Pick to Pixel: Photo-Pixel Art
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About this app
Turn any photo into editable pixel art — then refine it with a real pixel-by-pixel editor. Pick to Pixel takes the photo you tap, extracts a smart color palette, and converts it into a clean pixel-art canvas you can keep tweaking.
PHOTO TO PIXEL ART, INSTANTLY
• Pick a photo from your gallery, choose a canvas size from 8×8 up to 256×256, and Pick to Pixel renders pixel-perfect art on the spot.
• Smart palette extraction lets you tune the color count (up to about 30) — the app finds the dominant tones and quantizes the photo to match.
• Pick one of two looks: a PixelOE-inspired smoothing pass for clean flat regions and crisp edges, or Floyd-Steinberg / Atkinson / blue-noise dithering for a softer retro grain (one or the other, not stacked).
• Outline tool (experimental) with Fast and Detailed modes adds bold edges automatically when you want them — bake them into the canvas or keep them as an editable overlay.
A REAL PIXEL EDITOR, NOT JUST A FILTER
• Pencil, eraser, eyedropper, magic wand (flood select), bucket fill, and color replace.
• Reference photo overlay so you can keep tracing or fine-tuning while the original photo floats above the canvas at adjustable opacity.
• Multi-frame timeline for animations — duplicate frames, drag to reorder, onion-skin between them.
• Selection tools with move, copy, paste, and free-form transforms.
WORKS ON PHONES AND TABLETS
• Universal app — same projects, palettes, and editor whether you start on a phone or tablet.
• Portrait and landscape on tablets both supported; works great on large screens.
PALETTES, YOUR WAY
• Custom palettes with named colors. Save your favorite color sets and reuse them across projects.
• Per-project palettes that travel with the file.
• Add, edit, replace, and reorder colors in seconds.
EXPORT EVERYTHING
• Export PNG with optional transparency and pixel-perfect scale-up (1×, 4×, 16×).
• Export GIF for animations, with frame timing controls.
• Export the canvas as a JSON color grid (a 2D array of hex codes) — handy for cross-stitch and perler-bead pattern tools, web games and homemade sprite scripts, or any code that needs the raw pixel data. Find it in your device's file manager under Pick to Pixel.
PROJECTS THAT STAY YOURS
• Project library with thumbnail grid: rename, duplicate, delete, organize into folders.
• Save with a tap — reopen the canvas right where you saved it.
• Atomic writes mean a crash never corrupts your work.
PRIVACY-FIRST, FULLY OFFLINE
• No account. No sign-up. No tracking. No analytics.
• Your photos never leave your device — no upload, no cloud, no AI service in the loop.
• Works in airplane mode.
11 LANGUAGES
English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese — automatic from your device language.
WHO IT'S FOR
• Game developers and pixel-artists who want a real photo importer with palette control.
• Hobbyists turning portraits, pets, or landscapes into 8-bit / 16-bit art.
• Cross-stitch and perler-bead crafters who need quantized palettes from photos.
Built by a solo indie developer. Feedback welcome — tap "Send feedback" in Settings - About to email me directly.
PHOTO TO PIXEL ART, INSTANTLY
• Pick a photo from your gallery, choose a canvas size from 8×8 up to 256×256, and Pick to Pixel renders pixel-perfect art on the spot.
• Smart palette extraction lets you tune the color count (up to about 30) — the app finds the dominant tones and quantizes the photo to match.
• Pick one of two looks: a PixelOE-inspired smoothing pass for clean flat regions and crisp edges, or Floyd-Steinberg / Atkinson / blue-noise dithering for a softer retro grain (one or the other, not stacked).
• Outline tool (experimental) with Fast and Detailed modes adds bold edges automatically when you want them — bake them into the canvas or keep them as an editable overlay.
A REAL PIXEL EDITOR, NOT JUST A FILTER
• Pencil, eraser, eyedropper, magic wand (flood select), bucket fill, and color replace.
• Reference photo overlay so you can keep tracing or fine-tuning while the original photo floats above the canvas at adjustable opacity.
• Multi-frame timeline for animations — duplicate frames, drag to reorder, onion-skin between them.
• Selection tools with move, copy, paste, and free-form transforms.
WORKS ON PHONES AND TABLETS
• Universal app — same projects, palettes, and editor whether you start on a phone or tablet.
• Portrait and landscape on tablets both supported; works great on large screens.
PALETTES, YOUR WAY
• Custom palettes with named colors. Save your favorite color sets and reuse them across projects.
• Per-project palettes that travel with the file.
• Add, edit, replace, and reorder colors in seconds.
EXPORT EVERYTHING
• Export PNG with optional transparency and pixel-perfect scale-up (1×, 4×, 16×).
• Export GIF for animations, with frame timing controls.
• Export the canvas as a JSON color grid (a 2D array of hex codes) — handy for cross-stitch and perler-bead pattern tools, web games and homemade sprite scripts, or any code that needs the raw pixel data. Find it in your device's file manager under Pick to Pixel.
PROJECTS THAT STAY YOURS
• Project library with thumbnail grid: rename, duplicate, delete, organize into folders.
• Save with a tap — reopen the canvas right where you saved it.
• Atomic writes mean a crash never corrupts your work.
PRIVACY-FIRST, FULLY OFFLINE
• No account. No sign-up. No tracking. No analytics.
• Your photos never leave your device — no upload, no cloud, no AI service in the loop.
• Works in airplane mode.
11 LANGUAGES
English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese — automatic from your device language.
WHO IT'S FOR
• Game developers and pixel-artists who want a real photo importer with palette control.
• Hobbyists turning portraits, pets, or landscapes into 8-bit / 16-bit art.
• Cross-stitch and perler-bead crafters who need quantized palettes from photos.
Built by a solo indie developer. Feedback welcome — tap "Send feedback" in Settings - About to email me directly.
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What’s new
v1.1.0
