Photo to pixel art with palettes and dithering

How to convert a picture to pixel art

Select Choose image, or drop one image on that area. The image appears under Original image, and a line under the chooser gives its name, its size in pixels and its file size. The settings start at a Pixel grid width of 96, or the image width when the image is narrower, an Adaptive palette of 16 colors, Floyd-Steinberg dithering and an Output pixel scale of 4.

Create pixel art builds the result. It appears under Pixel art result with a line that gives the grid size, the output size, the number of palette colors and the file size, and the swatches below list each palette color as a hex code. Download PNG saves the file with -pixel-art added to the name. Changing a setting clears the result until you create it again, and Reset settings restores the starting values and keeps the image.

1. Select Choose image.
2. Set Pixel grid width, Color palette, Dithering method and Output pixel scale.
3. Select Create pixel art, then Download PNG.

Grid width and pixel scale

Pixel grid width is the number of pixel-art pixels across the picture. The height follows the aspect ratio of the image and is rounded to a whole pixel, never less than one. A 1200 × 800 photo at a grid width of 96 becomes a 96 × 64 grid.

Output pixel scale enlarges the grid for the download. Each grid pixel becomes a square block that many pixels wide and tall, drawn with smoothing off so the block edges stay sharp. At a scale of 4 the 96 × 64 grid saves as a 384 × 256 PNG. At a scale of 1 the PNG is the grid itself, one pixel per block.

Both fields take any positive whole number, and the tool sets no maximum. A grid wider than the photo enlarges it, which adds blocks but no detail. A very large grid or scale can fail when it passes what your browser's canvas or memory allows. The page then keeps your image and settings.

Palettes and dithering

Color palette decides which colors the pixel art may use. Adaptive builds a palette from your image, up to the Maximum palette colors you set, and a picture with little variation can get fewer. Black & white uses pure black and white, Grayscale uses four evenly spaced grays, and Retro uses a fixed set of 16 colors.

Each grid pixel takes the nearest palette color by its red, green and blue values, and Dithering method decides what happens to the shades in between. None picks the nearest color, which leaves flat areas and hard bands. Ordered adds a repeating 4 × 4 Bayer pattern first, so gradients turn into a regular cross-hatch. Floyd-Steinberg passes the color error of each pixel to the next pixel and to three pixels in the row below, which gives a looser, grainy texture.

In a check on a gray gradient in Black & white, None gave a black half and a white half. Both dithering methods mixed the two colors through the middle.

Limits

The tool turns one image at a time into pixel art. It has no drawing tools, so you cannot paint single pixels, and it draws no grid lines between the blocks. It uses no AI model, takes no text prompt, and has no Minecraft block palette or way to type in your own colors. Each run starts again from the original image, so creating twice does not stack the effect.

Transparent areas are flattened onto white before colors are mapped, and the PNG is fully opaque. An animated GIF or a multipage TIFF gives one frame or page, and metadata is not kept. The page opens PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, SVG, TIFF and other images your browser can decode, though an SVG is drawn without its external resources, so missing fonts or images can change how it looks. A damaged or unsupported file shows an error, and Cancel & clear stops the work while the tool is busy.