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gridforartists

Pixel Art Upscaler

Enlarge sprites, icons and pixel art by any whole number without blur. Choose crisp nearest neighbour or smooth Scale2x edges, and download a transparent PNG.

Drop a sprite or pixel art PNG, GIF (first frame), WebP or JPG. Nothing is uploaded. Or try a 16 × 16 sample:
Scale
Method

Nearest neighbour vs bicubic

The same 16 × 16 sprite enlarged 32 times. Regular resizing blurs it; the upscaler keeps it sharp.

Pixel art pencil upscaled 32x with nearest neighbour, crisp edges
Nearest neighbour 32×Every pixel becomes a clean 32 × 32 block.
The same pixel art pencil upscaled with bicubic interpolation, blurry edges
Bicubic 32×What most apps do. Edges smear and colours bleed.

How to upscale pixel art

  1. Open your sprite. Drop a PNG, paste from the clipboard or choose a file. Sprite sheets work too.
  2. Pick a scale. Use the 2×, 4×, 8× and 16× buttons, type any whole factor, or enter a target width and the tool picks the largest factor that fits.
  3. Pick a method. Nearest neighbour keeps the art exactly as drawn. Scale2x and Scale3x smooth jagged diagonals without adding colours.
  4. Download. The PNG keeps transparency unless you choose a background colour.

Upscaling for games, social media and print

DestinationRecommendedWhy
Game engine (Unity, Godot, GameMaker)Keep 1× and set the texture filter to point / nearestThe engine scales it on screen for free
Twitter, Instagram, DiscordScale to at least 1000px with nearest neighbourPlatforms blur and compress small images
Itch.io or Steam store pageWhole-number scale to the banner widthKeeps pixels square at the displayed size
Print, stickers, t-shirtsScale so each pixel is at least 0.5 mm at 300 DPIPrinters resample small images
Avatar or emojiScale2x or nearest, 128 to 512 pxSmooth diagonals read better when tiny

Why whole-number scaling matters

Pixel art is drawn on a grid where every pixel is the same size. When you scale by 3, each original pixel becomes exactly 3 × 3 screen pixels and the grid stays perfect. Scale by 2.5 and some pixels have to become 2 wide and others 3 wide; the eye notices the uneven rhythm immediately, especially in outlines and dithering patterns. That is why this tool only offers integer factors and fits a target width by rounding down.

Recovering the true pixel size

Pixel art posted online has often been enlarged already, sometimes several times, and sometimes by a non-integer amount. Upscaling that again multiplies any unevenness. With Detect pixel size on, the upscaler measures the runs of identical colours along rows and columns, finds the block size the image was enlarged by and samples one pixel from the centre of each block. You get back the clean 1× sprite, then scale it properly. If the art was saved as JPG, compression noise can hide the block size; in that case turn detection off.

Scale2x, Scale3x and other pixel art scalers

Scale2x (EPX) was created for emulators to enlarge low-resolution game graphics. It looks at each pixel and its four neighbours and, where two neighbours of the same colour meet diagonally, fills the corner to continue the line. The result keeps the original palette but rounds staircase edges. More advanced filters such as hqx and xBR blend new colours and can look painterly; that is great for emulation but changes your art, so this tool sticks to scalers that never invent colours.

Don't have pixel art yet? Convert any photo with the image to pixel art converter, then come back here to enlarge it. Need a guide for drawing sprites by hand? Download a 16 or 32 px transparent grid.

Frequently asked questions

Why does pixel art get blurry when I resize it?
Most image editors and phones resize with bilinear or bicubic interpolation, which blends neighbouring pixels to make photos look smooth. Pixel art has hard edges on purpose, so blending turns them into mush. Nearest neighbour scaling copies each pixel into a solid block instead, keeping every edge crisp.
What scale factor should I use?
Always use a whole number (2×, 3×, 4× and so on). Fractional scales such as 2.5× make some pixels wider than others, which looks uneven. To fit a target width, choose the largest whole factor that stays below it.
What is Scale2x (EPX)?
Scale2x, also known as EPX or AdvMAME2x, is a classic pixel art scaling algorithm. It doubles the size and rounds off staircase diagonals by looking at each pixel's neighbours, without adding new colours. Scale3x does the same at 3×. Use 4× by applying Scale2x twice. Nearest neighbour keeps the original look exactly; Scale2x gives smoother curves.
My sprite was already enlarged. Can I get the original size back?
Yes. Keep Detect pixel size on. The tool measures the size of the blocks in your image and shrinks it back to one pixel per block before upscaling, which also fixes screenshots that were scaled up by an odd amount.
Is transparency kept?
Yes. Transparent and semi-transparent pixels in PNG files are preserved in the upscaled PNG.
Is there a size limit?
The output can be up to 8192 pixels on its longest side, which is enough for print. Everything runs in your browser, so very large outputs depend on your device memory.

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