Photo spotlight effect.

Radial mode, fading inside out: the center stays fully visible and the edges go transparent. Over a dark background it reads as a spotlight on a stage.

A small radius, 100 to 200 pixels, for a tight, dramatic beam; a large one, 300 to 500, for a gentle falloff that only guides the eye. Match it to the subject's size.

Yes: draw an area selection around the subject and the radial fade centers on it, so a subject at the left or right of the frame still gets the light.

Black for the classic theatrical look; a dark blue or purple for mood. A textured background also works, since the transparent surround lets it show through.

A vignette darkens the edges but keeps them; a spotlight fade makes them fully transparent, so whatever is beneath shows. More dramatic, and more useful for compositing.

One per pass. For two spotlights, make two versions with different area selections and combine them in an editor with masks.

Uniform sets one opacity for the whole photo, from a faint ghost at 10 percent to nearly solid at 90. Linear fades from one edge to the other in the direction you choose; radial keeps the middle solid and fades toward the edges, or the other way round, with a radius you set.

Draw an area selection around the subject. A radial fade then centers on that area rather than on the frame, so an off-center face stays solid while the rest falls away.

No. The file is decoded, drawn and re-encoded by your browser's canvas, and the page makes no request with it. You can load the page, go offline and keep working; nothing is stored either.

No. The "Photo spotlight effect" tool is free and opens without a sign-in, an account or an install.

Nothing. The "Photo spotlight effect" tool holds your input in the page's memory, so closing or reloading the tab clears it, and it saves nothing in this browser.

Up to 100 MB per file, the limit the tool states under its drop area. A larger file is refused with a plain message instead of being decoded.

The edit is written as a PNG because PNG stores every pixel exactly, with a full alpha channel, so the result can be edited again without a second round of loss.

No. The browser decodes the image and the tool writes a new file from its pixels, so camera EXIF, GPS position and text chunks in the original are not copied into the result. Keep the original file if you need them.

No. The result has the same width and height in pixels as the source.

Closest to the "Photo spotlight effect" tool: JPG opacity changer, Portrait edge softening, Photo overlay transparency, PNG opacity changer. Each opens on its own page, free and in the browser.

The "Photo spotlight effect" tool is one of 44 in its group. The group's page, /tools/jpg, lists them all.

The tool is free. Its interface is built from shadcn.io's own components (Button, Input, Slider and the rest of the registry under /ui), which come in React, Vue, Svelte and Solid. Pro adds the blocks and templates for the product around it.