Blur the background of a photo
Upload a photo and get it back with the background blurred and the subject sharp. A matting model cuts the subject out pixel for pixel, the background behind it is blurred, and the two are put back together at full size.
- 7 credits a run (about $0.07 on Starter), with any DreamBench plan.
- Runs on BiRefNet.Runs on BiRefNet, one of the models DreamBench renders with.
- A preset of the AI background remover.
What does the blur background tool do?
It keeps the subject of a photo sharp and blurs everything behind it, so a busy room or street stops pulling the eye. You pick soft, moderate or strong. It is for portraits, profile pictures, pets and products shot at home. It is part of every DreamBench plan, from $9.99 a month.
How to blur the background of a photo
Upload a photo
A portrait, a pet, a product on a busy table: any photo with one clear subject in front of a background you want softened.
Pick how much blur
Moderate is set. Soft takes the edge off a busy background, strong turns it into shapes of color and light, and you can change it after the run without using credits. Then press Blur the background. The first time, create a free account and choose a plan.
Download the photo
The subject stays sharp over the blurred background, up to 2048 pixels on the long edge, ready to download full size.
Which blur strength do I need?
Pick what the photo is for.
A profile photo for LinkedIn or a dating app
Moderate. It separates the face clearly from the room behind it and still reads as a real place at the small size those apps show a photo. Soft is enough when the background was already plain.
A thumbnail or a banner with text on it
Strong. The background becomes shapes of color and light, so white text over it stays readable, with the subject sharp beside it.
A product on a kitchen table
Soft or moderate. Soft keeps the kitchen recognizable, only quieter, for a lifestyle image; moderate takes the eye off it altogether. The product keeps every pixel either way, label included.
The look of a lens or portrait mode
Strong is the closest. A lens blurs more the further something is from the subject; this tool blurs the whole background by the same amount, an even Gaussian blur, so the strongest setting is the one that reads most like a shallow depth of field.
A crowd or a street behind someone
Moderate. Faces and signs behind the subject become soft enough not to pull the eye but the place still reads; strong turns them into color and is the choice when the people behind should not be recognizable.
Uses
Blur the background of a portrait
A face in front of a cluttered room, a crowd or a parking lot, softened so the person stands out. Moderate suits most portraits; it is an even blur, not a lens, so a photo with a lot of depth can look flatter than portrait mode would make it.
Blur a busy background behind a product
A product photographed on the kitchen table, with the kitchen still there but quieter. The product keeps every pixel, label included, and the blur takes the eye off what is behind it.
Room for a title on a thumbnail
Strong turns the background into color and light, so white text over it stays readable on a thumbnail or a banner, with the subject sharp beside it.
Blur the background of a photo you've already taken
Yes, you can blur the background of a photo you've already taken. A phone's portrait mode blurs as you shoot, using depth it records at the time, so its slider works only on those photos. This tool finds the subject from the picture itself, so any photo works, an old one included: upload it and pick the strength.
Gaussian blur, not bokeh
The background is blurred evenly, a Gaussian blur, the same at every distance. A lens blurs more the further away something is, and turns points of light into discs, called bokeh. Strong is the closest to a lens's soft background.
Works with
- What it takes
- JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC, up to 40 MB, straight from a phone or a camera. An iPhone's HEIC photo becomes a JPEG on your device as you choose it, in any browser. A picture larger than 2048 pixels on its long edge is scaled to 2048 before the run.
- What you get
- A JPEG, or a PNG when you upload a PNG, at the size of your upload, up to 2048 pixels on its long edge.
- Instagram, LinkedIn and dating apps
- A profile photo with a soft background reads clearly at the small size those apps show it.
- YouTube and Canva
- Use the photo as a thumbnail or a design background with text over the blurred part.
- Shopify and Etsy
- A lifestyle image with the clutter softened, the product untouched. A marketplace main image usually has to be on plain white, which the white background tools make.
Worth knowing
Which model runs it, and where it fails
Runs on BiRefNet. BiRefNet is an open-source model built to separate a subject from its background at high resolution. It decides, pixel by pixel, what is subject and what is background, with soft edges where the two meet, and draws nothing new. DreamBench runs it on fal, and the subject in the result is made of your photo's own pixels.
The subject, pixel for pixel
A matting model works out which pixels belong to the subject. Those are kept exactly as you shot them: nothing in the subject is blurred, sharpened or redrawn.
An even blur, not a lens
The subject is cut out pixel for pixel and the background behind it is blurred evenly, so it won't look like a real shallow depth of field on every photo.
Soft, moderate or strong
Soft keeps the background recognizable, only quieter. Moderate separates the subject clearly. Strong turns the background into color and light, room for a title on top. They are Gaussian blurs with a sigma of 6, 12 and 24 pixels of the photo, which is at most 2048 pixels on its long edge, so the same choice looks stronger on a small photo.
Where it fails
- Hair and fur against a busy background can keep a thin halo of the old, sharp background around their edges.
- A subject the same color as its background is the hard case: part of it can be blurred with the background.
- Anything touching the subject, a hand on a shoulder or a cup in a hand, may be counted as background and blurred.
Blur background tool FAQ
How do I blur the background of a photo?
To blur the background of a photo, upload it, pick soft, moderate or strong, and press Blur the background. A matting model cuts the subject out pixel for pixel, the background behind it is blurred, and the subject is laid back over it at full size, nothing in it sharpened or redrawn. Make it with any DreamBench plan and download the full-size file.
Can I use the blur background tool without a plan?
