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Image to pixel art converter — palettes, dithering and clean export

Give a picture a small pixel grid and a limited palette. Use the result as an avatar, a texture or a starting point for drawing your own sprites.

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This makes a pixelated starting image. Reducing size and colours loses detail; it does not draw or tidy outlines for you. Try a close crop and a larger output size if the subject is hard to recognise. Larger export scales enlarge the same pixels. Images up to 50 megapixels (about 8000 × 6000). Larger files are refused rather than risking the tab being closed by the browser.

How to use

  1. Add a picture. Choose a file or paste an image. A tightly framed subject is easier to recognise at a small size.
  2. Choose Output size and Aspect ratio. Start at 64 × 64. Keep aspect ratio fits the whole image inside that size; Crop to fit makes a centred square.
  3. Try a palette. Use From this image, a retro preset or Import palette. Adjust Colours and Dithering while watching small features such as eyes and lettering.
  4. Save at the size you need. PNG 1× saves the small grid. PNG 8× or 16× makes a larger, blocky copy for sharing; Preview zoom only changes the on-page view.

Questions

How do I make the subject clearer?

Crop away a busy background before opening the image, use a larger output grid, or try more colours. Small changes to Contrast and Saturation can help. For a finished sprite, you may still want to clean up outlines by hand.

Should I add dithering?

Try it when a sky or shadow turns into obvious bands. It mixes palette colours into a texture to suggest extra shades. For tiny icons or clean lettering, None may look clearer; Bayer gives a regular pattern, while Floyd–Steinberg looks less ordered.

What happens to transparent edges?

Keep transparency turns partly transparent pixels into either fully transparent or fully opaque pixels at roughly the halfway point. Soft edges can become jagged. Turning it off makes all pixels opaque; it does not let you choose a background colour.

Why does the shared image look blurry?

The receiving app may resize or smooth it. Export a larger PNG multiple and display it close to that size. This tool enlarges the result in whole pixel blocks, but cannot control what another site does afterwards.

Can I use a palette from another picture?

Yes. Import a hex list, GIMP .gpl file or CSS colour variables. The colour palette tool’s For pixel art download is suitable. Retro presets are useful starting points, not a promise to reproduce a particular old display exactly.

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Read more

Guide ASCII, ANSI and Unicode art: choose an output that survives copying Keep text art aligned, choose a character ramp, handle terminal colour, and export for Markdown, HTML or an image when the destination changes the formatting. Guide Floyd–Steinberg, Bayer and Atkinson dithering compared Choose a dithering method by comparing gradients, outlines and texture. Practical settings for still images, plus how error diffusion, Bayer patterns and halftones work. Guide How colour palette extraction works Choose dominant, balanced or saturated colours from an image, understand the sample percentages and check contrast before using a palette in a design.

Related tools

ASCII art generator Make a text banner or turn a picture into character art. Colour palette from image Pull a colour palette out of a picture, with HEX, RGB and HSL. Dither & halftone Floyd–Steinberg, Atkinson, Bayer dithering and halftone screens. Sprite sheet cutter Slice a sprite sheet into frames, preview the animation and export. Image resizer Resize by width, height, percentage or a bounding box. Image cropper Crop a picture by dragging, using a preset or entering percentages.