Pixelate Image

Pixelation splits a picture into a grid of square blocks and fills each block with a single color, the average of the pixels it covered. Detail inside a block disappears completely, which gives the familiar mosaic look. Because the original pixels inside each block are replaced rather than blended, pixelation is a stronger way to censor an image than a light blur, and the larger the block, the less can be recovered.

The block size slider is relative to the picture's dimensions, so one setting gives a similar look on a small photo and a large one, and its label shows the block size in actual pixels. For hiding a face or a plate, pick blocks large enough that only a few remain across the feature. For a stylised, retro or low-resolution effect, apply the pixelation to the whole image with a smaller block size.

To censor part of an image, switch to selected areas and draw boxes. Each box is pixelated on its own grid and nothing outside it is touched, so you can cover several faces, numbers or lines of text in one picture while leaving the rest sharp. Boxes can be moved, resized, nudged with the arrow keys and deleted.

As a photo pixelator, it works in your browser, on a canvas, using straightforward averaging, and the result is saved in the same format as your file, with a quality setting for JPG and WebP. The saved image carries no camera or location data because only pixels are written. Your picture is not uploaded, and there is no limit, watermark or sign-up.