Blur, pixelate or add text to photos
Pixelate (mosaic), blur or black out faces, plates and phone numbers in a photo or screenshot,
with a box, a circle or a shape you draw, and add text on top. Free, no sign-up. Photos are processed in your browser and never uploaded.
You can also drop a photo here
JPG · PNG · WebP
iPhone HEIC photos open only in some browsers. If yours will not open, convert it with HEIC to JPG first.
Your image never leaves your device.
How it works
- Pick or drop a photo
- Add text and cover areas
- Download PNG or JPG
Keeping text readable on a photo
Photos have light and dark areas, so flat coloured text disappears into the background. Text here is white with a dark outline by default, and the outline colour follows the text: light text gets a dark edge, dark text gets a light one. That keeps the letters legible over sky, tarmac or clothing.
- Text size is a share of the longest edge, so the text keeps its relative size on portrait and landscape photos alike.
- Turning the outline off switches to a soft shadow, which suits a clean background.
- Text is drawn with the same web font the page already loads. Before the download, the tool waits for the characters you used, so the saved file matches what you see.
What you type is never sent anywhere. Fonts are downloaded in character range slices, and this site never puts your text into a font URL.
Pixelate (mosaic), blur or solid
All three recalculate the colours inside the area you draw. Pixelate (mosaic) splits it into squares and fills each square with its average colour. Blur averages the colours of nearby pixels, so the edges stay soft. Solid paints the whole area black.
| Style | Good for |
|---|---|
| Pixelate | Making it obvious that something was covered, such as number plates and house numbers. |
| Blur | Keeping the picture natural-looking: passers-by in the background. |
| Solid | ID, phone, account and order numbers and addresses, where not a single character may show. |
Strength sets the square size or the blur radius. The higher the number, the less of the original is left. Strength scales with the photo's longest edge: even strength 1 makes text unreadable to the eye when its height is within 5% of that edge, which covers most number plates, house numbers and documents in phone photos. In a small crop from a screenshot or a close-up of a sign, the text takes up more of the photo than that, and it is big enough to judge on screen. The preview is covered exactly as heavily as the download, so raise the strength until the text is unreadable there, or use solid. Phone and account numbers, whose font and format are easy to guess, can be matched against candidate numbers even when the eye cannot read them, so use solid for those.
Is the covered area really gone
Yes. Mosaic, blur and solid are not a translucent shape laid on top: the tool replaces the pixels in that area with the new colours it calculated. The preview and the downloaded file run the same code, so the download hides no copy of the original underneath, and there is no layer for an image editor to peel away.
Circles and shapes you draw work the same way: every pixel the edge of the shape touches is replaced, and the download covers one extra pixel all round, so no half-transparent rim of the original is left.
Mosaic and blur still leave averaged colours rather than a blank, though. Large text at a low strength may still be readable, and a number whose font and format are easy to guess, such as a phone number, can sometimes be matched by applying the same effect to candidate numbers. For ID numbers, phone numbers and addresses, where every character matters, use solid.
Because it is painted in, the download is final. If you may still want to move an area or change its strength, keep this tab open and download again once you are happy.
Closing or reloading this tab clears the photo and every edit. This site keeps nothing for you.
Is my photo uploaded
No. Reading the photo, adding text, covering areas and writing the file all happen on a canvas in your browser, and this tool never sends your photo to any server.
- The photo stays in this tab in memory. It is never written to browser storage and never appears in the address bar.
- The file you download is redrawn, so it carries none of the original capture details (EXIF) such as the time or the GPS location.
- Analytics records only the output format you chose. It never records file names, sizes, your text or how many areas you covered.
For the full account of how photos and other data are handled, see the privacy notice.
Frequently asked questions
Can I type non-Latin text?
Yes. Text is drawn with the web font the page already uses, which covers Latin, Chinese and Japanese kana. When you press download, the tool waits for the characters you used and then redraws everything at full size.
Can I cover several areas?
Yes. Each press of Box or Circle, and each shape you draw with Draw, adds another area. Every area has its own style and strength and can be deleted on its own. The same goes for text: add as many pieces as you need.
Can I cover a circle or an irregular area?
Yes. A circle suits faces, and Draw lets you click out an area point by point, for a number plate shot at an angle, a chat bubble or an oddly shaped sign. Style and strength work just as they do for a box, and in the download the edge of the shape is covered one pixel further out, so no half-transparent rim is left.
Can I add text and pixelate the same photo?
Yes, and that is the intended use. The drawing order is fixed: photo, then covered areas, then text. Text therefore always sits on top and never gets pixelated, and one download saves both into a single image.
Will the download be smaller than the original?
No. The output is the size of the photo you loaded, whatever the preview is scaled to on screen.
One exception: a photo whose longest edge is over 4096 pixels, from a camera or a 48MP phone, is scaled down to 4096 before editing, because mobile browsers fail outright on larger canvases. When that happens, the download panel states the original size.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Drag text and covered areas with a finger, use the round handle at the bottom right of an area to resize it, and tap out a shape point by point with Draw. The download lands in your Files or Downloads folder.
Is my photo uploaded?
No, everything happens in your browser. For the details, see "Is my photo uploaded" above and the privacy notice.
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