--- title: "Blur an Image Online – Soft Backgrounds and Effects, Free" description: "Blur a whole picture for a soft background, a wallpaper or a privacy effect, with one slider for the strength. Download in its own format; several at once." url: "https://imagecompressor.si/blur-image" lang: "en" --- # Blur an image Soften a whole picture with one slider, for backgrounds, wallpapers and quiet visuals behind text. ## How it works 1. **Add your images** Drag and drop, paste, or pick files. They upload over an encrypted connection. 2. **Pick a quality or a target size** Use the quality slider, or tell it exactly how many KB or MB you need. 3. **Download** Save each file, or grab them all at once as a ZIP. A blurred photo makes a calm background for text on a slide, a website banner or a phone lock screen. It can turn a busy scene into a soft wash of colour, hint at a place without showing details, or stand in as a placeholder while the sharp picture loads. This page blurs the whole picture evenly, and starts with a medium strength you can raise or lower. The strength is relative to the picture's size, so the same setting looks the same on a small thumbnail and on a large photo. The other adjustments in the panel, brightness and saturation especially, help a blurred background sit behind text: darker and slightly less colourful usually reads best. Pictures are processed on our server and deleted at once. Several can be blurred together and downloaded as a ZIP. ## Blurring only part of a picture To hide a face, a licence plate or a number, blur just that area. The blur faces tool finds faces for you, and the redact tool covers any area you draw with a solid box, pixels or blur. For hiding text, a solid box is safest, because light blur can sometimes be read back. ## A blurred background for a portrait The background removal tool can keep the person sharp and blur only what is behind them, like a camera with a wide aperture. This page blurs everything, which is what you want for a wallpaper or a texture. For a softer look without losing the picture entirely, try a low strength of 10 to 15: shapes stay recognisable while fine detail and noise melt away. ## Smaller files A blurred picture has little fine detail, so it compresses very well. Switch on compression in the advanced settings for a background image that loads quickly on a website. For phone wallpapers a medium strength is usually enough, since the screen shrinks the picture further. ## Using a blurred picture behind text A blurred photo of the place an event happens makes a good background for its invitation or slide, because it hints at the setting without competing with the words. Darken it a little with the brightness slider and lower the saturation, then add the text on top with the add text page. White text on a darkened blur reads well at any size. For a website, a blurred and compressed version of a large photo can also be shown while the sharp one loads, so the page never looks empty. ## Frequently asked questions ### How strong can the blur be? From a slight softening to a wash where only colours remain. ### Can I blur just the background? Yes, with the background removal tool's blur option, which keeps the subject sharp. ### Is blurring safe for hiding information? For text, use a solid box from the redact tool; blur is not always enough. ### Does it keep transparency? Yes, when the output is PNG or WebP. ### Are my pictures kept? No. The blurred copy is made on our server, and what you uploaded is erased there once you have it. ### Can I blur many pictures at once? Yes. Add all of them; every picture gets the same blur, and the set comes back in a single ZIP. ### Why does the blur look the same on small and large pictures? The strength is measured against the picture's size, so a setting of 30 softens a thumbnail and a large photo to the same degree. ## Related tools - [Redact part of an image](https://imagecompressor.si/redact-image): Draw a box over what should not be seen, and download the picture with it covered for good. - [Blur a face in a photo](https://imagecompressor.si/blur-face): Faces are found for you. Choose which ones to hide, and download the picture. - [Sharpen an image](https://imagecompressor.si/sharpen-image): Bring out edges and fine detail in a photo that looks a little soft, with one slider.