Blur an image

This tool blurs the whole picture evenly, from edge to edge. It uses a smooth, Gaussian-style blur rather than a simple smear, so detail fades away gradually with no hard steps or streaks. That suits images whose job is to sit behind something else: a desktop or phone wallpaper under icons, a slide or web banner under a headline, or a hero image where text on top has to stay readable.

Low strengths, around 5 to 15%, take the edge off noise, grain or a busy pattern while the scene stays recognisable. The default of 30% turns a photo into soft shapes and colour, which is what most backgrounds want. Towards 100% only broad patches of colour remain, useful for a colour-matched backdrop or a placeholder shown while the real image loads. The preview updates as you drag, so stop where text laid over it reads best.

Because everything is blurred, the subject is too: this isn't a portrait-mode effect that keeps a person sharp against a soft background. To hide only part of a picture, such as a number plate or a name, the redaction tool lets you draw boxes and blur just those areas. For faces, the face blur tool finds them for you. For text in a screenshot, a solid black box from the redaction tool is safer than any blur.

Transparent PNGs keep their transparency, and the edges of a logo or cut-out don't pick up a dark halo as they soften. Each file is saved in the format it came in unless you choose JPG, PNG, WebP or AVIF instead. A heavily blurred image has little fine detail, so it compresses very well, and a JPG or WebP background is usually small. Saving as JPG fills any transparent areas with white.