No. Every run needs a DreamBench plan; you create an account on the way, and the button shows the price in credits before you press it. A run that fails is refunded, and changing the strength after the run costs nothing. The file carries no watermark: your photo's own pixels, the background blurred.
Does it look like portrait mode or a real lens?
Not on every photo. A lens, or portrait mode, blurs more the further something is from the subject. This tool blurs the whole background by the same amount, an even Gaussian blur, so a wall right behind someone softens as much as the horizon, and a photo with a lot of depth can look flatter. Strong is the closest to a lens's soft background.
Is the subject sharpened or retouched?
No. The subject's pixels are the ones you uploaded: the matting model only decides what is subject and what is background. Nothing in the subject is blurred, sharpened or redrawn, so a subject that was out of focus stays that way; to sharpen a blurred photo, the unblur tool does the opposite job. A photo larger than 2048 pixels on its long edge is scaled to 2048 first.
Which blur strength should I pick?
Moderate suits most portraits and products. Soft keeps the background recognizable, only less busy. Strong turns it into color and light, which leaves room for text on a thumbnail. The blur is measured in pixels, so the same choice looks stronger on a small photo than on a large one.
Can I blur only part of the background?
No. The whole background is blurred at the one strength you pick, and the subject stays sharp. To blur one area by hand, or more in the distance than up close, an editor such as Photoshop gives that control.
Is there an app to blur the background of a photo?
This page works in the browser on a phone as well as on a computer, Android, iPhone, Mac or Windows, with nothing to install. A phone's portrait mode blurs as you shoot, and Google Photos has a portrait blur edit on many Android phones; for any other photo, upload it here.
Can I blur the people behind me for privacy?
Everything the model reads as background is blurred, people included, at the strength you pick: strong turns faces into shapes of color. Someone touching or very close to the subject may be kept sharp with it, so check the result before you post it, and change the strength in the page if you need more.
Can I blur the background on several photos at once?
No. Each run takes one photo, and there is no batch upload or API: the tool is used through this page. Pick the same strength each time and a set of portraits comes back with the same blur, so a team page made over several runs still matches.
Can it blur the background of a video call or a video?
No. It blurs the background of one still photo. Zoom, Teams and Google Meet have their own live background blur for calls. A blurred photo made here can go into the DreamBench composer as the reference for a new clip.
Blur background tool or the AI background remover: which do I need?
Use this page to keep your photo's own background, only blurred: the same matte as the AI background remover cuts the subject out, and the page lays it back over a blurred copy of the original. Use the remover for the subject on transparency or white. After a run on either page you can switch between a blurred original, a color and transparency with no new run.
Why is there a sharp outline of the old background around hair?
A sharp outline around hair is a strip of the old background that the matte counted as subject, so it was laid back sharp over the blur. It shows most at strong, where the blur behind it is softest. Switch to soft or moderate with no new run, or upload a sharper copy: a photo over 1280 pixels on its long edge is matted at 2048 pixels.
Does blurring the background reduce the quality of my photo?
Blurring the background does not touch the subject: its pixels are the ones you uploaded, and the download is at the size of the upload, up to 2048 pixels on its long edge, as a JPEG, or a PNG when you upload a PNG. A photo larger than that is scaled to 2048 before the run, so a 12-megapixel phone photo comes back at about 3 megapixels.
How much does the Blur background tool cost?
Each run uses 7 credits from your DreamBench plan. Starter, $9.99 a month, includes 1,100 credits a month, about 157 runs of the Blur background tool, plus AI video. A run that fails is refunded.
Do I need an account to use the Blur background tool?
Yes: a free account and a DreamBench plan. The tools are part of every plan, from Starter at $9.99 a month.
Which image files does the Blur background tool take?
A photo up to 40 megabytes: JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC or another format your browser opens. A photo straight from a phone is fine, an iPhone's HEIC included: the page scales a large picture down to 2048 pixels on its long edge before the run, so the result is never larger than the page says.
Can I use what the Blur background tool makes commercially?
Yes. Under the DreamBench Terms you may use what a tool makes for personal and commercial purposes, including advertising, monetized content and work for clients, with no separate commercial-use upgrade. The Terms don't guarantee copyright in a result or clear another person's rights in your upload, so only use photos you have the rights to.
Is my photo used to train AI?
No. DreamBench doesn't use your prompts, uploads or videos to train or fine-tune AI models, and any future training program would be opt-in.
What happens to my uploaded photo?
It stays in your browser until you make a result. Then it is used to make that result and nothing else, and removed from the tool's storage after seven days along with the result. A result you keep in your library stays as long as you keep it.
Copy checked against the engine on .
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Learn
Guides, comparisons and terms
- Guides
How to remove a background on iPhone
Lift a subject off its background in the Photos app, then copy, share or make a sticker.
Read it - Guides
How to remove a background in Word, PowerPoint and Google Slides
The built-in background removal of Word, PowerPoint and Google Slides, and when a PNG is easier.
Read it - Comparisons
remove.bg’s website is closing: the alternatives, compared
remove.bg’s site is closing: how Canva, Photoroom and DreamBench compare on cutouts, price and limits.
Read it - Glossary
Transparent background
Pixels with no color of their own, stored in an alpha channel, so the page behind shows through.
Read it - Glossary
Background removal
Separating a photo’s subject from what is behind it, with segmentation or matting models.
Read it
Then make it move
Every result can go into a video.
Keep what the Blur background tool made in your library and open it in the composer as a reference image. DreamBench writes the scenes and renders them on the model you pick, from Seedance 2.5 to Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0. Rendering uses credits, which come with a plan.