How to Pixelate Faces and License Plates
The mosaic is the internet's universal 'this was deliberately hidden' sign — news broadcasts, police footage, and creators all use it. Done coarsely, it is nearly as safe as black-box redaction, and it keeps the photo readable as a scene. Here is how to pixelate well, how to pick a block size that actually hides, and why it beats blur.
How to pixelate part of a photo in three steps
- Add your image. It is processed locally — pixelation is a privacy tool, so keeping the file on your device is the point.
- Draw boxes over faces, plates, or text, then set the block size. Each block should be larger than the smallest detail you want hidden — if you can guess a letter, go bigger.
- Download. The mosaic is baked into the exported pixels. There is no hidden layer to peel away.
Choosing a safe block size
Pixelation replaces each block with its average color, destroying detail inside it. Safety scales with block size: Faces: medium blocks are enough — identity lives in fine features, and the mosaic look is familiar from news broadcasts. License plates & text: use coarse blocks, each wider than one character. Fine mosaics preserve letter shapes and can sometimes be partially reversed by AI upscaling. Documents & IDs: skip the mosaic and black-box redact instead. When the content must be gone, gone-verifiable beats gone-probably.
Pixelate vs blur vs redact
Redaction destroys pixels completely — the safest option. Pixelation at a coarse block size is a close second and keeps the classic "censored" look. Blur looks most natural but is the weakest at low strength. All three run locally on the Privacy tools page; pick the strongest your situation calls for.
Why pixelation feels more trustworthy than blur
There is a reason news broadcasts pixelate faces instead of blurring them: the mosaic is an unmistakable visual signal that says "this was deliberately hidden." Blur can look accidental — like a focus miss or a compression artifact — which invites viewers to squint and guess. A chunky mosaic leaves no doubt that the information was intentionally removed, and paradoxically that makes viewers less curious about what is underneath.
Pixelation also degrades gracefully. If you pick blocks slightly too small, the result still looks obviously censored; a viewer's eye does not try to "read through" it the way it does with light blur. And unlike blur, there is no smooth gradient for AI upscaling to latch onto — each block is a flat color, so reconstruction tools have far less structure to work with. That is why, block-for-block, a coarse mosaic is meaningfully safer than an equivalent-strength blur.
Pixelation in the wild
You already know this visual language — it is everywhere once you notice it:
- News and documentaries — faces of minors, bystanders, and protected sources get the mosaic treatment as a matter of editorial policy.
- Court and police footage — bodycam and surveillance releases pixelate uninvolved people, plates, and house numbers before publication.
- Social media — creators mosaic children's faces, addresses on packages, and account numbers in "unboxing" or "mail day" posts.
- Real estate and rentals — listing photos pixelate family photos on walls, diplomas with names, and car plates in driveways.
- Gaming and streaming — streamers pixelate chat handles, donation messages with real names, and anything on a second monitor.
In all of these, the mosaic does double duty: it hides the sensitive detail and signals to the audience that the creator took privacy seriously. That signal has value — it builds trust with viewers, sources, and subjects.