Before you share a photo online you may need to pixelate part of the image. Whether you want to hide sensitive information, or provide anonymity to someone in the photo, you don't always want the entire image to show.

Fortunately, there are lots of websites that you can use to pixelate or blur an image online, regardless of your OS, browser, or platform. So, in this article, we detail how to pixelate or blur your images online.

1. LunaPic

How to Pixelate an Image Lunapic

If you want to pixelate or blur an entire image, head over to LunaPic. This website is very straightforward and incredibly simple to use.

On LunaPic, you can either upload your image directly, or share an image with the website using a URL.

To use LunaPic:

  1. Under the main menu, click Adjust > Pixelate.
  2. Upload your picture.
  3. Once your picture is uploaded, adjust the pixel size by using the pixelation slider.
  4. Click Apply.

NB: We've noticed that the Apply button can sometimes be slow or unresponsive. If the changes don't work the first time around, click Apply again.

If you want to add a pixelated blur to your image, go to Adjust > Blur under the main menu. Once again, a sliding scale allows you to adjust how blurry your image will be.

If you think the blur isn't strong enough, you can easily apply the blur tool multiple times to the same image. This will help you achieve the desired effect.

After all adjustments are complete, you can save your image to your computer. You can also share your pixelated image on Facebook, Twitter, Imgur, Pinterest, or Google Photos.

In terms of security:

  • Images uploaded to LunaPic are temporarily cached and stored on its server.
  • Once your editing session is over, your image should be deleted.

2. Facepixelizer

Pixelate Part of an Image Facepixelizer

What if you want to pixelate part of an image, but not the whole thing?

Facepixelizer is a great option for this, especially if you want to hide personal information in a screenshot. You can either blur or pixelate a photo. You can also easily adjust the degree to which an image is obscured.

With Facepixelizer, there are two main options for pixelating a picture:

  • You can automatically detect faces to censor.
  • If you don't like the automatic result, you can manually select the parts to censor instead.

To manually pixelate an image:

  1. Drop your picture into the image editor.
  2. Select Manual in the editing menu on the left.
  3. Select the Size that you want each individual pixel to be.
  4. Click and drag your mouse over the sensitive information that you want to hide.

Once you're finished, you can save your image to your computer by clicking Save Image.

For security:

  • Facepixelizer removes EXIF data from the image.
  • Your images are not saved on the website's server.
  • The images are secured because all image processing happens in your browser. They never leaves your browser, nor is data sent over the network.

For more information on what EXIF data is, check out our article on how to remove metadata from photos.

3. Pinetools

How to Pixelate a Photo With Pinetools

Pinetools is an online editing app that can teach you how to pixelate a photo. You can blur a photo on the website, too.

Like the other apps on this list, Pinetools is free to use. All you need is a browser.

To pixelate part of an image online:

  1. Open up Pinetools in your web browser.
  2. Next, upload a photo from your computer.
  3. Click and drag to select the area that needs to be "censored."
  4. Select the pixelation Block size for that area. The slider is located to the right of your screen.
  5. Click on the green button at the bottom of the screen that says Censor!

When you click this button, Pinetools will pixelate part of an image or blur it. After that, you can download the image as a JPEG, PNG, or BMP.

Under its Terms of Service, Pinetools states that you can use the website for personal, non-commercial projects. While easily available information about the company is scant---and we wish there was more of it---Pinetools is very transparent about what they'll do with your data.

For security:

  • Pinetools does not collect any information from website visitors.
  • It does not use cookies for tracking purposes.
  • Pinetools does collect information when you use the site, such as pixelating a photo.
  • It does not use an SSL certificate.

So in terms of security, it could be better.

However, that doesn't mean this site is unusable. It just means it's best for funny images or adding cool effects. Save your sensitive documents for something like Facepixelizer.

4. PNG Pixelator

Pixelate Part of Image With PNG Pixelator

PNG Pixelator is one of our favorite tools on this list. Billing itself as "the world's simplest online Portable Network Graphics image pixelator," the website takes pride in being user-friendly and ad-free.

Honestly, after trying it out, we would have to agree. PNG Pixelator is fantastic.

To learn how to pixelate a picture with this app:

  1. Open up the website.
  2. Upload your image into the upload box on the left.
  3. Click and drag the bounding box across the specific area that needs to be pixelated.
  4. To the right of your screen, you should see a live preview box. Here, you can watch the pixelation happen in real time.

Once you're satisfied with your adjustments, click Save As > Download, located under the right-hand box. This will save your image to your computer.

The best thing about PNG Pixelator---beyond the fact that it's free---is that it's much more than a pixelation tool. As part of a wider collection of apps, Online PNG Tools function as "a collection of useful PNG image utilities."

Some other things you should know:

  • You can use all tools on the website for personal use, so long as you're not doing anything illegal.
  • At the moment, you don't need an account, username, or password to access any of the tools.

For security:

  • PNG Pixelator does "all conversions and calculations in your browser."
  • The website doesn't send any of your input data to its servers.
  • Your IP address is saved to the website's servers, but there's no personal identifying information attached.

PNG Pixelator is definitely one of the top tools on this list.

Learn How to Pixelate Photos Online

Now that you know how to easily pixelate or blur your images online, you can start editing out sensitive information, completely free of charge.

However, there may be additional edits that you want to make that have nothing to do with censoring. Perhaps you want to recolor an image, or add some text to it. If so, here's a list of no-signup image editors on the web you can make use of.