Pixelate Image — Pixelate Photos or Selected Areas Online

Pixelate a whole picture or just the parts that matter

Pixelation replaces a region of an image with large square blocks of flat colour. It is the classic way to hide a licence plate, a face in the background, an email address in a screenshot or a house number before you post a photo online. It is also a popular creative effect: pixelating an entire photo turns it into retro 8-bit art or a bold mosaic poster. This pixelate image tool handles both jobs. Switch the scope to Whole image for an artistic effect, or keep Selected areas and drag rectangles over everything you want to obscure. You can add as many areas as you need, remove one by clicking it, and change the block size at any time — every region updates instantly.

Blocky or mosaic, and how big should the blocks be?

Each block is filled with the average colour of the pixels it covers, taking transparency into account so that see-through edges do not turn grey. Blocky produces clean, touching squares, while Mosaic tiles darkens the edge of every block slightly so the result looks like tiles set in grout. The block size is measured in real image pixels, so the same setting gives the same look on the preview and in the saved file. When a new image is loaded, a block size proportional to its resolution is suggested. For privacy, choose blocks large enough that letters or facial features cannot be read: a block should be at least as big as a character of text. Very small blocks can leave details recognisable, especially for short numbers.

Private by design

All processing happens locally with the HTML Canvas API, which matters when the whole point is to hide sensitive information. Your picture never leaves your device, there is no account and no watermark. The downloaded file keeps the original format where possible — JPG stays JPG and WebP stays WebP, while other formats are saved as PNG — and camera metadata such as GPS coordinates is not copied into the new file.