Blur Image: Blur or Pixelate Part of a Photo
Blur image areas you do not want to share: faces, number plates, addresses, chat names or a password in a screenshot. Draw boxes over them and choose a soft blur, a pixel mosaic or a solid black box, or let an on-device detector find every face for you. The picture is edited in your browser, so the private version you start from is never uploaded.
- Runs on your device
- Canvas · GPU
- On-device AI
- Works offline
Updated
Drop your images here
How to blur part of an image
Step 1: Drop your photo or screenshot on the box above.
Step 2: Drag on the preview to draw a box over each area to hide, or switch on Also detect faces automatically.
Step 3: Choose Blur, Pixelate or Black box, and set Strength for blur and pixelate.
Step 4: Press Blur and download the result.
Good to know
Settings explained
- Also detect faces automatically
- Uses a tiny on-device face detector (under 1 MB).
Formats
Batch-friendly: add many files and they are processed one after another — if one fails, the rest still finish.
How it runs
- GPU canvas
- Pixels are drawn and composited with the GPU-accelerated canvas.
- Vision model
- A compact computer-vision model runs locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to an AI service.
Blur, pixelate or black box: which one to use
All three hide the area; they differ in how they look and how much they can be undone. A black box removes the information completely. Blur and pixelation keep the rough shape and colours, which looks nicer on photos but leaves a little to work with on text.
| Effect | Looks like | Can it be undone? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blur | Soft, smooth smear that blends into the photo | No for faces at high strength; weak blur on large text may stay partly legible | Faces, number plates and backgrounds in photos you will post |
| Pixelate | Mosaic of square blocks | Short text such as names or numbers can sometimes be guessed from coarse blocks | The classic “censored” look; see the image pixelator |
| Black box | Solid black rectangle | No: the pixels are replaced | Passwords, card and ID numbers, addresses, anything you must not leak |
Blur part of a picture: boxes, edges and batches
Drag on the preview to draw a box, then move or resize it until it covers what you want to hide; add as many as you need, up to 20 per image. The edge of a blurred box fades out slightly beyond the line you drew, so the result does not look like a hard sticker, while the area inside the box is fully blurred.
Boxes are stored as positions relative to the image, so in a batch they land in the same place on every picture. That suits a series of screenshots from one app, such as a list of chats where the name always sits in the same corner.
How to blur a face in a photo
Switch on Also detect faces automatically. A small face detector (YuNet, a 233 KB model that is part of the site, so nothing is fetched from a third party) scans the photo on your device and adds a box around every face it finds, a little larger than the face itself so hair and ears are covered too. You can still draw extra boxes for anything else.
Check the result before posting: faces in profile, very small faces in a crowd or faces partly hidden by hands can be missed, so add a box for any that are. For faces in a video, use blur faces, which tracks them frame by frame.
How to blur out text in a picture or screenshot
Draw a box over each line and pick the effect by how sensitive it is. For names and chat previews, blur or pixelation at 60% or more is enough and looks tidy. For passwords, one-time codes, card numbers, IDs and addresses, use Black box: it replaces the pixels with solid black, so there is nothing left to recover.
Strength is measured against the size of each box, so a small box over one word is blurred as heavily, relatively, as a large box over a paragraph.
| Strength | Blur radius | On a 200 px box |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | 8% of the box | 17 px |
| 40% | 13% of the box | 26 px |
| 60% | 17% of the box | 34 px |
| 80% | 22% of the box | 43 px |
| 100% | 26% of the box | 52 px |
Is blurring or a black box safer for hiding text?
A black box is safer. Blurring and pixelation average the pixels under the box, and for short, predictable text such as a name or a number, people have shown that the original can sometimes be guessed by comparing candidates with the blurred result, especially when the effect is light. A solid box removes the information entirely.
Two more checks are worth a second. Make sure the box covers the whole word, including descenders such as g and y, and remember the file’s metadata: a redacted photo can still carry GPS coordinates, which remove metadata from photo takes out.
Why redact images with ProMedia
- The unredacted file never leaves your device. Upload-based editors receive the very picture you are trying to protect; here it is edited by your own browser.
- Batches with the same boxes. One layout of boxes applies to every image you add.
- GIFs too. Animated GIFs keep moving with the boxes applied to every frame.
- No watermark, no account. Download the result straight away, as JPG, PNG, WebP or the input’s own format.
Tips & troubleshooting
Remove the subject’s surroundings instead of blurring them? The background remover cuts people or objects out cleanly.
To erase an object rather than hide it, try remove objects, which fills the area with matching background.
Blurring a region in a video, such as a logo or a screen? Blur video does it for clips.
Make boxes a little bigger than the text: anti-aliased letter edges extend a pixel or two beyond what you see.
For the mosaic look with a block-size slider, use the dedicated pixelate image page.
Blur / Pixelate Image FAQ
How do I blur part of a picture?
Drop the picture here, drag a box over the area, choose Blur and press Blur. You can draw up to 20 boxes per image and set the strength from 1 to 100%.
How do I blur a face in a photo?
Switch on automatic face detection and every face the on-device detector finds gets a box, or draw a box over a face yourself. Check for missed faces in profile or far away before you share it.
How do I blur out text in a screenshot?
Draw a box over each line of text. For names, blur at 60% or more is fine; for passwords, codes and numbers, use Black box, which cannot be reversed.
How do I pixelate an image?
Choose Pixelate instead of Blur and draw your boxes; Strength sets the block size. The pixelate image page has the same tool with pixelation as the default.
Is blurring or a black box safer for hiding text?
A black box. Light blur or coarse pixelation on short text can sometimes be guessed back; a solid box replaces the pixels, leaving nothing to recover.
Can I blur the whole image?
Draw one box from corner to corner and the entire picture is blurred. Strength scales with the box, so a full-image box gets a heavy blur even at low settings.
Is your image uploaded anywhere?
No. Your image is processed by your own browser on your own device. There is no server that receives files, so nothing is uploaded, stored or shared. You can even switch to airplane mode once the page has loaded.