Brightness is how light or dark the whole image is. Turn up the brightness, adjust the brightness, brightness and contrast.
It shifts every value up or down together, which is what separates it from contrast, which stretches the difference between light and dark. Raising the brightness of a dark photograph lifts the shadows but adds no detail that was not recorded.
1nounbrightnessHow light or dark the whole image is.
“The photo was too dark, so I turned up the brightness on my phone.”
brightness is a setting.
Old English beorhtnes, from beorht, bright, from a Germanic root meaning to shine.
Proto-West Germanic
*berhtnassī
Old English
beorhtnes — brightness, splendor
Middle English
bryghtnes
English, today
brightness
From Middle English bryghtnes, brightnesse, from Old English beorhtnes (“brightness, splendor”), from Proto-West Germanic berhtnassī, equivalent to bright + -ness. Cognate with Old High German berahtnessī, berahtnessi (“brightness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA