Image effects and filters
Blur, pixelate, censor or take the colour out of a picture, with one or two sliders and a preview that shows what you will get.
What these effects are for
Most of these effects have a practical use behind them. Blurring and pixelating hide what a picture should not show. Grayscale and black and white make a scan cleaner or let a photo sit on a printed page. The last two, pixel art and deep frying, are for fun.
The strength of every effect is measured against the picture, not in pixels. The same setting therefore looks the same on a phone photo and on a small thumbnail, and what the preview shows is what the full-size file will look like. The exact figure in pixels is given in the note under the result.
Be clear about what hides and what only softens. Blurring and pixelating are averages of what was there, and short text such as a row of digits can sometimes be guessed back from them. A solid block replaces the area outright. For a password, a card number or an address, use the block.
Hide or soften
The censor page works on areas you mark with a box. The other three treat the whole picture.
Censor Image
Drag a box over what should not be seen, such as a face, a number plate, an address or a line of a screen…
Blur Image
One slider takes a picture from slightly soft to fully frosted.
Pixelate Image
Break a picture into a grid of flat-coloured squares.
Motion Blur
Smear a picture along one direction, the way a camera does when it or the subject moves during the exposure.
Take the colour out
Grayscale keeps the light and shade. Black and white keeps two tones only, which suits text and line drawings.
For fun
A small grid and a handful of colours, or the look of a picture that has been reposted a hundred times.
Guides that go with these tools
Longer articles on the decisions behind them.
Frequently asked questions
How do I blur only part of a picture?
Use Censor Image. Drag a box over each area and choose blur, pixelate or a solid block. The Blur Image page blurs the whole frame.
Do these effects find faces automatically?
No. Nothing here detects faces, number plates or text. You place each box yourself, so nothing is hidden or left showing by a wrong guess.
Can a blurred or pixelated picture be restored?
Not to the original. Each is an average, and the pixels that were averaged are not kept in the file. A very light blur or small squares over simple content, such as printed digits, can sometimes be guessed, which is why the solid block is the one to use for secrets.
Is a grayscale image a smaller file than a colour one?
Not by design. The download is still an ordinary three-channel image that every program opens, so the saving, if any, is small. If size is the goal, compress the picture afterwards.