How to pixelate an image
- Drop in your images, choose them from your device, or paste one.
- Set Blocks across. Fewer blocks give bigger, chunkier pixels. To pixelate only a face or a name, drag a box over it on the preview; add as many boxes as you need.
- Download the pixelated picture, or every image as a zip.
Getting a good pixel art look
Simple subjects with strong shapes work best: a single person, a pet, a logo or a building against a plain sky. Busy scenes turn into noise once the detail is gone. Crop tight around the subject with crop image before pixelating, so every block counts.
Some settings to try:
- 8 to 24 blocks: abstract, almost like a mosaic tile pattern.
- 32 to 64 blocks: the classic retro game look, where faces are still recognisable.
- 100 blocks or more: a subtle low-resolution effect.
A little extra saturation with brightness and contrast makes the colours look more like an old game.
Pixelate, 8-bit and blur compared
This tool averages the colours inside each block. It doesn’t reduce the picture to a small fixed palette the way real 8-bit graphics did, so the result has many shades rather than a handful of colours.
If you want softness without the grid, blur the image instead. Neither is a safe way to hide private details such as names, addresses or numbers. A solid box is.