How to blur part of a picture
- Add your picture. Drop it anywhere on the page, paste it, or click the box to choose a file.
- Pick the effect and the shape at the top: Blur, Pixelate or Solid box, and a rectangle or an oval.
- Drag on the picture to mark an area. The effect appears at once. Mark as many areas as you need.
- Adjust. Click an area to select it, then drag it to move it, drag a square on its edge to resize it, or change the settings above to change it. Delete removes the selected area.
- Press Save the picture. The file is named after your picture with
-blurred,-pixelatedor-redactedadded.
When no area is selected, the settings above are for the next area you draw. When one is selected, they change that area, so you can mix effects in one picture: a strong blur on a face and a solid box on a house number, for instance.
Blur, pixelate or solid box?
| Effect | What it does | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Blur | Smears the area smoothly. Strength runs from 1 to 100 and starts at 60. The blur is a share of the area's size, from about 3% (light) to 20% (strong) of its shorter side, so a small face and a large one are both well hidden. | Faces and backgrounds, where you want a soft, natural look. |
| Pixelate | Turns the area into large squares, a mosaic. Strength sets how big they are: from 18 squares across the shorter side (light) down to 2 (strong). | Faces and logos, where an obvious censored look is fine. |
| Solid box | Covers the area completely with a color you pick (black to begin with). There is nothing underneath. | Anything that must not be recoverable: names, account numbers, passwords, addresses, license plates. |
Which one is safe for private details?
This matters if you are hiding something sensitive, so here is the honest version. A blur or a mosaic keeps a smeared version of the original colors, and software can sometimes recover part of what was there. Text is the weak spot: lightly blurred text, or text pixelated with small squares, can sometimes be read back, especially when the font and layout are known. Faces are different: a strong blur makes a face unrecognizable to strangers, but a light one can still be recognized by someone who knows the person.
- For text and numbers, use a solid box. The saved file contains the box, not the covered pixels, so nothing can be recovered.
- For faces, use a strong blur or strong pixelation, or a solid box if it really matters.
- Send only the saved file. Your original is unchanged on your disk, and it still shows everything.
- Check the result at full size before you share it. The page also shows the effect while you work, so zoom in on the picture to look.
Find faces
Press Find faces and the page looks for faces and draws an oval over each one, with a little room around it for hair and chin. It uses the TinyFaceDetector model from the open-source face-api.js library (MIT license). The first time, the page downloads the library and a model of about 190 KB, and your browser keeps them.
- It finds most clear, front-facing faces. Small, turned, partly covered or very dark faces can be missed, and now and then something that is not a face gets a box.
- Always check the result. Move or resize any oval, delete the wrong ones, and draw the ones it missed yourself.
- The effect is the one you have chosen. Set Blur, Pixelate or Solid box, and the strength, before you press the button, or select all the ovals afterward and change them one by one.
The other buttons
- Whole picture adds an area that covers everything, for blurring a background or making a quick censored copy. Resize it, or draw other areas over the top.
- Undo takes back your last change, and works for several steps. Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z on a Mac) does the same while the picture has focus.
- Delete the selected area and Clear all remove one area or all of them.
- Arrow keys move the selected area a pixel at a time, or ten with Shift held down.
Saving
- Full size. The page works on a smaller copy while you draw, so it stays quick. When you save, the effects are applied again to the full picture with the same code, so the saved file looks like the preview at the real resolution.
- File type. Same type as the original keeps JPEG as JPEG, PNG as PNG and WebP as WebP. iPhone HEIC photos become JPEG, and other types become PNG. You can also choose PNG, JPEG or WebP, and set the quality (50 to 100, starting at 92) for JPEG and WebP.
- Metadata is not kept. The saved file is a fresh picture, so the camera details and GPS location in the original are left behind, which suits a picture you are hiding things in. See our EXIF guide and the guide to removing location data.
- The phone's rotation tag is applied first, so the picture you mark up is upright.
- Size limit. Browsers will not make a picture larger than 16,384 pixels on a side or about 120 megapixels.
Limits
- One picture at a time. Press Another picture for the next one.
- Areas are rectangles and ovals. There is no freehand brush, so for an odd shape, cover it with a few overlapping areas.
- It works on pictures, not on video, and not on text inside a PDF, which can stay readable underneath a covering box in some programs.
- HEIC photos work. In browsers other than Safari, the page downloads a decoder of about 3 MB the first time you add one.
To crop away the part you do not need instead of hiding it, use the crop tool. To remove the hidden data inside the file without changing the picture, use the metadata remover.
Privacy
The effects are applied inside this tab, and the file on your disk is never changed or deleted. For what the site collects, see our privacy policy.
Frequently asked questions
How do I blur a face in a photo?
Add the photo, press Find faces (or drag an oval over the face yourself), choose Blur with a strong setting, and press Save the picture. For a face that must stay anonymous, use a solid box or a strong pixelation.
Is blurring text enough to hide it?
Not always. Lightly blurred or finely pixelated text can sometimes be partly recovered by software. For passwords, account numbers, names and addresses, use a Solid box, which leaves nothing underneath.
Can it blur all the faces automatically?
It can mark the faces it finds, which saves most of the work. It will miss some, such as small, turned or covered faces, so check the result and add boxes where needed.
Does the saved picture still contain the hidden part?
The saved file holds the blurred, pixelated or covered version, not the original pixels. Your original file, though, is unchanged, so do not share that one. The saved file also carries no camera or location data.
Can I blur the background instead of a face?
Not directly. The tool blurs the areas you mark, so to blur a background you would mark it with areas around your subject, which is fiddly. For a sharp subject on a different background, the background remover is the better tool.
Why is my picture saved as a different type?
With Same type as the original, iPhone HEIC photos are saved as JPEG, and types such as GIF or BMP as PNG. Pick the type you want under Save as.