How to Add a Blur Filter to the Background Image

In this snippet, you can find out how to apply a blur filter to the background image. It is very simple and fast!

Follow up the steps and create a blurred background image for your website.

Watch a video course CSS - The Complete Guide (incl. Flexbox, Grid & Sass)

Create HTML

Begin by creating a <div> element with a class of "image".
Create another <div> element with a class name "text". Here, also add <h1>, <h2>, and <p> elements.

<div class="image"></div>
<div class="text">
  <h1>W3DOCS</h1>
  <h2>Blurred Background Image</h2>
  <p>Snippet</p>
</div>

Add CSS

Add the link of the image with the background-image property.
Set the height of the image with the height property, then specify the position of the image with the background-position property. Here, we set the "center" value.
After applying the background-position, make the image not repeated by setting the background-repeat property to "no-repeat".
Specify the background-size into "cover", which scales background image as large as possible to cover all the background area.
Use the filter property to make our image blur. The filter property has the "blur" value, which applies blur on an image. It is specified in pixels. The larger the value, the more blur will be applied. We set it to "5px".

Do not forget to add -Webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -Moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera with the filter property.

Here is what we have. We’re going close to the end!

.image {
  background-image: url("/uploads/media/default/0001/05/15552fb22caf79be6cc2c60b9a1afe9016889422.jpeg");
  height: 100%;
  background-position: center;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-size: cover;
  filter: blur(5px);
  -webkit-filter: blur(5px);
  -moz-filter: blur(5px);
  -o-filter: blur(5px);
  -ms-filter: blur(5px);
}

So, half of the work is done. Now, style the text by using the color, font-weight, border and other properties.

.text {
  color: #eeeeee;
  font-weight: bold;
  border: 3px solid #cccccc;
  position: absolute;
  top: 50%;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
  z-index: 2;
  width: 80%;
  padding: 20px;
  text-align: center;
}

Now let’s see the result.

Example of adding a blurred background image:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
    <style>
      body,
      html {
        height: 100%;
        margin: 0;
        font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
      }
      h2 {
        font-size: 30px;
      }
      .image {
        background-image: url("/uploads/media/default/0001/05/15552fb22caf79be6cc2c60b9a1afe9016889422.jpeg");
        height: 100%;
        background-position: center;
        background-repeat: no-repeat;
        background-size: cover;
        filter: blur(5px);
        -webkit-filter: blur(5px);
        -moz-filter: blur(5px);
        -o-filter: blur(5px);
        -ms-filter: blur(5px);
      }
      .text {
        color: #eeeeee;
        font-weight: bold;
        border: 3px solid #cccccc;
        position: absolute;
        top: 50%;
        left: 50%;
        transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
        width: 80%;
        padding: 20px;
        text-align: center;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div class="image"></div>
    <div class="text">
      <h1>W3DOCS</h1>
      <h2>Blurred Background Image</h2>
      <p>Snippet</p>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

Try it Yourself »

Result

W3DOCS

Blurred Background Image

Snippet

Let’s see another example with the blurred background image.

Example of adding a blurred background image using the :checked selector:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
    <style>
      .background-image {
        position: fixed;
        left: 0;
        right: 0;
        z-index: 1;
        display: block;
        background-image: url(" /uploads/media/default/0001/01/4982c4f43023330a662b9baed5a407e391ae6161.jpeg");
        width: 1200px;
        height: 800px;
        -webkit-filter: blur(5px);
        -moz-filter: blur(5px);
        -o-filter: blur(5px);
        -ms-filter: blur(5px);
        filter: blur(5px);
      }
      .content {
        position: fixed;
        left: 0;
        right: 0;
        z-index: 9999;
        margin-left: 20px;
        margin-right: 20px;
        color: #fff;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>:checked selector example</h2>
    <div class="background-image"></div>
    <div class="content">
      <p>
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis aliquam erat in ante malesuada, facilisis semper nulla semper. Phasellus sapien neque, faucibus in malesuada quis, lacinia et libero. Sed sed turpis tellus. Etiam ac aliquam tortor, eleifend rhoncus metus. Ut turpis massa, sollicitudin sit amet molestie a, posuere sit amet nisl. Mauris tincidunt cursus posuere. Nam commodo libero quis lacus sodales, nec feugiat ante posuere. Donec pulvinar auctor commodo. Donec egestas diam ut mi adipiscing, quis lacinia mauris condimentum. Quisque quis odio venenatis, venenatis nisi a, vehicula ipsum. Etiam at nisl eu felis vulputate porta.
      </p>
      <p>
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      </p>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>