Blur Image softens a whole photo, only a box or ellipse you draw, or everything around it, with nine blur types (Gaussian, Box, Motion, Radial, Lens, Surface, Median, Bilateral, Tilt-shift) from 1 to 60 px, in your browser.
Applies one of nine blur algorithms at full resolution and lets you download the result in the same format or a new one. Gaussian, Box and Surface are simple softening. Motion and Radial fake camera movement. Lens adds bright bokeh discs on highlights. Median and Bilateral are really noise removers that smooth flat areas while keeping edges. Tilt-shift blurs the top and bottom and leaves a sharp band in the middle, which makes a street scene look like a model.
The blur can cover the whole photo, only an area you draw, or everything except that area. The area is a box or an ellipse placed on a small copy of the photo in the controls, with a soft edge from hard to a long fade, so the same page handles hiding a number plate and making a portrait stand out. The width and height of the picture never change.
A 3000 × 2000 street photo with a number plate: Gaussian at 8 px softens the plate but it is still readable; at 24 px the characters merge; at 40 px the plate is a grey smear even at full zoom. The same photo with Tilt-shift at 14 px, horizontal band, becomes a miniature-looking diorama in about one second. Median at 9 px on a grainy night shot from a phone removes most of the speckle while the shop signs stay legible.
Take the same 3000 × 2000 photo with a person standing in the middle. Set Where to Background and press Centre: the area becomes 40% of the width and 60% of the height, starting 30% from the left and 20% from the top. In pixels that is a 1200 × 1200 square from x 900 to 2100 and y 400 to 1600.
Switch the shape to Ellipse so the sharp part follows a head and shoulders rather than a box. Soft edge is a percentage of half the area’s shorter side, so the default 20% fades over 120 px (20% of 600) and 50% fades over 300 px. With Gaussian at 20 px the street behind turns into soft shapes while the person stays crisp, and the file is still 3000 × 2000.
For the opposite job, hiding the number plate, choose Inside area, keep Box, draw it tightly around the plate and set Soft edge to 0 so the outline is hard. Only the box is blurred, and because the tool blurs a crop around a small area rather than the whole frame, the result appears faster than a whole-photo blur.
Use Gaussian to soften a busy background before you place text on it, Motion when a static shot needs a sense of speed, Median or Bilateral to calm noise before printing, and Background with an ellipse for a portrait look on a phone photo. For hiding identity in a photo you will publish, use a heavy blur (30 px and up) or better still Pixelate Effect or Censor Photo, because a light blur can be partially reversed. For a dedicated miniature effect with an adjustable focus band, Tilt-Shift Effect gives you more control than the Tilt-shift type here.
Do not use blur to rescue a photo that is already out of focus; it can only remove detail, never add it. Sharpen Image can make a slightly soft photo look crisper, and Remove Noise is built for grain rather than general softening.
Amount is the blur radius in pixels, from 1 to 60; on a 4000 px photo 8 px is subtle and 40 px is heavy, on a 800 px thumbnail 8 px is already strong. Angle sets the streak direction for Motion, from 0° (sideways) to 180°. Style, Strength and Centre control whether Radial zooms or spins, how hard it pulls and from where. Aperture, Bokeh size and Highlight threshold shape the Lens discs; lower the threshold if no discs appear. Edge protection on Bilateral decides how strong an edge must be to survive smoothing. Sharp band turns the Tilt-shift band horizontal or vertical. Slow types show a quick approximation first, then the exact result.
Where picks Whole photo, Inside area or Background. The quick actions place the area at the centre, either half, or a top or bottom strip; drag on the thumbnail to draw your own, and use the arrow keys to nudge it. Shape is Box or Ellipse, and Soft edge runs from Hard to a long fade. Under Output, Same keeps the original file type and Quality starts at 92.
Which blur hides a face or a licence plate? Gaussian at 30 px or more on a normal photo. Below about 20 px a face is still recognisable when the image is shrunk. If it must be irreversible, use Pixelate or Censor instead: a blur can sometimes be partly undone, a black box cannot.
Why does the preview change twice? Median, Lens, Radial, Bilateral and Motion are slow on big photos, so on anything over one megapixel a quick approximate blur shows within a moment and the exact result replaces it a few seconds later. The download always contains the exact result.
Can I blur only part of the picture? Yes. Under Where choose Inside area to blur only a box or ellipse you draw on the thumbnail, or Background to keep that area sharp and blur everything around it. Tilt-shift and Radial also leave a band or the centre sharp on their own. Censor Photo is the better choice when you need several separate boxes or a solid block.
Does the image get uploaded? No. Every blur runs inside your browser on a canvas. Switch off Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works, and nothing is stored anywhere.
How do I blur the background of a portrait? Set Where to Background, choose Ellipse, press the Centre quick action and drag the outline over the person. Raise Soft edge to 30 to 60 percent so the sharp subject fades into the blur, then pick Gaussian or Lens for the background.
Does the blurred photo keep its size and quality? The width and height stay exactly the same; only the pixels change. With Same as the output format and quality 92 the file looks like the original apart from the blur. A blurred JPEG is often smaller than the original, because soft areas compress well.
Is the camera and location info kept? No. The new file is drawn from the pixels, so camera model, date and GPS location are not carried over. That is usually what you want before posting a blurred photo; keep the original if you need the details.