Turn any image into pixel art, or draw your own in the pixel art maker. Choose a size, limit the colours, try a retro palette like Game Boy or NES, and export a crisp PNG or SVG. It's free, there's no sign-up, and your image never leaves your browser.
Pattern preview
An image built on a small grid, where every square is a choice. It grew out of early games and computers that could only show a few colours at low resolution. People still make it because a small, limited picture reads fast and has a style of its own.
Small grids force you to simplify. 16 to 32 pixels wide suits icons and sprites, 64 suits avatars and faces, and 128 to 256 keeps enough detail for posters and wallpaper. Start small and go up only when the subject stops reading.
Fewer colours give a stronger look. Try 4 to 8 for sprites and logos, and 16 to 32 for photos. If a face turns muddy, add colours or raise the contrast before you add more pixels.
A short palette makes the whole image agree with itself. Skin, sky and shadow end up sharing colours, so the picture feels designed. Palettes from old hardware such as Game Boy, NES and PICO-8 bring the mood of their era with them.
Dithering mixes two colours in a pattern so the eye sees a third. Use it on photos and soft gradients when colours are few. Leave it off for logos, flat shapes and sprites. Ordered dithering gives a regular texture, and error diffusion gives grain.
For an avatar, crop to square, keep the face large and export with the Discord avatar preset. For a sprite, remove the background, add an outline so it reads on any backdrop, and export a transparent PNG at native size. Scale it up in your engine with nearest-neighbour filtering.
Yes. There is no account, no watermark and no limit on what you export.
No. Everything runs in your browser. Your image stays on your device, and your work is saved only in this browser.
It depends on the job. Use 16 or 32 pixels wide for sprites and icons, 64 for avatars, and 128 to 256 for wall art. Export at a higher scale when you need a bigger file with the same crisp pixels.
Set Background to Transparent, adjust the tolerance until the backdrop is gone, then download the PNG. Images that already have transparency keep it.
A way to suggest extra shades by mixing the colours you have in a fine pattern. Ordered dithering makes a regular texture. Error diffusion, such as Floyd-Steinberg, makes a softer grain.
Yes. Game Boy, NES, PICO-8, Commodore 64, CGA, grayscale and 1-bit are built in, along with modern palettes such as Sweetie 16 and Endesga 32. You can also build your own and save it in your browser.
Yes. Open Draw, pick a canvas size and use the pencil, fill, line, rectangle and mirror tools. It works with a mouse or a finger.
Yes. Pattern mode gives you a symbol or numbered grid, a colour legend with a count for each colour, and a printable file that splits across pages. Colours are listed as hex values, so you match them to your beads or thread by eye.
The exported file is crisp, but many apps smooth an image when they enlarge it. Export at the size you need, or turn on nearest-neighbour scaling in that app.
Yes. The tool claims no rights over what you make. You do need the rights to any image you start from.
Free to use, no account. If it saves you time, support the tools.