Premiere Pro · Framing, motion and effects
How to blur a face in Premiere Pro
Short answer
Apply Gaussian Blur or Mosaic to the clip, draw an ellipse mask around the face in Effect Controls, then click Track selected mask forward so the blur follows it.
In Premiere Pro
01
Apply a blur
Drag Gaussian Blur (Video Effects > Blur & Sharpen) or Mosaic (Stylize) onto the clip.
02
Draw a mask
In Effect Controls, under the effect, click the ellipse mask tool and draw around the face in the Program Monitor.
03
Feather it
Raise Mask Feather so the edge is soft, and Mask Expansion so it covers the whole face.
04
Track it
Park at the start of the clip and click Track selected mask forward (the play-arrow button next to Mask Path). Premiere follows the face.
05
Check every frame
Scrub through. Where tracking slips, move the mask and the tracking continues from your fix.
- For legal redaction, check every frame. A single unblurred frame can identify someone.
Eddie AI
Do it in Eddie
Eddie blurs a fixed area, but it doesn't track faces, and the blur doesn't carry into Premiere.
Ask "Blur the license plate in the second clip." Blur, pixelate and fill are free, with up to 24 boxes on one clip. The box does not move, so it suits logos, plates and screens more than moving faces. It shows in Eddie's MP4 renders; in a Premiere export the area is not hidden, so redact there.
Back to Premiere
Open the edit, click Export and choose Premiere. You get a Premiere project (.prproj) or the older Premiere XML. In the desktop app, Send to Premiere Pro builds the edit inside Premiere through Eddie's panel, which the app installs for you.
If you imported the footage through the desktop app, the timeline points at your original camera files, so Premiere relinks to them. If you uploaded on the web or pulled from cloud storage, it points at Eddie's proxy media; relink to those, not to the camera originals.
From the help center
Questions
- Can Premiere blur a face automatically?
- It tracks a mask you draw. It doesn't detect faces for you.
- Mosaic or Gaussian Blur?
- Either. Mosaic reads as deliberate censoring; blur is softer.