Blur faces in a photo

You select each face

Octoolo does not find faces for you; there is no face detection. You select each face yourself. For a family photo with two strangers in the background, that is two quick drags. For a crowd at a match it takes longer, and it is worth going over the photo row by row so nobody is missed.

Doing it by hand has an upside: you decide exactly who is hidden. Automatic tools can miss faces turned to the side or in shadow, and blur the one person the photo is about. Here, the friend who agreed to be shown stays visible and the child at the next table does not.

It also works on whatever you can see, not only on faces a program would recognize: a profile, the back of a head, a face half hidden behind someone else. To hide a whole person, press W for Select an object and click them: AI on your PC outlines the person you clicked.

What to hide besides faces

• License plates on cars parked outside your home.
• House numbers and street signs that place you on a map.
• Screens and papers: a laptop in the background, a letter on the table, a whiteboard at work.
• Badges, uniforms and school logos that say where someone works or studies.
• Reflections in windows, mirrors, sunglasses and shiny cars, which can show the photographer or the room.
• Tattoos and birthmarks that identify a person as surely as a face does.

The same selection and filter cover them all, in one go if you select them together. When you share photos from a school event, a party or a gathering, ask first, and blur when in doubt: it takes a moment, and the people in the picture cannot undo a post once it spreads.

Blur, Pixelate or black for faces

Gaussian Blur blends in best, so the photo still looks natural; good for bystanders. Pixelate is the familiar mosaic of the evening news, and makes it obvious that something was hidden on purpose. A black fill is the strongest: a solid block that leaves nothing of the face in the exported file.

Whichever you pick, select generously. Hair, ears and the outline of a head can be enough for friends to recognize someone. For children in particular, or anyone at risk, use black or a strong blur, then open the exported copy and look at it at full size before you share it.

Pixelate and blur keep a face's rough skin tone and hair color. In a small group where even that could point to one person, black is the only safe option. Mixing is fine: blur the strangers in the background and black out the one person who must not be identified, in the same photo, by selecting each group in turn.

Before you post

Hiding faces protects people only if the rest of the file does not give them away. The copy Octoolo exports leaves out the photo's location, date and camera details, so the place it was taken does not travel with it; removing photo metadata explains what those are. Crop away anything else you do not need with crop image: what is not in the picture cannot leak.

Share the exported JPG or PNG only. A blur or pixelate filter stays a live layer over the untouched face while you work, so a project saved with File › Save or a PSD copy still holds every face. The editor also keeps your photo in progress on the PC so you can return to it; on a shared computer, choose File › Close (Ctrl W) when you are done, and Close without saving if it asks, which clears it.

In a chat app, send the exported copy, not the photo from your gallery or the file you started from: those still show every face. A quick look at the attachment before you press send catches the mix-up.