Turn an image into pixel art
Cut a picture down to a small grid and a handful of colours, the two limits that give old video games their look. Download it at full size with chunky squares, or as a tiny sprite.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing is uploaded
- No sign-up
- Batch up to 20 images
Drag & drop your image here
or tap to browse · you can also paste from the clipboard
JPG · PNG · WebP · GIF · BMP · AVIF · SVG · up to 50 MB each · up to 20 files
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Processed image will appear here.
How to use the pixel art converter
Add the picture, set Grid size to the number of cells you want along the longer side, and choose how many colours to keep. The image is shrunk to that grid, reduced to that palette and saved as a PNG, either at full size with square cells or as a small sprite.
- Add your imageIt is converted on a 96-cell grid with 16 colours.
- Set the grid and coloursFewer cells and fewer colours give a stronger retro look.
- Download the PNGFull size with square cells, or one pixel per cell as a sprite.
About this tool
Pixel art is defined by what it lacks: few pixels and few colours. This page applies both limits to your picture. First it shrinks the image to a grid of your chosen size, averaging the colours that fall in each cell. Then it reduces those cells to a short palette, either picked from the picture itself or one of three fixed four-step sets.
The result is a mechanical conversion, not a drawing. It will not redraw outlines or tidy shapes the way an artist would, and nothing here is AI. Simple subjects with clear shapes and strong colours convert best: a face close up, a logo, an object on a plain background. A busy landscape turns to speckle unless the grid is large.
What you get
- Grid from 16 to 256 cells on the longer side
- 4 to 64 colours picked from your picture
- Three fixed palettes: four greens, four greys, black and white
- Sprite download at one pixel per cell
- Crisp PNG output, with transparency kept
When to use the pixel art converter
Avatars and profile pictures
A face close up on a 48 to 64 cell grid with 16 colours makes a distinctive retro portrait.
Starting points for sprites
Convert a reference photo at one pixel per cell, open it in a sprite editor and clean it up by hand, instead of starting from a blank grid.
Retro artwork for posts and stickers
Logos, pets and objects on a plain background translate well into chunky, limited-colour pictures.
Patterns for beads, cross-stitch and tiles
A small grid with few colours is the form those crafts need: one cell per bead or stitch.
Starting points
| Subject | Grid size | Colours | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Icon or emoji-like symbol | 16 to 32 | 4 to 8 | Simple shapes only |
| Face or avatar | 48 to 64 | 16 | Crop tightly first |
| Character or object | 64 to 96 | 16 to 32 | Plain background helps |
| Scene or landscape | 128 to 200 | 32 to 64 | Fewer cells turn it to speckle |
| Handheld-console look | 96 to 160 | Four greens | Works by brightness alone |
| Bead or stitch pattern | 24 to 64 | 8 to 16 | Use one pixel per cell |
How it works
The picture is first reduced to the grid by repeated halving followed by a final resize, so that each cell holds a fair average of the area it covers and thin lines are not randomly dropped. With colours taken from the picture, the cells are then reduced by median cut: the range of colours present is split again and again along its widest dimension until there is one box per palette entry, and every cell is given the colour of its box. No dithering is applied, because scattered single cells of a different colour are exactly what pixel art avoids.
The fixed palettes work differently. They ignore hue and map each cell's brightness onto a short ramp from dark to light: four greens, four greys, or black and white. For the full-size download each cell is drawn as a square a whole number of pixels wide, without smoothing, chosen to bring the picture as close as possible to its original size. It is rarely an exact match: a 1200 pixel image on a 96-cell grid comes out at 1248 pixels, 13 per cell. Transparent areas of a PNG stay transparent.
Common problems and how to fix them
- The result is an unreadable mess
- The grid is too small for the amount of detail, or the subject is too busy. Raise the grid size, or crop the picture to its main subject with the Image Cropper first.
- Smooth areas such as sky come out in bands
- That is the limited palette at work, and it is part of the look. Raise the number of colours to soften it.
- The sprite looks blurry when I open it
- Your viewer is smoothing it as it zooms in. The file itself is sharp. Turn off smoothing in the viewer, or download the full-size version instead.
- The output is not exactly the original size
- Each cell is a whole number of pixels wide, so the total is a multiple of the cell size and can be a few percent larger or smaller than the source. Resize afterwards with the Image Resizer if you need an exact figure, though that will soften the squares slightly unless the new size is also a multiple.
Frequently asked questions
What grid size should I use?
It depends on how much has to stay recognisable. Around 32 to 48 cells suits an icon or a single face. 64 to 96 suits a character or an object. 128 and above keeps scenes readable but looks less like classic pixel art. Fewer cells always means bigger squares.
What does "Save at one pixel per cell" do?
It downloads the small grid itself, for example 96 × 72 pixels, instead of a picture the size of your original. That is the form a game engine or a sprite editor wants. Opened in an ordinary viewer it looks tiny, and it looks blurred if the viewer smooths it when zooming in.
Why is the output always PNG?
Pixel art is all hard edges and flat colour. JPG and lossy WebP smear both, leaving halos around every square. PNG stores them exactly, and with so few colours the file is small anyway.
Is this made with AI?
No. The picture is shrunk to a grid and its colours are reduced by ordinary arithmetic, on your own device. It does not generate anything that was not in your picture, and it does not redraw it in an artist's style.
How many colours should pixel art have?
Classic game graphics used between 4 and 16 per picture. Sixteen is a good default for a photo. Dropping to 8 or 4 gives a bolder, more poster-like result; 32 or 64 keeps more of the original shading.
Can I use my own palette?
Not at present. The palette is either taken from your picture or one of the three built-in four-step sets.
Can I convert several images with the same settings?
Yes. Add up to 20, and they are all converted with the same grid and palette settings and downloaded as a ZIP. With colours taken from the picture, each image gets its own palette.