Image to pixel art

CreativeTurn a photo into pixel art with a palette made from the picture or a retro one, with optional dithering. Runs in your browser: free, no upload, no watermark.

Your picture is converted on this device and never leaves it. Nothing you open is ever uploaded. There is no server to upload it to.

What this does

It turns a photo or drawing into pixel art: the picture rebuilt from a grid of solid squares, each one a single colour from a limited palette. You choose how many squares across, and the palette, either one worked out from the picture itself or a fixed retro set, and the preview redraws as you drag. The download is a real pixel-art PNG, one pixel per square, plus an enlarged copy for showing it off.

Everything happens in your browser, on your own machine. The picture is never uploaded, which matters for a tool people mostly feed with photos of themselves and their families.

How to use it

  1. Drop a JPEG, PNG or WebP onto the tool, or press “Choose an image”.
  2. Drag “Pixels across” until the subject reads the way you want. Fewer squares is more abstract; more keeps more detail.
  3. Pick a palette. “Automatic” finds the colours that best represent this picture, as many as the Colours slider allows. The fixed palettes restyle it as a Game Boy, PICO-8 or CGA screen, or in black and white or greys.
  4. Turn on dithering if a small palette is leaving flat bands.
  5. Download. The colour list under the buttons shows every colour used, with its hex code and how many squares it covers.

Why most converters come out darker, measured

A pixel-art converter has two jobs: work out the average colour of each square of the picture, then pick the nearest colour from the palette. Both have a quick way and a correct way, and the difference is visible.

Averaging. The numbers in an image file are not proportional to light: a pixel stored as 128, halfway between black and white, is only about a fifth as bright as white. Averaging those numbers directly therefore averages the wrong thing, and the result is too dark wherever light meets dark. We measured it on the 24 standard Kodak test photographs at 64 squares across: averaging the numbers gave 4.7% less light from the picture overall than averaging the light, and on a square straddling a sharp edge, up to 75% less. This tool converts to light, averages, and converts back, which is the same engine the LEGO mosaic generator uses. The measurement, with the same test run on five common downscalers, is in Pixel art downscaling: why most tools make it too dark.

Matching. “Nearest colour” can be measured as distance between the file’s numbers, or as distance in OKLab, a colour space built so that equal distances look equally different. The choice changed the chosen colour on about one square in five in the same test. Judged by CIEDE2000, the industry’s standard formula for how different two colours look, the perceptual choice landed closer to the true colour on both full-colour palettes we tried: by about 1% with PICO-8’s sixteen colours, and by 7.5% with an automatic sixteen-colour palette. Small, but consistent, and the darkening above is the difference you will actually see.

The palettes

Automatic clusters the squares’ own colours, in OKLab again, into as many groups as you allow, and uses each group’s centre as a palette colour. Sixteen is a good start; two to six gives a graphic poster look; thirty-two and up stays close to the photograph.

The fixed palettes reproduce particular looks: the Game Boy’s four greens, PICO-8’s sixteen colours, the CGA cyan, magenta, black and white of 1980s PCs, plain black and white, and eight even shades of grey.

The Game Boy, black-and-white and greyscale palettes are shades of a single colour, so for those the tool matches brightness alone, the way those screens worked. Matching full colour against four greens goes visibly wrong: a bright red gets whichever green its hue happens to sit nearest, and the picture’s light and dark dissolve. Matched on brightness, a red comes out as the dark shade it would have been on the real screen.

Dithering, done in light

Dithering passes each square’s error, the difference between the colour it wanted and the one it got, on to the neighbours not yet coloured, so the average over an area comes out right even when no single square can. It has the same trap as averaging: if the error is measured in file numbers, shades come out wrong. The test suite pins it: a flat grey stored as 128, dithered to black and white, must come out about 22% white squares, matching its brightness, rather than the 50% the file number suggests.

Limitations

Transparency becomes white. Transparent areas of a PNG are flattened onto white before converting.

Up to 256 squares across. Beyond that it stops being pixel art; use the image resizer for an ordinary smaller copy.

One picture at a time. Each conversion is of a single image.

Frequently asked questions

How do I turn a picture into pixel art?

Drop the picture onto the tool and it is converted at once. Choose how many pixels across the result should be, pick a palette, and the preview updates as you drag. When it looks right, download the PNG: either the artwork at its true size, one pixel per square, or an enlarged copy with every square kept crisp.

How many pixels across should I choose?

It depends on what you want to recognise. Around 32 pixels across gives a sprite or an icon, where a face is a few blocks; 64 to 96 keeps a portrait recognisable; 128 and up holds the detail of a scene. The height follows the picture's own proportions, and the line under the controls tells you the exact size.

What does dithering do?

It mixes the colours a palette does have in fine patterns to suggest the ones it lacks, the way old games shaded skies with only a few colours. It matters most with small palettes like the Game Boy's four greens; with an automatic palette of 32 or more colours, leave it off for flatter, cleaner areas.

Can I make it look like a Game Boy or PICO-8 game?

Yes. Choose the palette from the list: the Game Boy's four greens, PICO-8's sixteen colours, the CGA cyan and magenta of 1980s PCs, plain black and white, or eight shades of grey. Turn dithering on for the shaded look those machines were known for.

Why does pixel art from other converters look darker?

Usually because they average colours the quick way, as the numbers in the file rather than as light. Screen values are not proportional to brightness, so that average comes out too dark wherever light meets dark. We measured it on the standard Kodak test photographs at 64 squares across: 4.7% less light from the picture overall, and up to 75% less from a square that straddles a sharp edge. This tool averages light, so edges keep their brightness.

Is my photo uploaded?

No. The photos people turn into pixel art are often of themselves, their children and their pets, which is exactly what should not be handed to a stranger's server. The conversion runs in your browser, and the network panel will show you nothing carrying your picture leave.