Video Effects
Open the editor

Make a video or photo black and white

Take the colour out with the slider and compare the result with the original, then open your own video or photo and export it at full resolution. It runs in your browser: your file is never uploaded.

  • Free
  • No upload
  • No account needed
  • No watermark
  • MP4, WebM, PNG, JPEG, WebP
Backlit red poppies against deep green, the right half of the frame in black and white, the petals turned light grey.

Black and white

Amount
Brightness
Open your own fileOpen this look in the editor

How to make a video black and white online

  1. Open your video or photo

    Choose Open your own file: the editor opens with the effect, ready for your file (videos as MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV; photos as JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF). It opens in your browser, and nothing is uploaded.

  2. Set the amount and compare

    Amount takes the colour out: all of it at 100, some of it below that. Compare shows the original beside the result; play a video to check it scene by scene.

  3. Export it

    In the editor, export the video as MP4 or WebM, or the photo as PNG, JPEG or WebP, at its full resolution, with no watermark.

All the way, or just less colour

Amount sets how far the picture turns to grey, from 0, the original, to 100, where no colour is left. In between, some of the colour stays, for a muted look between colour and black and white.

On video, every frame is converted as it plays, and the export matches the preview frame for frame.

Greys by brightness, not a plain average

Each pixel turns to the grey of its own brightness, worked out as broadcast video weighs red, green and blue (Rec. 709) and in linear light, rather than as a plain average of the three. So a blue sky stays darker than yellow flowers, much as the eye sees them.

Colours just as bright as each other turn the same grey, so a red flower can merge with green leaves of the same brightness. There are no colour filters here to lighten one colour against another, and a black and white picture often wants more contrast than the colour one: in the editor, Contrast is in Light and colour.

A black and white negative

Brightness set to Reversed turns the greys around, as an image editor's Invert does: white turns black, black turns white, and mid-grey stays mid-grey. It is a negative of the greys, not of the colours, so the result is grey rather than red turned cyan.

Below an Amount of 100, the reversed greys mix with the colour picture, for a ghostly, half-negative look.

Black and white with a film look

In the editor, Black and white sits beside grain, a vignette, halation, bloom and your own LUT. It applies after the glows, the vignette and the fade, so they turn grey with the picture, and before a LUT, scanlines, grain and dither; drag the effects into another order to change that.

Your files stay on your device

Everything happens right on your device, in your browser. Your videos and photos are opened, edited and saved there, and never sent anywhere.

Because nothing is uploaded, your files are safe: nothing can leak, and no one else, not even us, ever sees them. You don't need an account: one holds only your email address and the AI agents you let in, and signing in keeps a single cookie. An agent's instructions to your editor pass through our server and are deleted as soon as the editor has carried them out; your files never do. Without cookies, the site counts visits and a few choices, such as a preset or effect you pick and the format you export to, but never which files you open or anything in them.

Exports leave out hidden details such as where a video was recorded, and a shared link carries only your settings, never your file.

Files and browsers

Opens MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV videos and JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF photos, and exports MP4 or WebM, or PNG, JPEG or WebP, at full resolution, keeping the original sound where the browser can. Works in current Chrome and Edge on a computer or Android, in current Firefox on a computer and in Safari 26 or later; HDR video is converted to standard range.

A ready-made black and white look

The Black and white preset takes the colour out with Saturation rather than this effect, and adds firmer contrast, grain and a light vignette. It opens the editor with that look:

Questions about making a video black and white

Choose Open your own file above to open the editor with the effect, open your video there, keep Amount at 100 and export it as MP4 or WebM. In the editor, Black and white is under Add effect.

More effects to try

See every effect