Add motion blur to an image
Smear a picture along one direction, the way a camera does when it or the subject moves during the exposure. Choose how long the streak is and which way it runs.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing is uploaded
- No sign-up
- Batch up to 20 images
Drag & drop your image here
or tap to browse · you can also paste from the clipboard
JPG · PNG · WebP · GIF · BMP · AVIF · SVG · up to 50 MB each · up to 20 files
Choose imagesBefore
After
Processed image will appear here.
How to use the motion blur tool
Add the picture, set the Length of the streak and choose a Direction: 0° for left-to-right movement, 90° for up-and-down. The whole frame is smeared along that line while detail across it stays sharp, which is what reads as speed.
- Add your imageA short horizontal streak is applied to start with.
- Set length and direction0° runs left to right, 90° straight up and down.
- DownloadKeep the original format, or pick JPG, PNG or WebP.
About this tool
An ordinary blur softens a picture in every direction at once. Motion blur softens it along a single line and leaves everything across that line sharp, and that difference is what the eye reads as speed. A horizontal streak suggests a car passing; a vertical one suggests rain or a fall.
The whole frame is streaked by the same amount, as if the camera itself had moved. That suits backgrounds, textures and deliberate speed effects. It does not pick out a moving subject and leave the rest still, which needs the subject to be cut out first and is not something this page does.
What you get
- Straight-line blur at any angle from 0° to 175°
- Length follows the picture's size, not a pixel count
- Detail across the direction of travel stays sharp
- Batch up to 20 images with one setting
- Runs on your device, with no upload
When to use the motion blur tool
Speed in a still photo
A horizontal streak across a road, a track or a pitch turns a frozen moment into something that looks as if it was caught in passing.
Rain, snow and falling effects
A vertical or steeply slanted streak makes scattered dots read as streaks of weather.
Dynamic backgrounds
A long streak reduces a photo to bands of colour running one way, which makes an energetic backdrop for a title or a thumbnail.
Brushed textures
Streaking a noisy or speckled image at a low angle gives the look of brushed metal or wood grain for use as a surface.
What each length does
| Length | Streak on a 4000 px photo | Streak on a 1000 px image | Looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 17 px | 4 px | A slight shake |
| 10 | 32 px | 8 px | Camera nudged during the shot |
| 25 | 93 px | 23 px | Clear movement |
| 50 | 232 px | 58 px | Fast pass; details gone along the line |
| 75 | 404 px | 101 px | Long streaks of colour |
| 100 | 600 px | 150 px | Bands only |
How it works
Motion blur is an average taken along a straight line. To do that at any angle, the picture is divided into parallel lines one pixel wide that run in the chosen direction, with every pixel belonging to exactly one of them, and each line is given a moving average of the chosen length. Pixels are never mixed with those on a neighbouring line, which is why detail at right angles to the movement comes through untouched.
The streak length runs from 0.2% to 15% of the picture's longer side. Because a moving average only has to add the pixel entering its window and drop the one leaving it, a 600 pixel streak costs no more to compute than a 20 pixel one. Angles are offered from 0° to 175° in steps of 5°: a streak has no front or back, so 180° would be identical to 0°.
Common problems and how to fix them
- It just looks blurry, not fast
- The streak is running along the main lines of the picture, which hides it. Turn the direction so it crosses them, or raise the length. Speed shows best where there are distinct points or edges to be dragged out.
- My subject is blurred too
- The whole frame is streaked evenly. Keeping one object sharp needs it to be cut out and laid back over the blurred picture, which this page does not do.
- Diagonal streaks look slightly stepped
- Close up, a slanted line on a grid of pixels is a staircase. It is not visible at normal viewing size. If it matters, use a longer streak, which averages the steps away.
- The corners look different from the middle
- At a slant, the lines that pass through a corner are shorter than the streak itself, so there is less to average there and the corner stays a little closer to the original.
Frequently asked questions
Which direction should I choose?
The direction the thing would be moving. Use 0° for something travelling across the frame, 90° for something falling or rising, and an angle in between for a slope. The streak is the same whichever way along that line the movement goes, which is why the angles stop at 175° instead of going on to 360°.
Can I blur the background and keep the subject sharp?
Not on this page. The whole frame is streaked evenly. Keeping a subject sharp means cutting it out of the picture first, and this site does not do subject cut-outs.
Can motion blur be removed from a photo with this?
No. This page adds blur. Removing real motion blur from a photograph is a different and much harder problem that needs to estimate how the camera moved, and no tool here attempts it.
Why do the ends of the streaks look different at the edges?
A streak needs pixels on both sides of each point. At the border of the picture there are none on one side, so the edge pixel is repeated to fill in. It is rarely visible, and cropping a sliver off afterwards removes it.
What is the difference between motion blur and ordinary blur?
Ordinary blur spreads each pixel out in every direction, like a lens out of focus. Motion blur spreads it along one line only, like a camera that moved. For the first, use Blur Image.
Can I streak several photos the same way?
Yes. Add up to 20 images and they are all given the same length and direction, then downloaded together as a ZIP. Because the length follows each picture's size, mixed sizes still come out matching.