Apply pixelation effects to any image. Pixelation divides the image into blocks of solid color, creating a mosaic-like appearance. Use it to censor sensitive content, create retro pixel art effects, or anonymize faces in photographs. Adjust the pixel block size from subtle to extreme, preview results, and download in your preferred format.
Drop an image here or click to select
Supports PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP, SVG
Upload an image by dragging it into the drop zone or clicking to select a file. Use the pixel size slider to control the block size (2–64 pixels). Smaller values produce subtle pixelation, while larger values create a strong mosaic effect. Use the preset buttons for quick settings: Subtle (4px), Medium (8px), Heavy (16px), Mosaic (32px), or Extreme (64px). The preview updates in real-time as you adjust the slider. Click Download to save the pixelated result.
Image pixelation is used for: censoring faces, license plates, and personal information in screenshots and photos for privacy compliance, creating retro pixel art aesthetics for games and social media content, anonymizing identifiable features in images shared publicly, blurring details in video thumbnails for content warnings, creating mosaic-style artistic effects for design projects, hiding sensitive data in screen recordings and tutorials, meeting GDPR and privacy requirements for published images, and generating low-resolution previews for progressive image loading.
Pixelation works by downscaling the image to a smaller resolution (original dimensions divided by pixel block size) and then upscaling back to the original size using nearest-neighbor interpolation instead of bilinear smoothing. This creates the characteristic blocky appearance. The implementation uses two Canvas operations: first drawing the full image onto a tiny canvas (which averages pixel blocks), then drawing that tiny canvas back onto a full-size canvas with imageSmoothingEnabled set to false, which preserves the hard pixel edges rather than blending them.
For effective censoring of text, use 16px or higher. For faces, 24–32px typically makes features unrecognizable. For license plates, 12–16px usually suffices. Always verify the result to ensure sensitive information is truly obscured.
Pixelation permanently destroys detail - the original pixel information is averaged into blocks and cannot be recovered. This is why it is a reliable method for censoring sensitive content, unlike simple blur which can sometimes be partially reversed.
Pixelated images often compress to smaller file sizes because they contain large areas of solid color with less detail. This is especially true for PNG and WebP formats, which excel at compressing areas of uniform color.
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