Pixel Art Generator
Turn photos, logos and drawings into crisp pixel art. Pick a pixel size and a retro palette, add dithering or a sprite outline, and export at any scale.
How to use Pixel Art Generator
- 1
Upload an image
Drop a photo, character, logo or drawing. Transparent PNGs keep their transparency.
- 2
Pick pixels and palette
Set the width in pixels, then choose auto colours or a retro palette like Game Boy, NES, PICO-8 or Commodore 64, with optional dithering.
- 3
Export
Download a crisp, upscaled PNG or WEBP up to 20×, the tiny 1× sprite, or a vector SVG.
Make pixel art from any picture
This free pixel art maker turns a photo into a retro, 8-bit style image in seconds. It shrinks your picture to a small grid of pixels, maps every pixel to a limited colour palette and then scales it back up with sharp, nearest-neighbour edges, so every pixel stays a perfect square. Everything runs in your browser: your image is never uploaded.
Retro palettes and smart colours
- Auto colours: finds the best 2 to 64 colours for your image with k-means clustering.
- Game Boy: the iconic four shades of green.
- NES: the 54-colour palette of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- PICO-8: the popular 16-colour fantasy console palette.
- Commodore 64: the classic 16-colour home computer look.
- Grayscale and 1-bit: moody monochrome and pure black and white.
- Original: keeps the real colours, only pixelated.
Dithering for smooth gradients
With only a few colours, gradients turn into hard bands. Dithering mixes neighbouring colours in a pattern to fake in-between shades. Floyd–Steinberg gives a natural, noisy texture, while ordered (Bayer) dithering creates the regular cross-hatch pattern of classic games. Adjust the strength to taste.
Sprites, icons and avatars
Upload a transparent PNG to create game sprites: transparency is kept, and the optional outline draws a one-pixel border around your character, just like hand-made sprites. Pixel art also makes great profile pictures, stickers, emotes and cross-stitch or bead patterns (turn on the grid for a printable chart).
Export options
Download an upscaled PNG or WEBP at 1× to 20× with perfectly crisp pixels, the tiny 1× version for game engines, or an SVG vector where every pixel is a shape, ideal for printing at any size or for laser cutting and embroidery software.
Tips for great pixel art
- Start with a simple subject on a plain background.
- 32 to 96 pixels wide gives the most authentic retro look.
- Raise contrast and saturation a little before reducing colours.
- Use fewer colours for a bolder, more graphic style.