A blurry or distorted image certainly impacts the quality of your work, including presentations, proposals or a social media posts. Zooming in or resizing your images causes the grainy texture on your photos and makes them appear pixelated. But worry not, as you can fix your distorted low-quality images with some editing.

In an image, a bitmap region is the small coloured squares in larger-sized pixels that define the image resolution. A low-resolution image is more prone to be pixelated when you overstretch an image beyond its bitmap region. A little extra zoom-in could also cause the image to become distorted and grainy.

A high pixel density fuses together to form a clear and smooth image. No individual pixel squares are recognisable in such an image. But when you stretch a picture beyond its potential optimal resolution, it becomes blocky with the squares arranged in a stair-like manner. This staircase arrangement is commonly known as pixelation.

When this happens, the invidual pixels become more clearly visible and no longer fuse together to present a smooth edge or curve.

If you accidentally resize and distort an image’s resolution or have a low-quality image, you haven’t lost its worth just yet. You can still try de-pixelating your photos through some online websites and software.

Here we’ve explained why pixelation happens and listed four quick ways to fix pixelated images online and offline.

Why does pixelation happen?

Here are the most common explanations for why images pixelate when not managed carefully.

Resizing the image.
Human or camera errors such as lack of focus.

Low-quality scanners may distort the image output.
Opening the picture on an incompatible app might make it blurred.

To prevent pixelation, use high-resolution images, original clear pictures or the images with more pixels. You cannot enhance an image’s resolution but only create a new image with a higher resolution.

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How to fix pixelated images online?

While some apps and websites use the bicubic upscaling technique for low-resolution images to make their blocky edges appear blurry., others utilise the near-neighbour upscaling to portray jagged and distorted appearances.

These online tools are free to use and easy to handle. While they may offer you many features, they are best suited for occasional editing and manipulation. Here are our top two picks for online image editing tools.

Fotor

Fotor is a user and platform-friendly website that will allow you to manipulate and edit your images online for free. It offers you to edit, reshape, retouch and create custom designs.

Here is how to fix a pixelated image using Fotor.

Step.1: Upload your pixelated photo that needs editing on the Fotor site.

Step.2: Choose the Adjust option from the left navigation menu.

Step.3: Select the Mosaic option from the menu.

Step.4: Under the Mosaic heading, click on the Erase icon.

Step.5: Now, scroll left to minimise the pixel size under the Pixel Size heading.

Step.6: Once done, click on Apply button to save the changes.

With this setting, the pixel size of your image will reduce, and it will appear as a clear, smooth image again.

You can also try out the Smoothing feature if you pay for a premium upgrade or will have a watermark image as an end result.

To try out this feature, follow the steps below.

Step.1: Select the Beauty alternative from the left navigation menu.

Step.2: Choose the Smoothing option.

Step.3: Click on the Brush icon to add the smoothing effect..

Step.4: Now use the sliders to minimise the image pixelation and improve its smoothening.

Step.5: Once done, click on Apply button to save the changes.

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Pixelied

Pixelied is another commonly used online image editing platform you can use to fix pixelated images. It is a free and easily accessible. You can perform basic edits, readjust the image brightness and apply filters to make it look more appealing. Follow these steps to achieve that perfect gaze.

Step.1: Upload the image you want to edit on the Pixelied website.

Step.2: Click on the Image Effects & Filters button.

Step.3: Under the Effects & Filters menu on the left, click on the Effects button.

Step.4: Now click on Pixelate tab from the list.

Step.5: Under the Pixelate heading, move the scroll bar to adjust the pixelation of the image.

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How to fix pixelated images offline?

While you can edit your images for free online, if you’re looking to access more tools to fix a pixelated image, you might want to try the free Paint.net and the paid Photoshop.

Paint.Net

Paint.net is a free handy tool that can help you to edit images and remove pixelation. With this tool, you can improve your images with all the basic editing tasks it delivers. Though not as powerful as Photoshop, it’s easy to use and gets regular updates.

Step.1: Open your image in the Paint.Net tool.

Step.2: Select the Effects option.

Step.3: Now, navigate to the Blur option and choose the Gaussian Blur alternative.

Step.4: Use the sliders under this option to reduce the pixel size to a minimum.

Step.5: Again, go to Effects.

Step.6: Choose the Photos option and click on the Sharpen button.

Step.7: Move the sliders to adjust the sharpness of the image to an acceptable level.

Step.8: After it’s done, save the images with the changes.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is the most recommended image editing tool. With Photoshop, you can not only fix a pixelated image but do a lot more to make your images appear better. However, you’ll require to buy a license to use the tool. With these steps, you can edit in Photoshop to get pixelation-free photos.

Step.1: Start by opening your image in Photoshop software.