Better Colors Review: Features, Pros, Cons & Alternatives
By Daniel Walker
If your photos look flat, faded, or poorly lit, Better Colors promises a fix in one click. It's a free Windows app built around a single job: brightening dull colors and boosting contrast automatically. But a one-click tool has limits, especially if your photos need upscaling, noise removal, or face repair.
This review breaks down what Better Colors does well, where it falls short, and rounds up five of the best Better Colors alternatives, including HitPaw FotorPea, so you can pick the right tool for 2026.
Part 1: Better Colors Review: Features, Performance & Limitations
What Is Better Colors?
Better Colors (mybettercolors.com) is a web-based editor built for simple, no-fuss image fixes. Instead of cluttering your screen with endless technical panels, it focuses strictly on basic adjustments, helping you tweak color balance, boost saturation, and balance contrast right inside your browser window.
What Better Colors Does Well
- One-click enhancement with no learning curve as you open the app, drop a photo and done
- Completely free, with no watermark, trial limit, or paywall
- Lightweight install that runs smoothly even on older, lower-spec PCs
- Genuinely helpful for washed-out, low-contrast photos, like old snapshots that have faded
- Simple drag-and-drop workflow that most people can use without instructions
Limitations You Should Know
- No batch or bulk processing, as every photo has to be enhanced one at a time
- No manual controls, sliders, or strength adjustment for the enhancement
- No upscaling as it can't increase resolution or add detail to a low-res image
- No dedicated face-repair or portrait mode
- No colorization tool for black-and-white photos
- Windows-only, with no Mac, iOS, or Android version
Use Cases & Ideal For
Better Colors makes the most sense for casual users who want a free, fast contrast and color fix for a handful of personal photos. It's not built for photographers, for restoring badly damaged or very low-resolution images, or for anyone who needs to process large batches of photos at once. If your priority is upscaling, face restoration, colorization, or bulk editing, a dedicated AI photo enhancer will get you noticeably further.
Pricing & Platform
Better Colors is completely free, with no premium tier or subscription, and it's available only on Windows (Windows 7 and above).
Part 2: 5 Best Better Colors Alternatives for Photo Enhancement in 2026
1. HitPaw FotorPea - Best Overall AI Photo Enhancer
HitPaw FotorPea is HitPaw's AI photo enhancer and AI photo generator. If basic color sliders aren't cutting it, this desktop program steps things up with targeted AI models that automatically unblur, sharpen, and upscale low-quality photos.
Pros
- Comes with 9+ targeted AI models (Face Restoration, Denoise, Colorize, General Model, etc.).
- The built-in image upscaler enlarges photos to 4 K or 8 K resolution without sacrificing crispness.
- Processes large batches of photos together to save time.
- Includes useful extras such as an AI image generator and an object eraser.
Cons
- Requires a software download for Windows or Mac.
- Full batch exporting requires a paid license.
How to Use HitPaw FotorPea
Step 1.Download and install HitPaw FotorPea, then open the app. Drag your photo into the workspace, or click to browse and upload it.
Step 2.Choose an AI model that fits your photo, such as General, Face, Denoise, or Colorize. Preview the enhancement and adjust the resolution target (up to 8K).
Step 3.Click Export to save the enhanced photo, or select a folder to batch-process multiple images.
2. Topaz Photo - Best for Professional AI Enhancement
Topaz Photo is built for photographers who need pixel-level control. It offers over 100 specialized AI models, subject-aware sharpening that tells camera shake apart from motion blur and out-of-focus shots, strong noise reduction, and upscaling up to 16x through its Gigapixel engine. It integrates directly as a plugin inside Lightroom and Photoshop, which makes it a natural fit for an existing editing workflow rather than a stand-alone quick fix.
Pros
- Industry-standard noise reduction and fine-detail recovery on RAW files.
- Smart Autopilot feature evaluates shots and picks the right settings automatically.
- Runs seamlessly as a plugin inside Photoshop and Lightroom.
Cons
- Steep upfront price tag.
- Needs a strong computer with a dedicated graphics card to run fast.
3. Adobe Lightroom - Best for Manual Photo Enhancement
Adobe Lightroom is the industry-standard choice for anyone who wants full manual control over color, exposure, and detail, backed up by AI-assisted tools like masking and generative remove. Unlike Better Colors, it isn't a one-click fix as it's a complete editing environment with presets, cloud sync across devices, and non-destructive editing history.
Pros
- Complete professional control over tone, color balance, and shadows.
- Automatic cloud sync keeps your library updated across desktop, tablet, and phone.
- Best-in-class organization for managing massive photo catalogs.
Cons
- Requires a monthly subscription.
- Steeper learning curve than an automated AI photo enhancer
4. Upscayl - Best Free AI Upscaling Tool
Upscayl is a free, open-source AI image upscaler that runs entirely on your own computer using Real-ESRGAN models, with no uploads, credits, or subscriptions required. It can enlarge images from 2x up to 16x while ships with several AI models tuned for photos, illustrations, and mixed content, and it processes whole folders of images in a batch.
Pros:
- Completely free with no limits, ads, or watermarks.
- Keeps your files private by processing everything locally.
- Great for sharpening digital art, graphics, and low-res photos.
Cons:
- Doesn't include basic photo editing or color sliders.
- Needs a computer GPU that supports Vulkan drivers.
5. Remini - Best for Face & Portrait Enhancement
Remini is a mobile-first app (with a web version) that specializes in restoring faces in old, blurry, or low-quality photos. Its one-tap AI Enhance feature is particularly strong at recovering facial detail, and it also handles general photo restoration, noise reduction, and video enhancement.
Pros:
- Impressive facial reconstruction for soft or damaged photos.
- Fast one-tap processing on mobile devices.
Cons:
- Facial reconstructions can sometimes look artificially airbrushed.
- The free mobile version pushes constant subscription popups.
Part 3: FAQs About Better Colors
No. Better Colors only adjusts color, contrast, and lighting at the photo's original resolution - it doesn't add pixels or increase image size. For upscaling, a tool like Upscayl (free) or HitPaw FotorPea (paid, up to 8K) is a better fit.
No. Better Colors is Windows-only, supporting Windows 7 and newer. Mac users who want a similarly simple one-click experience should look at HitPaw FotorPea or Remini instead, both of which support macOS.
Better Colors is a free, single-purpose color and contrast corrector with no batch tools, upscaling, or face restoration. HitPaw FotorPea is a paid, full-featured AI photo enhancement suite that offers 4K/8K upscaling, face restoration, colorization, unlimited batch processing, and additional AI creative tools on both Windows and Mac.
It depends on what you need. For an all-around balance of price and features, HitPaw FotorPea is the strongest overall pick. For maximum control and professional-grade sharpening, Topaz Photo leads the pack. If budget is the main concern, Upscayl is free and genuinely capable. For portraits and faces specifically, Remini remains the specialist choice.
Final Verdict
Better Colors does exactly what it promises: a free, one-click way to brighten dull, faded photos on Windows. That makes it a genuinely useful tool for casual users with a handful of old snapshots to touch up. But its lack of batch processing, upscaling, and face restoration means it hits a ceiling quickly for anyone with more demanding needs.
If you want a photo enhancement software that goes further without becoming as complex as Lightroom, HitPaw FotorPea is the best all-around Better Colors alternative for 2026, combining AI upscaling, face repair, colorization, and batch editing in one app for both Windows and Mac.
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