Cleanr Plus and Pro tiers include cloud history, so you can revert to earlier versions of your photo. The free tier saves your photo, but you can always re-open and edit again.
Is Selective Adjust available on Android?
Yes, Cleanr works on both iPhone and Android. All AI Pro features, including Selective Adjust, are available on both platforms.
What other selective editing tools does Cleanr have?
Beyond selective brightness, AI Pro includes selective saturation and contrast adjustments on the same brush mask. You can also use portrait blur (which masks just the subject) and generative fill (which lets you paint regions for content-aware inpainting).