Most photos you share carry more than you meant to show. A delivery label with a home address on a product shot, a stranger's face behind your customer at a pop-up stall, a car plate in a street photo, an order number in a screenshot, a child in the background of a team picture. Blurring or pixelating those parts lets you share the photo without sharing the details. Blurring the whole photo has its uses too, from soft website backgrounds to teaser images.
This tool does both, and it can also do the reverse: keep your subject sharp and blur everything else for a portrait look. All of it runs in your browser. The photo is not uploaded, and the saved file is made from your full resolution original.
How to blur part of an image
- Drop a photo into the box above, click it to choose one, or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V.
- Choose Only parts I mark at the top of the editor.
- Pick a marking tool. Rectangle: drag a box over each area. Brush: paint over irregular shapes such as a face in profile or a tattoo. Eraser: paint over a marked part to make it sharp again.
- Choose the Effect: Blur for a soft smudge, or Pixelate for chunky squares.
- Set the Blur strength or Block size. The line under the slider tells you the size in pixels on the full photo, such as "Blur radius of about 64 px".
- Use Undo to remove the last mark, or Clear marks to start over.
- Pick a format and click Download blurred photo.
To blur the whole photo instead, keep Whole photo selected, set the strength and download. To blur the background behind a person or product, mark the subject with the brush, tick Blur everything except the marked parts, and download.
Blur or pixelate?
| Blur | Pixelate | |
|---|---|---|
| Look | Soft and smooth, blends into the photo | Obvious squares, clearly "censored" |
| Best for | Backgrounds, faces in a crowd, a calmer look | License plates, text, screens, anything that must look deliberately hidden |
| Setting | Blur strength, radius grows with the photo size | Block size, squares grow with the photo size |
| Weak settings risk | Shapes and large text can stay readable | Small blocks over text can sometimes be reversed by software |
Both effects are scaled to the photo, so strength 50 looks similar on a 1,200 pixel screenshot and on a 6,000 pixel camera photo. At strength 100 the blur radius is about 4 percent of the photo's longer side, and pixel blocks are about 6 percent.
Strength guide
| Goal | Effect | Strength or block size |
|---|---|---|
| Soft background behind a subject | Blur | 20 to 40 |
| Calm website or newsletter background | Blur, whole photo | 30 to 60 |
| Faces in a crowd | Blur | 50 to 80 |
| License plates, house numbers | Pixelate | 40 to 70 |
| Names, addresses, order numbers in screenshots | Pixelate | Blocks larger than the letters, often 30 to 60 on a screenshot |
| Teaser image for a launch | Blur, whole photo | 70 to 100 |
These are starting points. The pixel figure under the slider is what counts: for text, the blocks or blur radius should be bigger than the height of the letters on the full size photo.
Hide details properly
A blur that looks hidden at a glance is not always hidden. People have recovered pixelated text from screenshots with software when the blocks were small and the font was known, and a light blur over a large number can stay readable when you squint. Follow these rules for anything sensitive:
- Go stronger than you think. For text and numbers, use Pixelate with blocks at least as big as the letters, or Blur at strength 60 or more.
- Cover a little more than the detail. Extend the box past the text on every side, so the length of a name or number is not obvious.
- Check at full size. Open the downloaded file and zoom in. If you can still guess a character, blur again with a stronger setting.
- For passwords, card numbers and account details, crop them out. The image cropper removes those pixels entirely, which is always safer than hiding them.
- Remember reflections. Mirrors, windows, glasses and screens in a photo can show what you blurred elsewhere.
Warning: blurring hides what is visible in the picture. It does not change who owns the photo or who may appear in it, so ask for consent where the law or a platform's rules require it.
Common uses
Faces of people who did not agree to be shown
Event photos, store openings, street scenes and classroom pictures often include people in the background. Brush over each face with the Blur effect at strength 50 or more. For children, many schools and parents expect faces to be hidden before anything is posted online.
License plates and house numbers
Selling a car, showing off a delivery van, posting a photo of your storefront: draw a rectangle over the plate and use Pixelate. Plates are designed to be readable, so a light blur is often not enough.
Shipping labels, receipts and screenshots
Unboxing photos, return requests and customer support screenshots often show names, addresses, order numbers and email addresses. Mark each one with a rectangle. For screenshots of dashboards, pixelate revenue numbers you do not want to share, or crop the panel out.
Background blur for product and portrait shots
Mark the product or person with the brush, tick Blur everything except the marked parts, and choose Blur at strength 20 to 40. The background softens while the subject stays sharp. Brush a little inside the subject's outline for a cleaner edge, and use the eraser to tidy spots you marked by mistake.
