As some of you may know, one of the defining features of Japanese porn is that genitals are pixelated. This might seem a little odd, considering the reputation that Japan has for being slightly on the sexually depraved side, but for decades there has been a law that requires all domestic porn to be censored. Unpixelated porn is produced, but because it’s illegal (and actually policed) it’s usually only produced by smaller studios or enterprising sole traders. Now, for the discerning porn watcher, there’s finally another solution: A depixelation machine!
Depixelation is a topic that’s particularly close to ExtremeTech’s heart — not because of porn, you understand, but because of 8-bit art. To this day, an 8-bit depixelation algorithm developed by Microsoft Research was one of the site’s most popular stories of all time. Given how new technologies are nearly always first adopted by the gaming and sex industries, we’re actually rather surprised that it took this long for depixelation machines so long to appear. (And yes, I’m as curious as you about whether these machines could be used to more effectively upscale your old NES games. I’ve emailed one of the machine makers to ask for a review unit, and hope to report back with my findings soon.)
The devices, called mosaic removal machines (モザイク除去機, mozaiku jyokyo-ki), essentially consist of a video pass-through box with a bunch of knobs on. Sadly, there don’t appear to be any photos of what’s inside these boxes, but given that the boxes sport composite and coaxial input/output, we’re probably not talking about hyper-advanced tech. Going by the labels, it seems you get a targeting reticule that depixelates everything beneath it. It doesn’t appear to automatically target the pixelated regions; instead, you have to move a little joystick around and twiddle a “zoom” knob to match the size of the genital in question. (Read: Just how big are porn sites?)
According to Kotaku, there is a mass debate over whether these machines actually work. (Kotaku also says that Japanese porn is painstakingly censored by hand, earning the highly skilled laborers $15 per hour.) Scientifically speaking, it depends on how the original censorship mosaic is produced. Similar to how Photoshop can de-blur photos if it can work out what camera movement caused the blur, if the pixelation algorithm is known, it might be possible to rebuild the original image. Ultimately, though, the main problem with pixelation is that you can’t recreate data that doesn’t exist; if you imagine that each censored pixel has been replaced by a block of 32×32 pixels, there is no way to recover all 1024 pixels. At best, by analyzing its neighbours and using some other more complex methods, you might get a handful of pixels that are the correct color — at worst, you’ll get just a single pixel of the correct color. So, while this machine might unscramble the mosaic, it won’t miraculously restore the genitals to their original high-definition glory. One Japanese website (which doesn’t contain nudity but isn’t work-safe) claims the de-mosaic device costs almost $900; I really hope that isn’t the case.
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As I wrote this story, another possible solution came to mind: Genital replacement. Rather than trying to salvage what little detail is left, it should be possible to write some software that removes the pixelated region, and then splices in a matching organ from a database of porn. It obviously wouldn’t match perfectly, but it would be easy enough to match skin tone, and perhaps a few other features.
The other option, of course, is that Japanese porn watchers should just start appending “uncensored” to their BitTorrent searches.
Sometimes, someone needs to block or hide a particular section or part of a picture. The main purpose of this is to block sensitive part or to restrict nudity by making certain parts of a photo unreadable. The times when he/she need to do it, he/she either blurs the sensitive area of a photo or paints a black colored box over that area. This process ends up with a censored picture.
But there arises a question too: is it possible to remove censor parts from photos? If yes, then how to uncensor a picture? If you want answers to these questions, keep on reading till the end to find those 4 magic censor remover tools that could fix a censored image and provide its uncensored version back.
# 1 Jihosoft Photo Eraser
The top best censor remover you can use is Jihosoft Photo Eraser tool which can restore a image to its original version by filling the censored part with intelligently-generated textures pulled from the image data near the boundary of that part.
To achieve that goal, you simply need to paint the censored box which you need to wipe out from the image. Then this artificial intelligence photo editing software will do the rest for you. It is user-friendly enough for those who are not photo editing experts.
Here you can find the step-by-step process to remove a censored part from a photo by using this uncensoring tool:
- Step 1: Before you start, you may notice that the red mask option in the bottom left toolbox is enabled by default. In this state, the program allows you to use the Selection Brush or other selection tools to mask one or multiple areas to be edited/removed. Then, choose one of the selection tools to select the censored part of the image which needs to be uncensored.
- Step 2: Once you have selected the area that needs to be erased, check whether the area is fully masked or painted. You can make use of the Zoom Out and Zoom In options to paint or mask the part carefully if it is a small area in a photo.
- Step 3: After selecting the areas carefully, click on the “Erase” button which is located on the bottom right side of the application. Then, the program will start erasing censored or pixelated part automatically from the picture.
- Step 4: If there are more than one areas that need to be erased, you should repeat the above steps. It is advisable to erase one area or part of the image at a time so as to remove all the uncensored parts perfectively and effectively.
Besides uncensoring photos, this Jihosoft Photo Eraser is also loaded with many useful photo editing features, and it comes with a wide array of Selection, Masking, Cloning, and other tools which not only help you remove beard and moustache from photos but also help you repair old black and white photos, and even erase captions from photos without spoiling the background of the image.
