How to Censor a Video Easily

Last Updated: 2021. 10. 29

Since videos and graphical content have a phenomenal impact on society, taking care of people's privacy and displaying content that won’t disrespect people's beliefs is a huge matter that video makers need to take care of.

A criminal arrested by police, number plates of cars, or a video filmed at a public place are just a few examples where censor bars are used by videographers and content creators to hide objects or people's faces. For whatever reasons you need to censor a video, one of the go-to software for the editors is Adobe Premiere Pro.

This popular editor comes with a tremendous number of tools to apply mosaic or censor lines to moving objects and faces easily along with an option to mute the unwanted sounds as well. Interested in learning how to censor a video? The method is disclosed below. Keep on reading to find out more:

Part 1. How to Censor a People or an Object with Premiere Pro?

You have a video in which you want to cover the face of a person for XYZ reasons. There are two methods to censor a person or an object in post-production using Gaussian Blur and Mosaic effect. Let’s take a look at how to censor a video in Premiere Pro:

Method 1: Using Gaussian Blur

Applying the Gaussian Blur

  • Import your video in Premiere Pro and drop it into the timeline. You need to select the clip first to apply any effect to it.
  • From the Effect Control panel, find the popular blur option, the Gaussian blur. Drag the effect to the clip in the timeline. Or you can also select and double click an effect in the panel to apply it.
  • To draw the effect to the clip or a face, you have three options: Ellipse, rectangle, and pen tool. Select one from them. The effect will be applied in the drawn mask.
  • Through stop motion videos, you get to animate your ideas and breathe life into inanimate objects with everyday objects that you have available. Record these inanimate objects and turn them into beautiful animated videos through stop motion.

    Stop motion is a great way to get started with manual animation and achieve entertaining and eye-catching videos. This type of video creates the illusion of movement just like a more advanced animated video would. The uniqueness of stop motion videos is likely to keep viewers entertained and watching until the end.

    Applying Gaussian Blur Effect

    Applying Gaussian Blur Effect

    In order to create these videos, you’ll need a stop motion video editor. Keep reading to find out our top picks for the next stop motion video makers available online.

    Tracking the Mask

  • Make sure the play head is at the beginning of the clip. Place the mask over the subject's face so that it covers the face properly.
  • Adjust the mask settings using the adjustments.
  • Select the Track Selected Mask Forward to track the select object or face.
  • This option will make the mask follow the selected item as the clip plays.
  • Tracking the Mask

    Tracking the Mask

    Adjust the intensity of the blurriness over the selected face or object through the slider in the Effects panel. This method is generally recommended to blur or censor the logos or items in the video.

    Method 2: Using Mosaic Effect

    The second method offers a more profound censor effect which is ideal to cover faces in the videos. Bring your video to the software interface and then follow the steps:

  • Back in the Effects panel, open the Video Effects > Stylize > Mosaic. Drag it to the video and by default, your entire video will be censored.
  • Now to adjust the blur effect, define the number of blocks at the start and at the end of the video you want on-axis in the Horizontal and Vertical Blocks. The suggested number is 50 to 150. The smaller the number, the larger the pixel on the face and vice versa.
  • You can use the Ellipse option here to create a mask over a person's face. Adjust the mask in the video image using the blue transform nodes.
  • Track the mask the same way as explained above.
  • You might not find this mask option if you have an older or outdated version. Download the latest version to access all such useful tools.

    How to CensorPeople and Logos (Premiere Pro Tutorial)

    Part 2. How to Censor the Sound with Premiere Pro

    Where freedom of speech is a basic human right but sometimes you do not want to add certain audio in your video that expresses negative words or irrelevant content. In such cases, you can censor the audio of the clip.

    Let’s take a look at how you can censor the sound with Premiere Pro the easiest way.

  • After uploading your video in the timeline, go to the Effects Panel and drag the Pitch Shifter effect onto your audio.
  • Now back in the Effect Panel, under the Pitch Shifter option, click on the edit.
  • From the pop-up window: lower the semitone and cents value and your audio will be covered with an artificial voice to overshadow the original one.
  • You can use the Ellipse option here to create a mask over a person's face. Adjust the mask in the video image using the blue transform nodes.
  • Track the mask the same way as explained above.
  • Using Pitch Shifter

    Using Pitch Shifter

    Bonus Tip: How to Change Face in Video?

    Instead of blurring out the face and destroying the video quality try the new advanced feature of FlexClip to censor the face by changing it entirely. The online video editor allows you to swap faces with other people's faces, or use built-in stickers and memes.

    The funky emojis and high-quality pictures add uniqueness to your content and serve the purpose of covering faces and objects quite gracefully. Sounds interesting, right?

    Change Face with FlexClip

    Change Face with FlexClip

    Click to know the detailed steps of How to Change Face in Video

    Create a Video View Templates

    The Bottom Line

    Censoring content in videos sometimes becomes a daunting task with complex video editing software like Premiere Pro. But why go through such headaches when you can have the fun, easy, and much interesting way to cover unwanted objects.

    Try FlexClip to access unique tools and stickers to bring awesomeness to your content like never experienced anywhere else.

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