The short answer
Drop a photo onto the tool below. Start with Width in pixels at 64 and 16 colors with the Automatic palette. Lower the width for a more blocky retro look, raise it for more detail. Try Dithering on and off and keep what looks better. Pixel size controls how large each block is in the downloaded file; the default makes the long side about 1024 pixels. Press Download PNG.
Try it here: Pixel Art Maker
Open the full tool pageWhat makes pixel art look like pixel art
Early game consoles and home computers had tiny screens and very little memory. Artists drew on grids of a few dozen pixels with palettes of 4 to 16 colors, and every single pixel was placed with intention. Two things define that look, and the tool controls both: a low resolution, where each pixel is clearly visible as a square, and a limited palette, where colors appear as flat areas instead of smooth gradients.
A photo has millions of pixels and thousands of colors. Shrinking it averages the colors of each grid cell, which keeps the main shapes and drops fine detail. Reducing the palette then groups similar colors together. The third step matters as much: when the small image is enlarged for viewing, it must not be smoothed, or the crisp blocks turn into blur. The tool always enlarges without smoothing.
Choosing the grid size
Smaller grids need simpler pictures. A face from the front with a plain background reads well at 32 pixels; a crowded street does not. Crop the photo first so the subject fills the frame, then pick the width.
| Use | Width in pixels | Look |
|---|---|---|
| Game sprite, emoji style icon | 16 to 32 | Very bold, only the main shape |
| Avatar, profile picture | 32 to 64 | Recognizable face, clear retro look |
| Scene, landscape, pet | 64 to 128 | Readable details, still pixelated |
| Poster, detailed artwork | 128 to 256 | Fine detail, subtle pixel texture |
| Bead or cross stitch pattern | 29 to 58 | Matches common pegboard sizes |
Palettes: automatic or retro
The swatches under the preview show every color that is actually used in the result, which helps when you recreate the art by hand or buy beads in matching colors.
- Automatic builds the palette from your picture. It groups the colors of the image into the number of colors you choose (2 to 64) and then refines the groups so each palette color sits in the middle of the colors it represents. Fewer colors give a bolder, poster like look; 8 to 16 is the classic range.
- Grayscale uses evenly spaced gray levels, as many as you choose, for a print or newspaper style.
- Game Boy maps everything to the four greens of the original handheld. It works best for pictures with strong light and dark contrast.
- PICO-8 uses the 16 fixed colors of the popular fantasy console, a cheerful palette with strong reds, yellows and blues.
- Black and white reduces the picture to two colors; together with dithering it gives a classic 1 bit look.
Dithering: when to use it
With a small palette, a smooth gradient such as a sky or a cheek turns into a few flat bands. Dithering hides this by mixing pixels of two neighboring palette colors in a fine pattern, so from a distance the eye sees an in-between shade. The tool uses Floyd Steinberg dithering, which spreads the color error of each pixel to its neighbors.
Use dithering for photos, skies, skin and soft lighting, especially with very small palettes like Game Boy or black and white. Leave it off for logos, icons, flat illustrations and very small grids, where the scattered pixels look like noise and clean color areas look better.
Exporting a crisp result
Pixel size sets how many screen pixels each block gets in the PNG. Larger is safer: many apps and social networks smooth images when they scale them, which blurs pixel art. If you upload the art at the size it will be shown, or larger, there is no scaling and the blocks stay sharp. Grid lines draws a thin line between the cells, useful as a template for bead art, cross stitch, mosaics or knitting charts.
Transparent areas of a PNG stay transparent, so a logo or a cut out subject becomes a sprite without a background. If you want text instead of blocks, switch Style to ASCII art: the same picture is turned into characters you can copy as text.