How to Blur Out Faces, Plates & Text in a Photo
Before you post a photo, it's worth hiding anything you don't want the whole internet to see: a bystander's face, a license plate, a house number, an email on a screenshot. Here's how to do it properly — and why a gentle blur sometimes isn't enough.
Blur vs pixelate
Both hide detail, and both are fine for most purposes:
- Blur smears the area into a soft smudge. It looks natural and clean.
- Pixelate replaces the area with large blocks of color — the classic "censored" look that reads clearly as intentionally hidden.
Our blur tool offers both; just drag a box over the area and pick an effect.
Make it strong enough to be irreversible
This matters: a light blur or coarse pixelation can sometimes be partially reversed, especially for predictable content like numbers or text. When you're hiding something genuinely sensitive:
- Turn the strength up. Over-blur rather than under-blur.
- Cover generously. Extend the box a little beyond the edges of what you're hiding.
- Don't rely on faint pixelation for text — heavy blur or a solid block is safer for numbers and words.
Hiding multiple areas
To blur several spots, hide the first area and download, then re-upload the result and blur the next. Each pass bakes the previous blur permanently into the image, so there's no way to peel it back.
Keep the process private
You're hiding sensitive information, so the last thing you want is to upload the original to a server. Our tool applies the blur entirely in your browser — the untouched image never leaves your device. As a final step before sharing, also remove the photo's EXIF metadata, which can otherwise reveal the exact GPS location where it was taken.