Not understanding 'blur' effect

[Steerpike]

I have a photo of a page of text. I want to blur out some sensitive words. I use the following procedure, based on experience from other tools. Nothing happens. Am I missing something??

1) select the text area I want to blur (click and drag to create the selection box)
2) choose 'effect' / 'effect...', (effect window appears)
3) turn on 'preview' - original image appears in the 'Effect' window, with 'before' and 'after' versions left/right.
4) choose Filter/Blur from the list, and set an intensity of 50%
5) (nothing changes on preview image or base image)
6) turn on 'apply to image' (upper right) - nothing changes.
7) turn off 'apply to image' and instead, hit 'apply' button (lower left) - nothing changes.
Hit 'ok' on the filters... box; nothing changes.

Here's a screenshot of my efforts, using XnView's home page as a sample. I selected the words 'Image Viewer' as a test.



I've tried this with numerous 'effects' and none seem to be working so I'm obviously making a dumb mistake.

EDIT TO ADD:
I just tried randomly selecting other 'effects' and SOME are working; in fact, many of them work. Enhance focus has a visible effect; 'maximum' does 'something'; 'minimum' does something; and in the 'misc' section of the filter list, 'border', 'border 3d', 'crystalize', 'Edge Detect', 'Emboss', and more all seem to do 'something'. But 'blur' - even when set to 100% - has no effect.

EDIT AGAIN:
I just found this post (from 2015!)- https://forum.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=31694 - so I'm not alone!

Looks like "Average' is my best bet, but even at it's strongest setting, doesn't quite do the job.

I don't understand what 'Effect' / 'user filter' is supposed to do - can I adjust the strength of the filters here?

I currently use IrfanView and it blurs exactly as I would expect ... but I'm trying to switch over to XnView. Thanks for any advice.

[xnview]

i've tried, and it works.

Clipboard-1.jpg

Clipboard-2.jpg

[Steerpike]

Thanks. So even at a setting of 82% in your example, the 'blur' is very subtle. I guess that's the design intent - a very subtle blur? I'm looking for a setting (or tool) to completely obfuscate the words, as in this example:



(this was created using the 'gaussian blur' tool in IrfanView at a setting of only 8 (out of 100). I do see that the 'blur' tool in IrfanView is also very mild (like in XnView).

So is there anything in XnView that can achieve this? I tried Gaussian Blur at the max setting of 13x13 but it does not quite obscure the text .

[xnview]

Ok, i'll add a blur with strongest effect

[user0]

• Blur
  at 100% has almost the same intense as in Photoshop

however, it worth adjusting other blur filters

• Gaussian Blur
  at max 13x13 in XnViewMP effect equals:
  - 4px in Photoshop (range is 0.1-1000px)
  - 3px in Affinity (range 0.1-100px)
  It would be nice to have larger range as well, eg 0.1-100px

• Maximum/Minimum Blur
  I would update it to match Affinity
  - 0-100px range
  - add Circular checkbox

• Median box (Blur)
  I would update it to match Affinity
  - 0-100px range
  and do something with calculation speed, its too slow

[xnview]

This problem is supposed to be fixed in XnView MP 1.8.4. Please check and confirm the bug fix here.