Pixel Art Maker
Turn a photo into retro pixel art with real console palettes and dithering.
Two Things Make Pixel Art
Retro game art looks the way it does for two reasons, and they are independent. The pixels are large, because the hardware had few of them. And the colours are few, because the palette was fixed in silicon — the Game Boy had four shades of green, the NES had fifty-four colours and could show twenty-five at once.
Most pixelate filters only do the first. This tool separates them, so an image can be blocky but full-colour, smooth but posterised, or properly period-accurate with both.
Key features
- Block size and colour depth, separately — the two things that actually make the style.
- Real hardware palettes — Game Boy, NES, CGA, plus monochrome and sepia.
- Ordered dithering — a Bayer matrix, which keeps the blocks crisp instead of smearing noise between them.
- Nearest-neighbour scaling — the squares stay square rather than being blurred by the browser.
- Export at either size — the full-size version for sharing, or the true small one for a game asset.
This tool runs entirely inside your browser using native Web APIs. Your files and text are never uploaded to a server, never logged and never shared with third parties.
How to use: Pixel Art Maker
- Choose an image
Portraits and simple shapes survive pixelation better than busy scenes. - Set the pixel size
Larger blocks mean fewer of them. Around 8 is a good starting point for a photograph. - Reduce the colours
Pick a hardware palette for a period look, or lower the levels for a gentler effect. - Download the PNG
Full size for sharing, or the small version as a game asset.
Technical specifications
| Processing location | Entirely in your browser — no server round trip |
|---|---|
| Data uploaded | None. Files and text never leave your device |
| Price | Free — no account, no trial, no usage cap |
| Category | Media |
| Works offline | Yes, once the page has loaded |
| Browser support | Chrome 90+, Edge 90+, Firefox 90+, Safari 15+ |
| Interface languages | English, 中文, हिन्दी, Español, العربية |
Frequently asked questions
Should I turn dithering on?
Try it with a photograph and a small palette, where it recovers gradients that would otherwise band into flat blocks. Turn it off for graphics, logos and anything with large flat areas, where it just adds texture that was not there.
Why is the downloaded file bigger than the original?
Because "export at full size" scales the small image back up, so a 64×64 result is saved as, say, 512×512. That is what you want for sharing, since most platforms resample small images badly. Untick it to get the true small file, which will be tiny.
Why does the NES palette look wrong on my photo?
The NES palette has no true browns or subtle skin tones — it was designed for sprites on flat backgrounds, not photographs. It will always read as stylised. The sepia and monochrome palettes handle faces much more gracefully.
Can I use this for a real game?
As a starting point. Converting a photograph gives you the right colours and resolution, but real pixel art is placed pixel by pixel, with deliberate outlines and anti-aliasing that no conversion can invent. Export the small version and hand-edit from there.