Image to Pixel Art Converter

Turn a photo into real pixel art

This free image to pixel art converter reduces a photograph, logo or drawing to a deliberately small grid of colored squares. Unlike a blur or a pixelated CSS filter, the downloaded 1× sprite contains exactly one output pixel per grid cell. It can be imported into a game engine or pixel editor without relying on a screenshot. You can also export a sharp enlarged PNG without soft edges.

How to use the pixel art converter

1. Choose, drop or paste a JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF image. The first frame of an animated GIF is used. Images remain in your browser and are not uploaded to a server.
2. Pick the width of your pixel grid. A 32-pixel-wide sprite emphasizes simple silhouettes; 64 pixels preserves more recognizable details; 128 pixels is useful for intricate landscapes. The tool automatically calculates the height from your original aspect ratio.
3. Choose an adaptive palette taken from the image, or a restricted Game Boy, PICO-8 or grayscale palette. Limit the number of colors to simplify the artwork. Add Floyd–Steinberg error diffusion or ordered dithering when gradients otherwise appear as hard bands.
4. Download the exact 1× sprite for further editing, or a 4×, 8× or 16× PNG with sharp nearest-neighbor scaling. The numbered pattern export includes a palette legend for cross-stitch, bead designs and colored-paper mosaics.

Pixel size, color count and dithering

Consider a source photograph that is 1,200 by 900 pixels. Selecting 48 cells wide produces a 48 × 36 sprite, or 1,728 colored cells, because the 4:3 ratio is preserved. An 8× enlarged download is 384 × 288 pixels but still has only 48 × 36 independent blocks. That is intentional: enlarged pixels must stay square and crisp. With only four colors, portraits become poster-like; with sixteen, highlights and shadows often survive better.

The automatic palette groups similar RGB colors from the scaled image. Its representatives depend on the source, so a 16-color limit is a maximum rather than a promise of exactly sixteen distinct colors. A fixed retro palette instead matches each cell to the nearest available swatch. Floyd–Steinberg dithering distributes quantization error to nearby cells. Ordered dithering introduces a repeatable checker pattern; switch either off for flatter icons and logos.

Pixel art for games, crafts and printable patterns

For a game sprite, export at 1× and inspect the silhouette at its true pixel dimensions. For social media, choose 8× or 16× to retain sharp boundaries when sharing. For cross-stitch or bead patterns, select at most 16 colors, show the grid and download the numbered guide. Each cell number identifies a matching swatch in its legend; it is not a count of beads or stitches. Printed patterns are a guide, not a calibrated color specification for a particular bead brand or printer.

Privacy and limitations

Conversion, color matching, painting and PNG creation run locally through your browser's Canvas APIs. No account or server upload is required. Animated images use only the first frame; this page does not export animated GIFs. Very large source images may exhaust phone memory: resize them first. Transparent areas can be preserved, but the tool cannot automatically separate a subject from an opaque background. A photograph turned into blocks is an algorithmic conversion, not a hand-drawn illustration or an AI image generation service.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: October 18, 2026