The Artfkt collection library
Pixel
Build a picture from cells and color.
Pixel transforms an image through cells, restricted color, and deliberate loss of detail. It can suggest a small-screen picture, a graphic mosaic, a tiled surface, or a picture breaking into blocks.
In Artfkt, choose spatial structure and palette together with Pixel Art, or work on them independently. A readable silhouette and a considered palette matter more than making every source equally coarse.
Included in Artfkt for Mac. All collections, one desktop studio.
Pixel art conversion begins with two separate choices
Cell size determines how much spatial detail remains. Palette choice determines which colors are available to describe that detail. A small grid with too many similar colors can look like a blurred photograph; a strong palette with oversized cells can lose an important expression or contour. Judge both at the intended viewing size.
Pixel Art combines square sampling, fixed palettes, and optional ordered dithering. Pixelate makes color blocks without that same palette workflow. Posterize reduces tonal levels while keeping the image’s spatial layout. Choose the operation that addresses the actual problem rather than stacking reductions by default.
Use dithering and cell finishes deliberately
Dithering places neighboring palette colors in a pattern to suggest intermediate shades. It can keep a gradient from becoming a few broad bands, but it also adds texture. With Original Colors, Pixel Art bypasses palette mapping and dithering; add Palette Map afterward when you want to choose your own small set of colors without dithering.
Pixel Outline emphasizes differences between neighboring sampled cells. Pixel Tiles opens space around equally sized shapes, and Pixel Relief shades cell edges to suggest raised faces. Match their grid size to Pixel Art when combining them, and begin with one finishing effect: each later grid treatment samples its input again and can replace an earlier finish.
Move beyond the retro-game reference
Pixel Sort reorganizes runs of cells within a brightness window, giving selected parts of an image directional streaks. Pixel Stretch extends the colors from a narrow strip across a band. Mosaic uses irregular sampled cells. These are useful for abstract backgrounds and cover imagery even when a recognizable pixel-art illustration is not the goal.
Pixel Scatter releases cells during playback, leaving transparency as they travel and fade. It is a different compositional choice from a static grid. None of these operations reconstructs a photograph as hand-drawn sprite art; cropping and source selection still determine whether the reduced image communicates clearly.
Effects in Pixel
11 effects to explore and combine.
Pixel Art
Pixel Art samples square cells, then maps their colors to a chosen palette. Center uses one exact source texel; Smoothed combines nine evenly spaced samples to reduce fine detail before quantization. Optional ordered dithering uses neighboring palette colors to suggest intermediate shades.
Explore Pixel Art
Pixelate
Turns fine detail into a mosaic of solid color blocks.
Explore Pixelate
Posterize
Breaks smooth gradients into distinct bands of color.
Explore Posterize
Mosaic
Rebuild the image from irregular cells of sampled color.
Explore Mosaic
Pixel Stretch
Extend a narrow image strip across a selected band.
Explore Pixel Stretch
Palette Map
Map every source color to the closest of up to eight colors you choose, without adding a dither pattern. Place it after Pixel Art set to Original Colors, with matching cells, to get pixel art in your own palette.
Explore Palette Map
Pixel Sort
Along every row or column, Pixel Sort finds unbroken runs of cells inside the brightness window and sorts each run by brightness. Cells outside the window stay in place and end the run, so the streaks follow the shapes in your picture instead of covering it evenly.
Explore Pixel Sort
Pixel Outline
Pixel Outline samples a square grid and draws a line inside a cell wherever a neighboring cell differs enough in color or transparency. It keeps the sampled silhouette, rather than growing a border outside it.
Explore Pixel Outline
Pixel Tiles
Pixel Tiles fills equally sized cells with sampled image colors. Square, round, and diamond shapes reveal transparent space around each tile. Dark and bright tiles keep the same dimensions.
Explore Pixel Tiles
Pixel Relief
Pixel Relief shades the edges of front-facing square cells. Highlights and shadows suggest raised tiles while the image stays in its original layout. The source colors remain the base of each cell.
Explore Pixel Relief
Pixel Scatter
Pixel Scatter releases square cells on seeded timing and sends them flying in one direction, or falling with Gravity, until they fade out and leave transparency behind. Each cell keeps its exact pixels, so the picture seems to shatter into its own blocks.
Explore Pixel ScatterCreative applications
- Make a small-format cover image from a simple object or silhouette, choosing the grid and palette around its most important contour.
- Develop a limited-color mosaic background that supports clean typography on another layer.
- Turn a finished grid image into a moving break-apart study with matching Pixel Art and Pixel Scatter cell sizes.
Starting workflow
- For a limited-palette object study, choose a close crop with a clear silhouette and a background that separates from the subject.
- Apply Pixel Art and set Pixel size until the defining features remain readable at the intended output size.
- Choose a palette, then compare dithering on and off in a smooth tonal area. Keep the pattern only if it helps describe the subject.
- If the source becomes speckled, compare Center and Smoothed sampling before reducing the cell size again.
- Optionally add Pixel Outline with a matching Pixel size. Adjust its sensitivity while watching which boundaries are emphasized, and compare the result with the unoutlined version.
Make it part of your next composition.
Combine Pixel with other collections, images, and editable text in Artfkt for Mac.