Image pixelation / mosaic

Three modes: full, brush, and auto-face mosaic

The pixelate tool mosaics an image into visible square blocks. It has three modes. Full pixelation covers the whole picture with uniform blocks - the classic retro pixel-art look. Brush mode lets you paint a circular area and mosaic only what you stroke, which is how you hide a face, a licence plate or a document number. Auto-face mosaic is a Beta mode that detects faces on-device and mosaics only the detected face areas, leaving the rest of the photo untouched.

The block-size slider runs from 2 to 50 pixels (default 10); larger values produce bigger, coarser blocks. In brush mode a second slider sets the brush size from 10 to 200 pixels (default 50), controlling how wide each stroke is.

• Full: uniform mosaic across the entire image.
• Brush: paint over the areas you want hidden.
• Auto-face mosaic (Beta): on-device face detection, mosaics only face boxes.
• Block size: 2 to 50 px, default 10. Brush size: 10 to 200 px, default 50.

How the mosaic is rendered

Full pixelation downscales the image to a small canvas (width and height divided by the block size) and then scales it back up with image smoothing switched off, which hardens each cell into a flat square of colour. Brush mode does the same downscale-upscale but restricts it to a circular region you paint, so the surrounding photo stays crisp.

The auto-face engine is lazy-loaded only when you switch to the Auto tab: until then no detection code or model is fetched. If no face is found, or the on-device detector fails, the tool shows a toast and falls back to the brush so you are never left with a blank result.

Privacy and workflow

Pixelation is the standard way to anonymise faces, licence plates, receipts and screen captures before sharing. Because the whole process runs in the browser, the photo never leaves your device, which matters for private or sensitive pictures. The canvas preview is capped at 600 pixels wide for responsiveness, and the download exports the processed image.

For soft, non-blocked privacy blur instead of hard squares, the blur tool offers Gaussian and mosaic modes; for sharpening details elsewhere, use sharpen.

Choosing block size and brush coverage

Block size is the strength dial: a value of 2 to 5 gives a fine-grained pixel-art texture, 10 is the default that reads as a clear mosaic, and 20 to 50 turns the photo into large colour blocks that can no longer be reconstructed. For privacy work, err on the larger side - a tiny mosaic can be partially de-recognised by eye; for retro art, a smaller block size keeps recognisable detail while looking stylised.

In brush mode the brush-size slider only controls how wide each stroke is; it does not change the block size. If a stroked area is too coarse, lower the block size and re-apply. The auto-face Beta mode is a convenience for portrait batches, but because detection is on-device and faces are only boxed and mosaicked, it is the most private way to blur people - no upload, and the background is left exactly as it was. If the detector misses a side-profile face, the brush is the fallback.

• Small block size (2-5) for art; large (20-50) for strong anonymisation.
• Brush size controls stroke width, not the mosaic cell size.
• Auto-face is on-device: faces boxed and mosaicked, background untouched.
• If a face is missed, fall back to the brush rather than trusting the detector.

Pixelate Images for Privacy and Retro Effects

Pixelation replaces detail with solid blocks, making faces, text and identifying marks genuinely unreadable; unlike a light blur, a strong mosaic cannot simply be sharpened back. PixlReady applies a full-image or brushed mosaic locally, with an adjustable block size, and previews the result before you download.

Choose small blocks for a subtle retro video-game look or large blocks to permanently conceal sensitive areas in screenshots and photos. Your original file stays untouched and is never uploaded.

Tips for best results

• Prefer pixelate over blur when hidden text must stay unreadable.
• Increase block size until the sensitive content is fully covered, not merely softened.
• Use small blocks over the whole image for an 8-bit artistic style.
• Pixelate before you compress or screenshot again so detail is not recoverable.

Common use cases

• Anonymizing faces, license plates and documents
• Hiding names, addresses and balances in shared screenshots
• Retro pixel-art and mosaic-style social images
• Redacting evidence or bug reports before sharing externally

Frequently Asked Questions