A photo from a school event, a protest, a street or a family party often has people in it who did not agree to appear online. Sometimes the person is you, and you simply want some privacy. Number plates, house numbers, name badges and screens can give away just as much as a face. The fix is simple: cover the area before you share, and keep the original safe.
Blur, pixelate or block?
There are three common ways to hide an area, and they are not equally safe.
- Blur smooths the area. It looks natural, and it is fine for casual use such as a background crowd. A light blur on a clear face can still be recognised, and a weak blur on text can sometimes be reversed or guessed.
- Pixelate replaces the area with large squares. It is a familiar look, and it is harder to undo than a light blur, but small blocks keep a lot of information.
- A solid block covers the area with one colour. It leaves nothing behind and is the safest choice for anything that must not be recovered, such as a face of a minor, a name or a number.
Whatever you pick, use enough strength that the shape of the features is gone. If you can still tell who it is, increase the strength or use a block.
How to blur faces with DocPro
- Open Blur faces in photos and choose one or more photos. HEIC photos from an iPhone work too.
- Wait a moment while faces are found. The first time, a small detection model loads in your browser. Each face gets a box.
- Check the boxes. Drag a box to move it, drag its corner to resize it, press × to remove it, or drag on an empty part of the photo to add a new one for a face that was missed, a number plate or a screen.
- Choose Blur, Pixelate or Solid block, the strength and a rectangle or oval shape. The preview shows the result at once.
- Press Save protected photos. With several photos you get a ZIP.
Why detection misses some faces
Face detection is automatic, but it is not magic. The model looks for faces that are fairly large and front-on. It can miss small faces in a crowd, faces in profile or turned away, faces covered by a hand, a mask or sunglasses, and very dark or blurry ones. It can also box something that is not a face. That is why the boxes are editable, and why you should look at every photo before saving. DocPro scans the photo in overlapping tiles to catch smaller faces, but a final check by eye is still necessary.
Clean the file as well
A photo is more than its pixels. Phone photos usually carry EXIF data: the date and time, the camera model and often the GPS position. Hiding a face while sharing the exact location of your home is a poor trade. The photos that DocPro saves are drawn onto a new canvas and encoded again, so none of the original EXIF data is copied. If you only need to clean photos that you are not editing, use Remove photo metadata. Our guide on removing location data from photos explains what is stored and how to stop it at the source.
Very large photos are scaled down to 4096 pixels on the long side. That is still plenty for screens and social media. If you need the full resolution of a huge photo, edit a copy in your usual photo editor.
Tips for sharing photos of other people
- Ask before you post a clear photo of someone, especially children, and respect the answer.
- Look at the background: street signs, mail, whiteboards, laptop screens and badges can all identify a place or person.
- Reflections in windows, glasses and screens can hold a second face.
- Keep the unedited original in a private folder. Share only the edited copy.
- Name the new file clearly so you do not send the original by mistake.
If you need to hide text in a document instead of a photo, see How to redact a PDF for real. To tidy the photo further, such as cropping or adjusting it, use Edit image, and to reduce its size before sending, use Compress image.
Frequently asked questions
Is my photo uploaded for face detection?
No. The detection model runs in your browser, and the photo stays on your device.
Can a blurred face be recovered?
A strong blur or pixelation hides a face from the eye, but weak settings can leak information. For anything sensitive, use the solid block.