YouTube Adds A New Custom Blurring Tool

Back in 2012, Youtube added a new feature that allows you to automatically blur all faces in a video. You can find just about anything on YouTube. If you notice this during shooting, you might be able to frame your shot to exclude such things, but that isn’t always possible. The new functionality is an enhancement of the face blurring feature that YouTube has had for a few years now.

“Whether you want to blur sensitive information such as a license plate or cover up a wardrobe malfunction without reshooting an entire scene, the new Custom Blurring tool will let you blur objects throughout your video, right within YouTube”, says YouTube privacy lead Amanda Conway. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

This blurring tool is available now, and should be available for everyone using YouTube. The blur effect follows the chosen objects as they move across the screen, thus keeping them hidden without obscuring the rest of the video. Users can move the blurred area at any time and choose when the blur starts and stops. Then Select Custom Blurring from within the Blurring Effects tab from the Enhancement Tools. Draw a box around the object that needs to be blurred and the object will remain blurred as it moves throughout the video.

“While the use cases for this tool are vast, we built this feature with visual anonymity in mind”.