#2 Inpaint
Inpaint is another photo censored photo editor similar to Jihosoft Photo Eraser. It helps you uncensor photos in a seamless way and works perfectly for the censored areas which are smaller in size. However, it is not possible to fully remove the censored part of an image with Inpaint, but what it does is to simply patch up the censored part.
Moreover, Inpaint uses the process of cloning to apply a patch from the surrounding parts onto the censored area. So, you will not be able to restore the censored parts such as a face or bikini of a model as the image which is censored does not contain data of the face or any of the body parts once they have been censored.
However, there is no need to get upset over it as Inpaint can still erase boxes, labels, logos and other small undesired objects in pictures. Let us see how to uncensor photos with this tool:
- Step 1: Launch the Inpaint program. Once it gets opened you will have to click on the “Open” button located on the top left corner of your screen. It allows you to open the censored image on the working window of the program.
- Step 2: Now, you can either use the pencil tool or the magic wand selection tool to select the image area that is censored or pixelated. Now use the “Retouch” button to recover the lost data of your image.
- Step 3: Then Inpaint is ready to retouch and hide the censored box from the picture by applying the details of the surrounding area on the target part. And after the uncensoring process finishes, it ends up with an image which looks almost uncensored.
#3 Adobe Photoshop: Remove black censor box and blur censor
Now let us see how to uncensor a picture by using the Adobe Photoshop. It is an excellent photo editing software with a plethora of editing tools and options. However, beginners need to practice more in order to master the use of this software effectively. But you need not be an expert photo editor if you only need to uncensor photos with it.
Let us see in detail how to use this software to remove censor box from images:
Option 1. Remove Censored Parts from Photos
- Step 1: Open the censored image in Photoshop by using the “Open Image” option located on the top left corner of the program interface.
- Step 2: Now, move the cursor to the “Action” menu and choose “Edit” option. It will again open a set of options from which you need to select the “Layers” option.
- Step 3: Go through all the layers present in the palette. An image is typically made of many layers, or if it isn’t composed of many layers then there will be at least the main image layer. If you find multiple layers, you need to find which layer contains only the censor box with no surrounding areas.
- Step 4: After you find that layer all you need to do is to right click on it and select the “Delete” option. After that, the censored area will be automatically removed from your image and you will be able to see the original image.
- Step 5: Once you finish uncensoring a picture, do not forget to save it by clicking “Ctrl” + “S” to save the uncensored image on your computer.
Option 2. Remove Blurry Parts from Censored Photos
Many a time, it happens that an image is censored by blurring rather than by painting solid colored boxes on certain parts. If this is the case with your censored photo, you can try to remove the blur by using Photoshop as well.
- Step 1: Open the image with blur censor in Photoshop and try to create a duplicate layer by moving the background layer on the New Layer icon located below the layer option.
- Step 2: Now, go to the Filter menu > Sharpen > Shake Reduction.
- Step 3: Once you do that, move the preview thumbnail and place it on the blurred part of the image by dragging it on that specific part.
- Step 4: On the extreme right of the window, you will find a section named “Blur Trace Settings”. Now, there are two options in this section viz. “Smoothing” and “Blur Trace Bounds”.
- Step 5:Firstly, sharpen the image by pulling the sharpness indicator to the right. After that, you can decrease the smoothness of the blurred part by pulling the smoothness indicator to the left.
- Step 6: Now, go to the advanced section to apply the filter on the blurred area. You can directly pull the box in the corner where you would like to sharpen the photo. Also, you can utilize the Smart Sharpen advanced filter to eliminate any blurred portion of the image.
- Step 7: After removing the blur from the photo successfully, save the photo by pressing “Ctrl” + “S” at once.
#4 Fotophire: Uncensor photos online
Similarly, you can also make use of other online tools to remove blur censor from pictures. Compared to Photoshop, one of the good aspects of these applications is that you need not be a skilled photo editor to sharpen blurry image.
One such application that can reduce the blurred pixels remarkably is Fotophire Focus that allows you to retouch blurry photos and make them clear again. Therefore, this tool should be an ideal solution for the censored photos that are not heavily blurred or distorted.
Follow these steps to remove blur censor from pictures by using this cesnsor remover software:
- Step 1: Open the Fotophire on your computer, and add that censored image to the working window of this software.
- Step 2: After that, you will have to look out for the “Sharpen” option which is generally present on the right side of the application. Click on this option and the software will immediately and automatically remove all the blurred areas from your image.
- Step 3: Now, save the image by clicking on the “Save” option which you will find in the center of the main menu. You will be asked to choose a particular folder in your drives to save the image. Choose a suitable folder and press “OK” to save the image.
You can now check the final result of the image in that folder. If it is not satisfactory you can try to sharpen it once again to improve the result.
Final Verdict
These are some of the best photo censor remover tools by which you can remove censored parts from pictures or fix the blurry areas of a censored image. Also, some of the aforementioned tools will help you to remove the censored parts by restoring the pixelated parts. If you have any confusion regarding any of the methods explained above, you can contact us directly and we will be more than happy to shed some light on the topic. Till then, enjoy your free time and edit the photos to create wonderful moments of fun and joy!