Image to pixel art converter

How a photo becomes pixel art

Pixel art is built from a small grid of large, flat squares, each one a single colour. To get there from a photo the tool does two things. First it shrinks the picture to a coarse grid — say 64 squares across — averaging the colours inside each square. Then it reduces the number of colours so neighbouring squares snap to a small, consistent palette. Together these two steps give the chunky, retro look of old games.

You control both. A low resolution produces bold, blocky art that reads like a sprite; a higher resolution keeps more detail and looks closer to a mosaic of the original. The colour slider decides how many shades the image may use, from a harsh 2-colour print to a rich 64-colour illustration.

Choosing resolution and palette

For portraits and logos, start around 32 to 64 pixels across — enough to keep a face recognisable while staying clearly pixelated. Landscapes and detailed scenes need 96 pixels or more before the horizon and buildings stop turning into blobs. If the result looks muddy, raise the colour count before you raise the resolution.

Instead of a palette taken from your photo, you can apply a fixed one. The four greens of the original Game Boy give an instant handheld look, grayscale suits comic or newspaper styles, and the CGA palette recalls early PC graphics. Fixed palettes work best on pictures with clear contrast between light and dark areas.

What you can do with the result

Pixel art is popular for profile pictures, game prototypes, avatars, stickers, embroidery and cross-stitch patterns, and social-media posts that want a nostalgic feel. Export the grid at 1×, 4×, 8× or 16× per pixel: the 1× file is the true low-resolution sprite for use in a game engine, while the larger sizes keep the squares crisp when you print or post the image.

The enlargement uses nearest-neighbour scaling, so the edges between squares stay perfectly sharp instead of blurring the way a normal resize would.

Private by design

The conversion runs entirely in your browser on a canvas. Your photo is not uploaded, stored or analysed on a server, and no account is needed. You can adjust the sliders as often as you like, and the preview updates instantly.