Blur the faces in the background
A holiday photograph has two kinds of person in it: the one you were photographing, and everyone who happened to be standing behind them. Only the second kind needs covering.
The editor separates them and gives you a slider to move the line, because no fixed rule is right for every picture.
Works today, in your browser. Photos open in the editor and Word documents are checked for hidden data; either way the file is read on your device and never uploaded.
How it decides
By relative size, mostly. A face much smaller than the largest one in the frame is almost always further away, and a face hard against the edge is usually somebody walking past. Both are things you can see for yourself in the picture, which is the point — a judgement you cannot check is one you cannot trust.
The largest face is always treated as a subject. A result where everybody is in the background would make the feature’s name a lie.
The slider
"Keep the main person visible" sets how small a face has to be before it counts as background. Drag it and faces move between the two groups immediately — nothing is detected again, so it responds like a slider should.
At zero, everyone is a main person. At the far end, everyone except the nearest face is background. The suggested setting sits between those, and it is a starting point rather than an answer.
Why bother at all
The people behind you did not agree to be posted. In most places that is a courtesy rather than a legal duty, but it is a courtesy with real consequences: a stranger placed in a particular city on a particular day by a photograph they never saw.
It is also the most common reason a photograph cannot be used at work — one identifiable bystander, and a picture that is otherwise fine is off the table.
How to do it
- 1Open the photoFaces are split into the subject and the background.
- 2Move the slider until the split looks rightThe groups update as you drag.
- 3Save itOnly the background group is covered in the copy you download.
Questions
Move the slider down, or click their face to reveal it. A single click on an area is remembered even if you switch the whole category off and on again.
It knows which face is largest and where each one sits in the frame. It does not recognize anybody, and it is not trying to — that is a guess you are better placed to check than any model.
Yes — switch on both face groups, or use the whole-person detector to cover bodies as well. A covered face is not always enough when a uniform is still visible.
Related
- Blur a face in a photoCover a face in a picture in two clicks. The blur is burned into the pixels and the photo is never uploaded — …
- Blur everyone in a photoCover every face in a picture, or every whole person, when a uniform or a build is as recognisable as a face. …
- Auto-blur facesDrop a photo and every face is covered before you have looked at it. Uncover the ones you meant to keep. Runs …
We report no issues found, never “safe”. Absence of detections is not proof of absence, and detection is best-effort.