Pixelate Image
Choose a picture, then pixelate a selected area or the whole image. Drag a box or enter its position and size, and set blocks from 1 to 256 pixels wide. Each block takes the average RGB colour of the pixels it covers, rounded to whole channel values, while alpha stays unchanged. Download a PNG or JPEG at the original dimensions. The image stays in this browser; no upload or account is needed.
The picture appears here.
· or drop one anywhere on the stage
Never uploadedNo accountPixelated in this tabFull resolution out
Drag a box over the part you want blocked out, or switch to the whole image. Tab to the box and the arrow keys move it, shift with an arrow resizes it, and the four fields set it exactly. Blocks run from 1 to 256 pixels.
What pixelating does and does not do. Each block becomes the exact average of the pixels under it, and everything outside your selection is copied unchanged. Pixelating is a visual effect, not a security control: a small block size over regular text can leave the shape readable, so do not rely on it to hide a password or an account number. The picture is opened, averaged and written inside this tab, and the only thing kept between visits is the block size and the format you last used.
Common questions
- How do I pixelate only one part of an image?
- Choose a picture and a box appears over its middle. Drag outside the current box to draw another, drag the box to move it, or type Left, Top, Width and Height in source pixels. Only that rectangle is pixelated. The pixelation step copies decoded pixels outside it unchanged; JPEG export can change those pixels through compression, and a canvas can round partly transparent RGB values. Save PNG for further editing. Use Whole image in the Apply to row to cover the entire picture.
- What block size should I use?
- Block size is the width of one square in source-image pixels, from 1 to 256. A block of 1 leaves the decoded picture unchanged. Larger blocks remove more detail; the same value looks coarser on a smaller source image. The readout reports the grid, such as 6 × 4 blocks of 25 px, and explains partial blocks at the right and bottom edges. Judge the visual effect in the preview. No block size guarantees that a face, label or private text is unrecognizable.
- Can pixelation be reversed, and is it safe for hiding private details?
- Treat it as a visual effect, not as a security control. The detail inside a block really is replaced in the file you download, so there is no hidden layer to peel off, but that is not the same as being safe: a small block over regular shapes such as printed digits leaves a pattern that a person or a program can often match back to the original characters. There are published attacks that recover pixelated text by rendering candidate strings and matching them against the blocks. If what you are covering must stay secret, such as a password, an account number or an address, paint a solid shape over it in an image editor instead, so the pixels that come out carry nothing from the pixels that went in.
- Does transparency survive?
- In PNG, yes. Each pixel keeps its own alpha value: only the red, green and blue channels are averaged, so a transparent corner comes out transparent and a soft edge keeps its softness. JPEG has no transparency at all, so when you choose JPEG the picture is composited over white before the file is written, and a transparent area comes out white rather than whatever the browser would otherwise have put behind it. The Transparent areas row under the tool says which of those two you are about to get.
- Should I download a PNG or a JPEG?
- Choose PNG for transparency, flat-colour blocks and further editing. It adds no lossy compression, although browser canvas rounding can affect partly transparent colours. JPEG is useful when a smaller photograph file matters; it recompresses the entire image, including the area outside the selection, and fills transparency with white. Both downloads keep the original dimensions. A 25-pixel job on photo.jpg is named photo-pixelated-25px.png when PNG is selected.
- Is my picture uploaded anywhere?
- No. There is no server in this. The file is read in the page, decoded by the browser's own image decoder, averaged into blocks by code running in this tab and handed back to you as a download. No image byte is sent to an endpoint, to analytics or to error reporting. The only thing written to your browser's storage is the setting row: the block size and the output format you last used. No picture is ever stored, and if storage is blocked the tool still works.
- Is there a limit on the size of the picture?
- None is imposed. Nothing is uploaded, so the bytes on disk are nobody's business, and there is no megapixel cap on what you can open. The practical ceiling is your own machine: a picture too large for the browser to hold in memory is refused in plain words, naming its size and suggesting a smaller copy, rather than handing you a blank file. Your original file on disk is only ever read, never altered.
- Can I use it without a mouse?
- Yes. Tab to the box drawn over the picture and the arrow keys move it, with shift and an arrow resizing it; each press moves one screen pixel, or one source pixel when that is the larger, so a big photograph previewed small still moves at a useful rate. The four number fields under the readout set the selection exactly, and the block size, the Selection or Whole image choice and the format are all ordinary labelled controls. The picture, the selection and the block grid are also described in words on the page, so a screen reader gets the same facts the canvas shows.
- How do I pixelate the whole picture?
- Open the image, choose Whole image under Apply to, set Block size and download. The grid starts at the top-left corner. For example, a 320 by 240 picture with 20-pixel blocks has 16 columns and 12 rows of blocks, and the download remains 320 by 240 pixels. It is a mosaic effect, not an image-size reduction.
- Can I make a 32 by 32 image or draw grid lines?
- A block size of 32 means each block is 32 source pixels wide; it does not make a 32 by 32 output or a fixed 32-column grid. This tool keeps the source dimensions and does not draw grid lines or limit the palette. Use Image Resizer for exact output dimensions. Craft charts with symbols and grid lines are separate workflows in Cross Stitch Pattern Maker and Crochet Chart Maker.
- Can I pixelate a photo for crochet or cross stitch?
- For a stitch chart, use Cross Stitch Pattern Maker to reduce a photo to a colour key and printable symbol grid, or Crochet Chart Maker for a filet or C2C chart using your own palette. This page only applies the visual block effect. It does not create stitch instructions, floss matches, Minecraft blocks or game import files.
- Is pixelation the same as blur, AI enhancement or depixelation?
- Pixelation replaces local detail with flat blocks. Image Blur makes a smoother effect instead. This tool uses arithmetic averages, not AI, and cannot recover detail from an already pixelated image or turn it into an HD original.
- Which image formats can I pixelate?
- Use a still image your browser can decode, such as PNG, JPEG, WebP or AVIF. The output is PNG or JPEG. An animated GIF becomes one decoded still frame; its animation is not preserved. The tool handles one image and one selected rectangle at a time. To apply another rectangle, download PNG and open that result again.
- How can I pixelate an image without Photoshop, including on a phone?
- Open this page in a modern browser and choose a saved picture. Tap Whole image for an all-over effect, or set a rectangle with Left, Top, Width and Height when dragging on a small screen is inconvenient. Set Block size, choose PNG or JPEG and download. This web workflow does not require an editor installation; it does not describe the controls inside Photoshop, Apple Photos or another native app.
Each block becomes the exact average of the pixels under it, and everything outside your selection is copied unchanged. Pixelating is a visual effect, not a security control: a small block size over regular text can leave the shape readable, so do not rely on it to hide a password or an account number.