Soft background images for websites
Whole photo blur at strength 30 to 60 turns a busy photo into a calm background for a hero section or a newsletter header, where text on top stays readable.
Tips for marking
- Rectangles are quickest for text, plates and screens. Draw one per item.
- The brush size slider scales with the photo. For faces, set it so one stroke covers about half the face, then paint two or three strokes.
- On a phone, the photo area does not scroll while you mark, so your strokes stay where you put them. Scroll by touching outside the photo.
- A strip at the top of the preview reminds you what to do until you make the first mark.
- Undo removes marks one at a time, newest first.
Screenshots need extra care
Screenshots are the most common source of accidental leaks, because they are sharp, full of text and shared quickly. Before posting a screenshot of a dashboard, an inbox, a chat or an order page, look for names and email addresses in headers and sidebars, browser tabs and bookmarks, notification banners, the clock and battery icons that hint at time zones, and URLs that contain IDs or tokens. Mark each with a rectangle and Pixelate. Then check the corners: profile pictures in a corner are easy to miss. If most of the screenshot is sensitive, crop to the part you actually need to show.
What blurring cannot do
This tool adds blur. It cannot remove blur from a photo that came out soft or shaky, and no simple tool can bring back detail that the camera did not record. It also cannot remove an object and fill the space with what was behind it; for that you need an editor with content-aware fill. And it does not touch copies of the photo you already sent or posted. Blur first, then share.
Quality and file size
The preview is calculated on a smaller copy so it stays fast, and the download is calculated again on the full resolution photo, so edges and strength match what you saw. Blur makes images easier to compress, so a blurred JPG is often a little smaller than the original. Original keeps the photo's own format (GIF, BMP and AVIF become PNG); JPG at 85 to 90 suits most photos, PNG suits screenshots with sharp text that is not blurred.
The saved file contains only the processed pixels. Camera data such as the date, phone model and GPS location is not copied, which removes one more way a photo can reveal where it was taken. Photos above about 40 megapixels are scaled down when opened so the browser can handle the blur, and the tool tells you when that happens.
Example: a customer unboxing photo
A customer sends a lovely photo of your product next to its open shipping box, and you want to post it. The label shows their full name and address, and a family photo on the wall is visible behind them.
- Open the photo and choose Only parts I mark with the Rectangle tool.
- Drag a box over the shipping label, leaving a margin around it. Drag another over the family photo on the wall.
- Choose Pixelate and set the block size to about 60. Check the label: no letters should be readable.
- Download as JPG at quality 85 and ask the customer for permission to post, as you would anyway.
The same three minutes work for review screenshots, testimonial images and before and after photos. If you add product photos to your store from supplier pages, AM Jarvis's Product Importer brings in every image with the product, and this tool handles the occasional photo that shows something it should not.
Example: a market stall photo with passers-by
A seller takes a wide photo of their stall at a weekend market to post on Instagram. Five shoppers are in the frame, two of them clearly recognizable, and a car plate shows behind the stall.
- Choose Only parts I mark and the Brush. Set the brush size so one stroke covers about half a face, and paint over the two clear faces and any partly visible ones.
- Switch to Rectangle and drag a box over the plate.
- Choose Blur at strength 70. The faces become soft shapes, and the stall stays crisp.
- The plate is better pixelated, so download once with Blur, then open that file, mark only the plate, choose Pixelate and download again.
Two passes give you the right effect for each kind of detail, and the final photo is ready to crop to 4:5 for the feed.
Blurring on a phone
The tool works in mobile browsers. Tap the drop box to choose a photo or a screenshot from your library, switch to Only parts I mark, and draw with your finger. Rectangles are easier than the brush on a small screen; for faces, two or three overlapping rectangles work well. The download goes to your Files or Downloads app, from where you can share it directly.
Troubleshooting
- Nothing happens when I drag: you are in Whole photo mode. Switch to Only parts I mark.
- "Mark at least one area first": in marking mode the download needs a box or brush stroke, otherwise nothing would change.
- A face is still recognizable: the strength is too low for the photo size, or the mark misses the hairline and ears. Add a bigger brush stroke and raise the strength.
- The blur looks weaker in the download: zoom to 100 percent. The preview is smaller, which makes blur look stronger.
- The format option WebP is missing: your browser cannot save WebP from a web page, as in Safari. Use JPG or PNG.
Related tools: add a caption with the add text to photo tool, protect product photos with the watermark maker, or make a photo grayscale with the black and white converter.