Blur an image
Soften a photo, or hide something in it — never uploaded.
How it works
Three steps, and nothing leaves your device.
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1
Drop in the photo
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, SVG or an iPhone HEIC. Nothing is sent anywhere.
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2
Set the radius
Small values soften; large ones make the subject unrecognisable. The preview is the file you will get.
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3
Download the result
The blur is written into the pixels, so it cannot be undone by whoever opens the file.
Blurring well, and blurring safely
- A blur at the edges needs padding, or you get a halo. A blur samples neighbouring pixels. At the frame's edge there are none, and most implementations quietly treat the missing area as transparent — which drags a pale band around the border. This tool pads the canvas by three times the radius before blurring and crops back afterwards, so the edges match the middle.
- Blurring to hide something is not always safe. A light blur can be partially reversed, and text is easier to recover than faces because letters have so few possible shapes. If the point is to conceal — a name, an address, a card number — use a radius large enough that you cannot guess the content yourself, or use the pixelate tool at a large block size.
- Blur the whole frame, not the subject. This tool blurs everything uniformly. To blur only the background behind a person, cut them out with the background remover first, blur the original, then composite the cutout back on top.
- It makes files smaller, not larger. Blurring removes high-frequency detail, which is exactly what compression struggles with. A blurred JPG is usually noticeably smaller than the original at the same quality setting.
Frequently asked questions
Can a blur be reversed?
A mild blur can be partially undone, especially over text. If you are concealing something, use a large radius or the pixelate tool, and check that you cannot read it yourself at full size.
Can I blur just the background?
Not in one step. Remove the background to get a cutout of the subject, blur the original photo, then composite the cutout back over it.
Why do other blur tools leave a light edge?
Because the blur samples past the frame, where there is nothing. This tool pads the image first and crops back afterwards, which removes the halo.