--- title: "Censor Bar – Add a Black Bar to an Image | pixelate.video" description: "Put a solid black censor bar over eyes, names or text in a photo or video, or pixelate it instead. Size and place it, then download the result. Free, no upload." url: https://pixelate.video/censor-bar --- Free · runs in your browser # Add a censor bar to a photo or video A solid black bar leaves nothing behind to decode. Drop one onto your picture in a click, place it over eyes, a name or a number, and save a clean copy. To add a censor bar, open your photo in the tool above: on this page it opens with a black bar already across the picture at roughly eye height. Drag it into place, pull its corners to fit, and press Export photo. Add censor bar (or the C key) adds more, and the photo is never uploaded. The black bar is the most certain way to hide something in a picture. Unlike blur or pixelation, it keeps no trace of the shapes or colours underneath, so there is nothing for software, or a determined person, to work back from. It is also the clearest signal to anyone looking that something was removed on purpose. ## How to add a censor bar to a picture 1. ### Open the image Drop the photo or screenshot onto the box above, or choose it from your files or photo library. 2. ### Find the censor bar On this page the tool opens on Part of the photo with a solid black bar, Censor bar 1, already in place. Press Add censor bar for more. 3. ### Place and size it Drag the bar over the eyes, the name or the number. Drag a corner to resize it, or use the arrow keys, holding Alt to change its size. Add more bars the same way. 4. ### Save the censored copy Press Export photo, then Download photo. PNG under Export settings keeps the edges of the bar crisp. ## Black bar, pixels or blur: which hides more A censor bar removes the pixels underneath entirely. Pixelation keeps an average colour for each block, and blur keeps a softened version of every shape. Both can leave enough for a familiar face to be recognised, and text has been recovered from light pixelation in published research. That makes the black bar the right choice for anything where being wrong would hurt someone: a witness’s eyes, a child in a safeguarding context, an account number, a home address or an ID card. Blur and pixelation are better suited to bystanders, background detail and pictures where a solid shape would look heavy-handed. You can mix them. Each area has its own Look for this area setting, so a picture can have pixelated faces, a blurred sign and a black bar over a name, all saved together. ## Censor eyes, names and number plates A few habits make a bar do its job properly: * Eyes: cover from the outer corner of one eye to the outer corner of the other, plus the eyebrows if the face is well known. A bar over the eyes alone does not anonymise anyone their friends would recognise; for that, cover the whole face. * Names and handles in screenshots: cover the profile picture as well as the name, since avatars are just as identifying. * Number plates: size the bar slightly larger than the plate, so the edge characters are not left peeping out. The [license plate photo guide](https://pixelate.video/blur-license-plate-photo) covers car sale photos specifically. * Documents: cover the whole line, not just the digits that look sensitive. Partial numbers can often be completed from other sources. ## Make the bar fit the job Every bar starts as a wide, thin rectangle across the middle of the picture. Drag it to move it, and drag any corner to make it longer, shorter, taller or thinner. With the bar selected, the arrow keys move it in small steps, Shift makes the steps larger, and Alt with an arrow key changes its size, so you can line it up precisely without a mouse. Bars stay straight: there is no rotation, so for a tilted line of text use a slightly taller bar that covers the whole slant, or paint over it with the brush and set that stroke to Black. Bars are always black; there is no colour picker. ## Censor bars on a video The same bar works on video. Drop a clip into the editor instead of a photo, press Add censor bar, and the bar can be timed to appear only while the thing it covers is on screen. If the subject moves, Track movement automatically keeps the bar on it. The guide to [censoring a video](https://pixelate.video/censor-video) walks through it. ## A plain censor bar image If you only need the graphic itself, to drop into a slide or another editor, there is a plain [black censor bar PNG](https://pixelate.video/censor-bar.png) (1200×240 pixels). Placing it with this editor is usually quicker, because the bar is sized against your own picture and the result is saved in one step. ## Questions about this kind of blur ### How do I make a censor bar? Open your picture above, choose Part of the photo and press Add censor bar. Move and resize the black bar over what you want hidden, then press Export photo. ### Where can I get a censor bar PNG? There is a plain [black censor bar PNG](https://pixelate.video/censor-bar.png) on this site. To put a bar straight onto your own photo, use the editor above instead. ### Can a black bar be removed? Not from the saved file. The pixels under the bar are replaced with black, so nothing of the original remains there. Do keep in mind that the original photo still exists wherever you stored it. ### Can I add more than one censor bar? Yes. Press Add censor bar again, or the C key, for each one. They are listed under Covered areas as Censor bar 1, Censor bar 2 and so on. ### Can I change the colour of the bar? No, bars are always black. If you want a softer cover, select the bar and set Look for this area to Pixelate or Blur. ### How do I censor part of a video? Drop the video into the same editor, add a bar and use Starts here and Ends here under Timing & shape so it only shows when needed. See [how to censor a video](https://pixelate.video/censor-video). ## Keep censoring: related guides * [ Pixelate a video online Pixelate, blur or black out any video, or just part of it. ](https://pixelate.video/) * [ Pixelate an image online Mosaic a whole photo, or just faces, text and plates in it. ](https://pixelate.video/pixelate-image) * [ Blur a license plate in a photo Hide the registration in car photos before you list or post them. ](https://pixelate.video/blur-license-plate-photo) * [ Censor a video online Black out faces, screens, text and more. ](https://pixelate.video/censor-video) * [ Blur an image or part of a photo Blur a whole picture, or only a face, sign or screen in it. ](https://pixelate.video/blur-image) * [ Blur faces in a photo automatically Find every face in a picture and blur the ones you choose. ](https://pixelate.video/blur-face-in-photo)