Pixel art maker
Pixelate a photo into retro sprite-style art with real palettes and dithering.
How it works
- 01Drop in a photo (JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC).
- 02Set how many pixels across, then pick a palette and an optional dithering style.
- 03Choose an export size and download a crisp PNG.
Questions
›What do the palettes do?
Auto works out a set of colors that suits your photo, up to the number you choose. Grayscale uses evenly spaced shades. Game Boy, PICO-8, NES and CGA limit the image to the colors those systems are known for, so every pixel snaps to the nearest one. Original keeps the averaged colors with no reduction.
›What is dithering?
With only a few colors, smooth gradients turn into hard bands. Dithering mixes neighboring palette colors in a pattern so your eye blends them into in-between tones. Ordered dithering makes a regular crosshatch typical of old games; Floyd–Steinberg gives a finer, grainier texture.
›Why does the preview stay sharp instead of blurry?
Each pixel is enlarged with nearest-neighbor scaling, which copies it into a solid square rather than smoothing it into its neighbors. The download uses the same method, so the 4×, 8× and 16× files keep hard pixel edges.
›Does it keep transparency?
Yes. Transparent areas of a PNG stay transparent, and partly transparent edges are snapped to fully on or off so the outline stays crisp like a sprite.
›Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Your files are processed on your own device by your browser. They never touch our servers, so there are no upload waits, no size caps from us, and nothing to delete afterwards.