Adding blur effect to background in swift

Question

I am setting a background image to view controller. But also i want to add blur effect to this background. How can I do this?

I am setting background with following

Answer 1

You can make an extension of UIImageView.

Swift 2.0

import Foundation
import UIKit

extension UIImageView
{
    func makeBlurImage(targetImageView:UIImageView?)
    {
        let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: UIBlurEffectStyle.Dark)
        let blurEffectView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: blurEffect)
        blurEffectView.frame = targetImageView!.bounds

        blurEffectView.autoresizingMask = [.FlexibleWidth, .FlexibleHeight] // for supporting device rotation
        targetImageView?.addSubview(blurEffectView)
    }
}

Usage:

override func viewDidLoad()
{
    super.viewDidLoad()

    let sampleImageView = UIImageView(frame: CGRectMake(0, 200, 300, 325))
    let sampleImage:UIImage = UIImage(named: "ic_120x120")!
    sampleImageView.image =  sampleImage

    //Convert To Blur Image Here
    sampleImageView.makeBlurImage(sampleImageView)

    self.view.addSubview(sampleImageView)
}

Swift 3 Extension

import Foundation
import UIKit

extension UIImageView
{
    func addBlurEffect()
    {
        let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: UIBlurEffectStyle.light)
        let blurEffectView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: blurEffect)
        blurEffectView.frame = self.bounds

        blurEffectView.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth, .flexibleHeight] // for supporting device rotation
        self.addSubview(blurEffectView)
    }
}

Usage:

yourImageView.addBlurEffect()

Addendum:

extension UIView {

  /// Remove UIBlurEffect from UIView
  func removeBlurEffect() {
    let blurredEffectViews = self.subviews.filter{$0 is UIVisualEffectView}
    blurredEffectViews.forEach{ blurView in
      blurView.removeFromSuperview()
    }
  }

Answer 2

@AlvinGeorge should just use:

extension UIImageView{        
    func blurImage()
    {
        let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: UIBlurEffectStyle.Dark)
        let blurEffectView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: blurEffect)
        blurEffectView.frame = self.bounds

        blurEffectView.autoresizingMask = [.FlexibleWidth, .FlexibleHeight] // for supporting device rotation
        self.addSubview(blurEffectView)
    }
}

usage:

 blurredBackground.frame = self.view.bounds
 blurredBackground.blurImage()
 self.view.addSubview(self.blurredBackground)

Answer 3

This Code is Working Fine For me! its for Swift 4.x

let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: .ExtraLight)
let blurEffectView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: blurEffect)
blurEffectView.frame = self.view.frame
self.view.insertSubview(blurEffectView, atIndex: 0)

Answer 4

Found another way.. I use apple's UIImage+ImageEffects.

 UIImage *effectImage = [image applyExtraLightEffect];                        
 self.imageView.image = effectImage;

Answer 5

In a UIView extension:

func addBlurredBackground(style: UIBlurEffect.Style) {
    let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: style)
    let blurView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: blurEffect)
    blurView.frame = self.frame
    blurView.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth, .flexibleHeight]
    self.addSubview(blurView)
    self.sendSubviewToBack(blurView)
}

Answer 6

You should always use .dark for style and add the following code to make it look cool

    blurEffectView.backgroundColor = .black
    blurEffectView.alpha = 0.4