Pixelate an image, or only part of it
Pixelation replaces the picture with a grid of square blocks, each filled with the average color of the pixels it covers. The result is the familiar “censored” look of TV news, and also a retro effect for a whole photo.
This tool does both. When you open an image, the whole picture is pixelated so you can see the effect right away. To hide only part of it, drag on the preview to draw an area — a face, a screen, an address, a license plate. As soon as an area exists, only the areas you drew are pixelated and the rest of the photo stays sharp. Draw several areas if needed, remove one with its ✕ button, or remove them all with “Clear drawn areas”.
Drawing works with a mouse, a pen or a finger on a touch screen.
Settings
- Pixel size: the width of each block, in pixels of your image. The range adapts to the image: from 2 px up to an eighth of its longest side. The default is about a fiftieth of the longest side — a 4000-pixel photo starts with 80-pixel blocks.
- Shape of drawn areas: rectangle, or ellipse for a round shape that fits faces better.
The preview may show your image smaller than it is, but the download is made at full resolution with exactly the block size you chose.
How big should the pixels be?
| You want to | Pixel size |
|---|---|
| A retro, mosaic look for the whole photo | Small: the subject stays recognizable |
| Hide a face | About 5 or fewer blocks across the face |
| Hide text, a phone number or a plate | Blocks taller than the letters |
Pixelation keeps the average colors of each block, so with small blocks a face or a word can still be recognized, and there are tools that try to reconstruct pixelated text. Go bigger than you think you need. For faces, Blur Face finds them for you and can also black them out completely; for a soft look rather than blocks, use Blur Image. Our guide on how to blur a face in a photo compares the options. If you want pixel art with a limited color palette rather than censorship, try Image to Pixel Art.
Formats
You can open JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF (first frame), BMP and SVG images, plus iPhone HEIC photos. The result is saved in the same format when the browser can write it: JPG (quality 92%), PNG or WebP (Safari can’t save WebP, so it gets PNG). HEIC and AVIF are saved as JPG; GIF, BMP and SVG as PNG.
The file is rebuilt from its pixels, so metadata such as GPS location and camera model is not copied into it.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser with the Canvas API. Your image is never uploaded, the tool keeps working offline once the page has loaded, and the site’s security policy only allows the page to talk to its own server.