Pixel Art Converter

3 min Art & Sprites Free

Free pixel art converter that turns a photo or drawing into a real game sprite in your browser — pick the size, use your own palette and keep it transparent. Pixelate a picture to the size you choose, keeping its shape or as a square; limit the colours or lock a palette; remove a flat background; and find the pixel grid in enlarged pixel art to snap it back to its real size — it often works on AI pixel art too. Download a true 1:1 PNG and an enlarged copy. Your image is never uploaded; free, no credits.

Before you start: A picture — a photo, a drawing or enlarged pixel art — as PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP or AVIF. Free — it runs in your browser and your image is never uploaded.
What you end up with: A pixel-art PNG at the exact size you chose, one file pixel per art pixel, on a limited palette with a transparent background kept, plus an enlarged copy.

Step by step

Open a picture

Drop a picture on the tool, paste one, or choose a file. A 64-pixel, 16-colour result appears straight away, before you touch a control. The picture stays on your device.
Set the size and shape

Choose a Size, from 8 to 512 pixels: it is the sprite's longer side. Keep shape holds the picture's proportions; Square makes a square sprite, with Fit (transparent bars) or Fill (a centred crop). The readout is the file's real size.
Choose the colours

Move the Colours slider, from 2 to 64, and the swatches show the colours made from the picture. Or pick a built-in palette, or choose My palette and paste hex colours or load a .hex file of up to 256 colours. Lock this palette keeps the palette for the next picture.
Clean up the picture

To take out a flat backdrop, set Background to Remove. It works from the edges inwards; tick Also clear enclosed areas for patches the edges cannot reach, such as the gap inside an arm on a hip. To correct the colour, open Change colour or tolerance: Pick from the picture chooses the colour, Tolerance sets how close a match has to be, and Apply uses them. For enlarged pixel art, press Find the pixel grid, check the preview, then press Snap to this grid; it often works on AI pixel art too. A clean enlargement saved as a PNG is usually offered the snap as it opens, with a preview; for a JPEG or anything else, press the button. Undo puts the picture back if it is wrong.
Download

Take the 1:1 PNG for your game and the enlarged copy for sharing. In your engine, set the sprite's filtering to point or nearest so it stays sharp.

Worth knowing

Tap a swatch to copy its hex code.
Reset returns the picture to the starting look.
Dither is under More options, and sits under Palette when the palette has four colours or fewer. Off suits small sprites.
Under Picture type, Drawing keeps outlines and Photo keeps gradients.
The lock ends when you press Reset or leave the page, so use Copy palette as hex to keep a palette for another day.
Trim empty edges, under More options, cuts the blank border away before the sprite is sized. A picture of 128 pixels or smaller keeps its canvas unless you switch it on.
Pictures over about 4 megapixels (2048 × 2048) are not measured for a pixel grid.
Also clear enclosed areas is off to begin with, because a detail of the same colour inside the subject would go too. Very small patches are left alone, and the status line says when enclosed areas were kept.
Soft shadows and glows are not kept: every pixel of the result is either solid or clear.
Converting animation frames? Untick Trim empty edges — or press Keep every frame’s framing when the tool offers it — so every frame keeps the same framing, and press Lock this palette so they share their colours. Then build the sheet in the Sprite Sheet Toolkit.

See the tool All guides

Sprite Sheet Toolkit

Slice a sprite sheet into frames, pack frames into a sheet, turn a GIF or a video clip into a sheet, or turn a sheet back into a GIF — all in your browser.

4 min Free New