Free Online Tool
Censor Photo: Blur or Pixelate Part of an Image
Draw one or more boxes over faces, names, plates, or account numbers, then pixelate, blur, or black-bar each box. Every box keeps its own effect and its own strength. It all runs on a canvas in your browser, so the photo is never uploaded.
Upload Image
Drop an image here or click to upload
Supports JPG, PNG, WebP
Censor Settings
Drag on the image to draw your first censor box.
PNG keeps every pixel outside your boxes exactly as it came in.
Multiple boxes in one pass
Draw as many censor boxes as the photo needs. Each box keeps its own effect and its own strength, so you can pixelate a face and black-bar an account number in the same export.
Pixelate with a real block size
The mosaic is built by shrinking the box to ceil(width / block size) pixels and drawing it back with image smoothing off, so the slider value is the actual block size, from 2 to 60 px.
Solid black bars
The black-bar effect fills the box with #000000 at full opacity, snapped to pixel boundaries. It is the only one of the three effects that overwrites the original pixels outright.
Full-resolution live preview
The preview canvas is the image at its natural size, so what you see is what the download contains. Only the dashed outlines are preview chrome, and they are never exported.
Blur that stays inside the box
Each blurred box is composed on its own padded offscreen canvas and written back with putImageData, so the blur never bleeds past the rectangle you drew.
Nothing is uploaded
Loading, drawing, censoring, and export all happen on a canvas in your browser. The photo itself is never sent to a server.
How to censor part of a photo
Upload your photo
Drag and drop or click to upload a JPG, PNG, or WebP file. It is read straight into a canvas on your own device.
Draw a box over what to hide
Drag on the preview to draw a rectangle over a face, a name, a plate, or a number. Repeat for every area you want censored.
Pick an effect for each box
Select a box in the list, then choose pixelate, blur, or black bar and set its strength. The preview redraws as you move the slider.
Download
Export PNG to leave the rest of the photo untouched, or JPEG if you need a smaller file.
Pixelate vs blur vs black bar
All three effects hide the same rectangle, but they do not give the same protection. A black bar destroys the pixels underneath. Pixelate and blur only transform them, and at low strength published research has recovered readable text from pixelated and blurred screenshots. Raise the slider, or use a black bar for anything sensitive.
| Effect | Control | Detail left behind | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pixelate | Block size, 2 to 60 px | Some. Each block is the average colour of the pixels under it, so small blocks leak shape and text | Faces and logos where you still want the shape to read |
| Blur | Radius, 1 to 40 px | Some. Blur keeps the low-frequency information, so a small radius leaks outlines | Backgrounds, bystanders, and soft privacy edits |
| Black bar | None. It is solid #000000 | None. The original pixels are overwritten | Addresses, card numbers, ID numbers, anything sensitive |
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Every drag on the image adds another box, and each box keeps its own effect and strength. One download can carry a pixelated face, a blurred background, and a black bar over an address.
Not always. Both transform the pixels instead of destroying them, and published research has recovered readable text from pixelated and blurred screenshots at low strength. For card numbers, addresses, and ID numbers use the black bar, which overwrites the area with solid black.
Not if you export PNG. PNG is lossless and this tool only writes inside the boxes you drew, so every pixel outside them is identical to the original decode. JPEG re-encodes the whole image, which shifts pixels everywhere by a small amount.
No. The image is loaded into an HTML5 canvas in your browser and every effect is applied there. The photo is never sent anywhere. The only request the page makes on download is an anonymous usage counter carrying the tool name and nothing else.
No. Boxes are drawn by hand, which is also why nothing has to leave your device. If you want an automatic cutout of a subject instead of a rectangle, use the background remover.
JPG, PNG, and WebP go in. PNG or JPEG come out. PNG is the default because it keeps the untouched part of the photo lossless.
Censor another photo
Drop in a new image and draw fresh censor boxes. Free, unlimited, no signup.
Choose The Right Tool
Why this page exists
Use Censor Photo when one image needs several areas hidden at once and each area needs its own treatment: a mosaic on a face, a blur on a background, a solid black bar over an account number. Everything runs on a canvas in your browser.
Best for
- Hiding several faces, names, or plates in the same photo
- Black-barring card numbers, addresses, and ID numbers so nothing is recoverable
- Redacting a screenshot before you post it, without uploading it anywhere