Stylised filters, not corrections
Where a tonal adjustment tool fixes an image that looks wrong, a filter effect deliberately changes how a correctly exposed image looks — grayscale, blur, sepia, invert and the other effects here are creative choices, not corrections. Each one is applied as a live preview using the browser's CSS-style filter pipeline, so the result you see while adjusting the strength is exactly what downloads.
What each effect is generally used for
| Effect | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Grayscale | Removing colour entirely for a classic black-and-white look, or to neutralise a colour cast before other edits |
| Sepia | A warm, aged-photograph tone, commonly used for a nostalgic or vintage feel |
| Blur | Softening detail — a background element, a face for privacy, or a dreamy stylistic effect |
| Invert | Flipping every colour to its opposite — occasionally useful for checking contrast, more often a deliberate visual effect |
| Contrast-adjacent filters | Pushing an image toward a bolder, more graphic look than a subtle correction would |
Stacking effects
Effects here apply on top of each other in the order they are enabled, so a grayscale-then-sepia combination gives a different result from sepia-then-grayscale (the second one, applied last, typically dominates). If a combined result looks unexpected, try toggling effects off one at a time to see which one is producing the change you didn't want.
Filter effect or genuine photo editing?
These are single-pass filters applied uniformly across the whole image — fast, predictable, and limited by design. For anything that needs to target a specific region — blurring only a face, not the whole photo — Photo Censor / Pixelate Tool applies a targeted effect to a chosen area instead of the entire image, which is what most privacy-blurring tasks actually need.