Blur Image & Face Pixelate Tool
Hide faces, number plates, names and other private details, or give your photo a soft background. Paint with a brush, drag a rectangle or ellipse, or blur everything except your subject. It all runs in your browser.
How to use the Blur Image & Face Pixelate Tool
- Open a photo by dropping it on the box or clicking to choose it.
- Pick a mode: Brush, Rectangle, Ellipse, Whole image or Blur background, and choose Blur or Pixelate.
- Set the strength (and the brush size), then paint or drag over the areas to hide.
- Check the result with Compare before / after, and use Undo if needed.
- Download the image as PNG, JPG or WebP at its original size.
Which mode should I use?
| Goal | Mode | Suggested effect |
|---|---|---|
| Hide a face in a group photo | Ellipse | Pixelate, strength 40–70 |
| Hide a car number plate or house number | Rectangle | Pixelate or blur, strength 50+ |
| Hide names, emails or addresses in a screenshot | Rectangle | Pixelate with large blocks |
| Irregular areas such as a tattoo or a crowd | Brush | Blur, strength 30–60 |
| Portrait look with a soft background | Blur background | Blur, strength 15–35 |
| Soft, dreamy image or wallpaper | Whole image | Blur, strength 5–20 |
How the strength setting works
Strength is relative to the size of your photo, so the same setting looks similar on a small screenshot and a large camera image. For blur, the Gaussian radius (standard deviation) is up to 4% of the longer side of the image: on a 4000 px photo, strength 50 gives a radius of 80 px. For pixelate, the block size is up to 6% of the longer side, so strength 50 on a 4000 px photo gives 120 px blocks. Each block takes the exact average colour of the pixels inside it.
Privacy tips for photos you share
- Cover more than you think. Faces can be recognised from hair, ears and clothing, so include them in the selection.
- Use strong settings for text. Lightly blurred or finely pixelated text can sometimes be reconstructed, because there are only so many possible letters. Large pixel blocks over the entire text line are much safer.
- Check reflections in windows, mirrors, glasses and screens.
- Remember the metadata. Images saved from this tool are freshly encoded and do not carry the original EXIF data such as GPS location or camera serial number.
- Ask for consent. In many countries, publishing identifiable photos of people, especially children, requires their or their parents’ permission. Blurring faces is a simple way to respect that.
Blur versus pixelate
A Gaussian blur replaces every pixel with a weighted average of its neighbours, where nearby pixels count more than distant ones. It looks natural and is ideal for backgrounds. Pixelation instead divides the area into a grid and fills each square with one colour, so fine details disappear completely within each block. Pixelation is the effect broadcasters use to anonymise people, while blur is preferred for aesthetic effects such as a shallow depth of field.
Frequently asked questions
Is blurring enough to hide a face or number plate?
Use a strong setting. Light blur on small text can sometimes be reversed or guessed, so for sensitive details choose Pixelate with large blocks or blur at high strength, and cover the whole area generously. For maximum safety, a solid shape is the only effect that removes the information completely.
Is my photo uploaded?
No. The photo is processed with the canvas API on your device and saved directly from your browser. It is never sent to a server.
What is the difference between blur and pixelate?
Blur spreads each pixel over its neighbours using a Gaussian filter, giving a soft look. Pixelate replaces each square block with its average colour, giving the familiar mosaic used on TV to hide faces.
How does Blur background work?
Paint over the person or object you want to keep sharp; it turns green. When you press Blur background, the whole photo is blurred and your painted subject is placed back on top with a slightly soft edge, similar to a portrait-mode photo.
Does the download keep the original resolution?
Yes. All edits are applied to the full-size image, and the download has the same width and height as your original. The preview is only scaled down to fit your screen.
Why does the blur look different in Safari?
Older Safari versions do not support canvas filters, so the tool falls back to a built-in three-pass box blur, which closely approximates a Gaussian blur. The result is very similar, just a little slower on large photos.