Almost everyone has a clip that is great except for the light: an interview filmed in a dim office, a product shot under yellow kitchen bulbs, a face lit from above by a ceiling panel. Before you reshoot, here are five ways to fix bad lighting in a video, and how to pick the right one.

First, diagnose the problem

  • Too dark (underexposed): the whole image is murky and noisy in the shadows.
  • Too bright (overexposed): skies and skin are clipped to pure white.
  • Wrong colour: a yellow, green or blue cast from mixed bulbs or a wrong white balance.
  • Wrong direction or hardness: top-down light with dark eye sockets, a hard shadow across the face, or flat light with no depth.

The first three are mostly colour problems. The last one is a lighting problem, and that is where classic editing tools run out of options.

Method 1: Exposure and curves

Every editor has exposure, highlights, shadows and curves. Lifting the shadows and the mid-tones fixes mild underexposure. It works well when the image is slightly dark but clean. It fails when the shadows are very noisy, because brightening them also brightens the noise.

Method 2: White balance and colour correction

A colour cast is fixed with the temperature and tint sliders, or by picking something that should be neutral grey. This removes the yellow kitchen look or the green office tint. It does not change where the light comes from.

Method 3: Masks and power windows

In tools like DaVinci Resolve or Premiere you can draw a mask around a face, track it and brighten only that area. It is precise but slow: masks need tracking, and they still only change brightness and colour inside a shape. They cannot create a believable new light direction.

Method 4: Denoise, then brighten

For very dark footage, run a noise reduction pass first, then lift the exposure. You get a cleaner image, but it still looks like a dark scene that was brightened, because the light is still flat and comes from the same place.

Method 5: AI relighting

AI relighting regenerates the shot under a new light instead of adjusting the existing pixels. In Nano Banana Light Studio, you upload a clip of up to 15 seconds, choose a lighting style and get the same shot with the subjects, motion, camera and audio preserved. Because the model re-renders the scene, shadows and highlights land where the new light would put them.

Best styles for fixing bad lighting

  • Studio Softbox: clean key light, soft fill and a white rim. The go-to fix for talking heads filmed under ceiling lights.
  • Overcast Daylight: even, nearly shadowless light. Very flattering on skin and good for vlogs.
  • Golden Hour: when flat daylight looks dull, a warm side light adds depth and mood.

When AI relighting is the right choice

  • The light direction is the problem, not only the colour.
  • You need several clips to match the same look.
  • Reshooting is not possible: the moment, the guest or the location is gone.

When it is not

  • The subject is lost in pure black or pure white: the model cannot invent what was never captured.
  • You need a long take: each relight is limited to 15 seconds, so long shots must be split.
  • Tiny text or logos must stay pixel-perfect: compare carefully before publishing.

A simple workflow that works

  1. Fix obvious colour casts and exposure first (methods 1 and 2) so the model sees a clean image.
  2. Trim the shot to under 15 seconds and relight it in 480p with two or three styles.
  3. Keep the best one, render it in 768p or 1080p, and use the same style for every shot of the scene.

Want the step-by-step version? Read How to Relight a Video with AI.

Light Studio is included in every Nano Banana plan, from €19.99/mo. Create your account and relight your first clip in a couple of minutes.