Blur Background in a Photo, Keep the Subject Sharp
Open a photo and an AI model on your device separates the subject from the background. The background turns soft, the subject stays sharp, and a slider sets how strong the blur is. Nothing is uploaded.
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- Files stay on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
- Free, no sign-up, no daily limit.
- Works with Wi-Fi off once the page has loaded. Check it yourself
Updated by Khokhar Sab
How do I blur the background of a photo?
Choose a photo and the Background tool opens with Blur selected. The AI model marks the subject on your device, and the background turns soft at once. Drag Background blur to set the strength, fix any edge with Restore or Erase, then press Apply and Save picture.
- Press Choose a picture, or Take a photo on a phone.
- Keep Person or portrait for people, or switch to Object or product.
- Drag Background blur until the backdrop looks right.
- Press Apply, then Save picture.
To blur only a face, a plate or a box you draw, use Blur Image instead. To drop the background completely, see Remove Background.
Can I get a portrait mode look from a normal photo?
Yes, roughly. A camera in portrait mode blurs by distance, so things farther away get softer. This tool blurs the whole background by the same amount, which looks close for a person in front of a wall, a street or trees. Scenes with a floor running into the distance look flatter.
Photographers call the look of out-of-focus areas bokeh. Real lens blur turns small lights into round discs; a Gaussian blur turns them into soft glows. For most profile photos and product shots the difference is small.
How strong should the background blur be?
The slider shows the blur radius in pixels on the saved picture, and it scales with the picture size, so one position looks alike on any photo. A light setting keeps the place recognizable. A strong setting turns the backdrop into soft color, which hides clutter and draws the eye to the subject.
| Slider | On a 1,080 pixel photo | On a 3,000 pixel photo | On a 6,000 pixel photo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | 6 px | 18 px | 36 px |
| 35 | 15 px | 42 px | 84 px |
| 70 | 30 px | 84 px | 168 px |
Why is there no halo around the subject?
A plain blur would mix the subject's colors into the nearby background and leave a bright or dark ring. Here each pixel counts in the blur by how much it is background, from the AI mask, so the soft backdrop is made from background pixels only. The sharp subject then goes on top.
Fine hair can still catch a little of the old background. Lower Edge softness, or paint those strands with Erase, if a thin line shows.
Is my photo uploaded to blur the background?
No. The AI model downloads once to your browser and runs on your device. Your picture never leaves it: there is no upload and no account. The engine (11.8 MB) and the portrait model (6.3 MB) come from this site the first time and stay in your browser cache after that.
Limits
- One picture at a time. Open the next picture after you save.
- Very large photos are held to 8,192 pixels on the longest side and 16 megapixels, the size a phone browser can draw.
- Camera details such as GPS location and camera model are not copied into the saved file.
- Animated GIFs open as their first frame.
Frequently asked questions
Can I blur the background of a product photo?
Yes. Switch the subject to Object or product, which uses the model made for general subjects, then set the blur.
Does the saved photo keep its full size?
Yes, up to 8,192 pixels on the longest side and 16 megapixels. The mask is made on a smaller copy, then fitted to the full-size edges.
Can I undo the blur?
Before you save, Ctrl+Z removes it. The saved file holds only the blurred background, so keep your original photo.
Related PDF tools
How this tool was built and tested
- MODNet on GitHub (Zhanghan Ke et al.): the portrait matting model and its Apache 2.0 license
- Wikipedia: Bokeh: the look of out-of-focus areas in photos
- Test method: speeds and accuracy measured on 2026-10-18 with src/tools/imgedit/ai/bench.test.ts on a 2018 laptop (Intel Core i5-8350U), WebAssembly on one thread; mask, tile, Lanczos and fill math checked on hand-worked values in src/tools/imgedit/ai/ai.test.ts