How to Blur Specific Parts of a Photo in Windows Without Photoshop
"How to blur specific parts of a photo in Windows without Photoshop, with a tutorial on hiding sensitive information in images offline"
If you have a blog or social media account where you frequently post images that contain sensitive information, such as your personal identity or other private details, you may need to blur or hide that sensitive information.
There are many software programs you can use for this purpose, including Photoshop, but of course, not everyone has Photoshop installed on their laptop or computer, and many people probably think that only graphic design software can be used to blur images.
However, some of you might be mistaken, because in this digital age, you do not need to install third-party software just to use photo blurring features, in the tutorial below, i will explain how to blur specific parts of your photos, curious to find out how? alright, let us get started :
Tutorial:
- First, make sure you have prepared a duplicate of the photo whose parts you want to blur (keep the original photo in case you need it later).
- After that, click [Here] to download the software first, by the way, if you don't know how to download files from that website, you can download the software [Here].
- Once the download is complete, run the installer, right-click it and select Run As Administrator, if a UAC dialog box appears, simply click the Yes button.
A dialog box will then appear, as shown in the image below, select the first option.
- Select I Accept the agreement, then click the Next button directly below it.
- Next, click the Next button again.
- Now, click the Install button.
- Wait until the installation process is complete.
- Sonce the program has been installed, search for it using the search box in your Start menu, simply type Pinta.
- The program should appear in the search results.
- Click the program once, then select Open File Location on the right, or you can right-click the Pinta software directly when it appears and select Open File Location.
- File Explorer should then open and take you to the folder containing the Pinta program shortcut.
- Once you find the shortcut, move it to your desktop by left-clicking and dragging the Pinta shortcut to the desktop, then release the mouse button when it is in place.
- Once that is done, launch the Pinta program using the shortcut you moved to your desktop.
- Now, locate the image file you prepared earlier by clicking the folder icon in the top-left corner.
- A file selection dialog box will appear, find the image you want to edit, once you find it, click the image once to highlight it in blue, then click the Open button at the bottom of the dialog box.
- the image you want to modify should now appear in the Pinta program.
- Click the button i marked with a green box, this is the selection tool, which you need to use to select the area you want to blur.
- After clicking it, left-click and hold the mouse button, then drag toward the bottom-right corner, making sure you select the area you want to blur.
- The blue dot will not be visible at first, so start by left-clicking and holding at the top-left corner, then drag toward the bottom-right corner.
- Once you are done, the area you want to blur should be selected, if you want to adjust the selection boundaries for a cleaner result, simply click the blue dots, then hold and drag them to make the selection more precise.
- Once that is done, click the button i marked in green in the top-right corner..
- Several menus will appear, select Distort, then choose Pixelate.
- A settings dialog box should appear, as shown in the image below.
- Once you are satisfied with the blur intensity, click the OK button.
- You can now see the blur effect applied to the selected area.
- Once you are done, click the icon i marked with a green box, as shown in the image below, wait a few seconds, and the modified image should overwrite the original image file.
- Once that is done, enjoy.
Final Thoughts
Well, that is all for my tutorial, by the way, some of you might be thinking, Why go through all the trouble of downloading software like this? why not just use an online tool instead?.
That is a good question, and one of the reasons is privacy.
There is no denying that online tools have several advantages, you do not need to install any software or worry about your computer's specifications, however, there is one thing you should consider when using free online tools, and that is privacy.
When you upload an image to a website, the image usually needs to be sent to the service provider's server for processing, which means the file you submit is no longer stored only on your computer.
The file will not necessarily be stored forever, but we also cannot know for certain how every service handles the files we upload, therefore, if the image you want to edit is private or contains sensitive information, using software that runs directly on your computer may be a safer option.
By using this software, you can not only edit images easily, but also maintain greater control over your files because the process can be carried out locally on your computer.
In fact, if you want to make sure the software cannot connect to the internet, you can restrict its internet access through Windows settings, this way, the software cannot easily establish outgoing connections without your knowledge.
So, although online tools are more convenient, software that runs directly on your computer still has its own advantages, especially if you prioritize privacy and control over the files you are processing.