BlockPixelArt

Pixel art generator

Drop in an image, tap a retro preset, and you have finished pixel art. No prompts, no waiting, no AI guessing what you meant.

Drop an image here

Or choose a file. Your image is processed in your browser and never uploaded.

How to use it

  1. Add an image

    Drag a photo, a screenshot, or a drawing onto the canvas. The generator starts from a real image, so the composition stays yours rather than being invented.

  2. Tap a preset

    Game Boy, NES, PICO-8, C64, and 1-bit each set a palette, a pixel size, and a dither pattern that suit that hardware. One tap changes all three.

  3. Nudge it

    A preset is a starting point. Pixel size, dithering, brightness, contrast, and saturation are each one slider away, and the preset badge clears the moment you touch one.

  4. Download

    Export at true pixel resolution or scaled up with hard edges. Both are PNG, both are instant, neither is watermarked.

What people use it for

  • Game jam placeholder art

    Fill a whole scene with visually consistent art in minutes so you can spend the weekend on mechanics instead of sprites.

  • Emotes and reaction images

    A four-colour Game Boy version of a photo reads better at 32px than the photo ever will.

  • Album art and video thumbnails

    Retro styling gives a thumbnail a recognisable silhouette in a feed that is otherwise wall-to-wall photographs.

  • Testing an art direction

    Run one reference through five presets and compare which era actually fits the project before committing an artist to it.

  • Teaching how palettes work

    Moving the same photo from 4 to 16 to 55 colours makes colour reduction obvious in a way that no explanation does.

Why this one

  • The presets are real hardware palettes

    PICO-8's 16, the NES's 55, the DMG Game Boy's four greens — measured values, not somebody's approximation of the vibe.

  • It is not AI

    The same image with the same settings always produces the same result. Nothing is invented, nothing is hallucinated, and there is no credit balance to run out of.

  • The preview updates while you drag

    Processing runs in a Web Worker with staged caching, so changing a slider redraws in milliseconds instead of locking up the page.

  • Your image never leaves the device

    No upload means no queue, no rate limit, and nothing left behind on a server for you to go and delete afterwards.

  • Free, and every preset is included

    There is no account, no watermark, and no export size held back for a paid tier.

Frequently asked questions

Does this generator use AI?
No. It is a deterministic image pipeline — downsample, adjust, quantise to a palette, dither. That is exactly why it is instant, free, repeatable, and never invents a detail that was not in your image.
Can I generate pixel art from a text prompt?
No. This tool starts from an image you provide. Rendering words as pixel art is a separate job and a separate tool, which is on the roadmap.
What exactly does a preset change?
Three things at once: the colour palette, the pixel size, and the dither pattern. Everything stays editable afterwards, and the preset simply deselects when you override part of it.
Why does my result look washed out?
Small palettes lose contrast. Raise contrast and saturation first — colour adjustment runs before palette matching in the pipeline, so it changes which palette entry each pixel lands on.
Which preset should I start with?
PICO-8 for colourful photos, Game Boy for portraits and high-contrast subjects, and 1-bit when you care about the shape rather than the colours.

More pixel art tools

Same engine, same privacy, different job. Nothing here needs an account.