Turn blurry screenshots, receipts and photographed pages into text you can actually read. Try it free, no sign-up needed.
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Examples
Drag to explore blurred and clear versions of these AI-generated illustrations. These previews are not actual processing results.
Each time a chat app forwards an image, it shrinks and recompresses it, and small text goes first. Basic can make an order number, an address or an error message legible again. If you can, ask the sender to resend the original as a file.
Phones often lock focus on the edge of the page or the table underneath, so the middle comes out slightly soft. Basic firms up body text and the small stuff, like page numbers and footnotes.
Receipts are printed on thermal paper that fades, and they usually get photographed in a hurry. Sharpen the photo for your expense report, then check the total and the date against the paper before you submit it.
From the back of a room, marker strokes and slide text end up only a few pixels wide. Basic helps when the words are soft but you can still half-read them. If they've turned into a gray smudge, walk closer and take another photo.
Why Text Blurs
Letters are thin lines with hard edges, so they lose detail long before a face or a landscape does. These are the usual culprits.
Phones focus on whatever has the most contrast, and that isn't always the text. Tap on the words before you shoot and give the focus a moment to settle. For a photo you already have, slight softness like this is where Basic does its best work.
In dim light the shutter stays open longer, so a tiny wobble turns each letter into a double outline. Rest your elbows on the table or switch on more light. Basic can tidy up mild shake, but long streaks can't be undone reliably by any tool.
Chat apps and social networks resize images and leave blocky artifacts around letters. The fix is a better copy: on WhatsApp the sender can attach the photo as a Document, and on Telegram as a File, which keeps the original quality. If the copy you have is all there is, Basic cleans up the artifacts.
Text on the far side of a tilted page comes out smaller and softer than the near side. Try the document scanner in the iPhone Notes app or in Google Drive on Android, which flattens the page for you. If the scan still looks soft, unblur it here.
How It Works
It runs in the browser on your phone or computer, so there's nothing to install.
FAQ
Choose your model first, then upload the image. Once the image passes validation and you have enough credits, processing starts automatically and uses 1 credit for Basic or 3 for Pro, with no extra confirmation click. Your first 3 Basic runs are free without an account; Pro requires sign-in. The sharper version replaces your image in the preview, and you can download it as a JPG.
Basic works from the strokes already in your image instead of drawing new ones, so it keeps letters and numbers as they were written. Pro is a generative model. It can make very soft text look cleaner, but it may also redraw characters, turning a 3 into an 8 or misspelling a name. For anything you need to read exactly, use Basic and check the result against the original.
No. We don't support it, and once text has been heavily pixelated or covered, the original characters are gone. A tool that claims to reveal them is producing a convincing guess. Please only upload images you have the right to use.
Not always. A light blur or coarse pixelation over a password, card number or address can sometimes be partly read back. Cover sensitive text with a solid box instead, and do it before you share the image.
The upload takes a few seconds. Basic usually finishes within half a minute, and Pro often needs 30 to 45 seconds. Keep the page open and the result shows up when it's ready.
Each browser gets 3 free Basic runs without an account, and a new account comes with 3 credits that don't expire. After that it's 1 credit per image for Basic and 3 for Pro, and you can buy more on the pricing page. Failed jobs are refunded automatically.
Not directly. Open the PDF, zoom in to 200% or more on the part you need and take a screenshot, or export the page as a PNG at the highest resolution your viewer offers. Then upload that image. Zooming in before the screenshot gives you more pixels per letter, which often helps more than any unblurring.
Yes, as long as the writing is soft rather than illegible: whiteboard notes, a signed form, a page from a notebook. If you can't work out the words yourself when you zoom in, the model can't either.
The result is still an image. To get editable text, open it on an iPhone and use Live Text, or use Google Lens on Android. Text recognition makes fewer mistakes on sharp letters, so unblurring first usually helps.
Uploads and results are kept in private storage and never published. Preview and download links are signed and expire within minutes, and we don't use your images to train AI models. Images aren't deleted automatically yet, so if you upload something sensitive and want it removed, email support@imageunblur.ai. The Privacy Policy has the details.
Upload it, keep Basic selected and you'll usually have a readable copy in under a minute. The first 3 are free.