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Pixelate

Pick a photo, drag the slider.

2015

See it live →View on GitHub →Read why I built it

Artist statement

Pixelate turns any photo into big square blocks, and the photo never leaves your phone or computer. Drag the slider and the picture gives up its detail a little at a time, until it's a grid of colors.

Try it

This is the live site, running right here. Pick a photo and it stays in your browser; Save PNG downloads the result. Open it full screen →

Screenshots

The Pixelate page in pink on black: a Choose File button, a block size slider set to 24px and a Save PNG button, over the fair selfie turned into square blocks
Block size 24px

How it's made

JavaScript · HTML5 Canvas

The 2015 version had no pixel math in it. You pasted in an image's URL, it drew the picture at a few percent of its size, and it stretched the tiny copy back up with image smoothing turned off, so the blur you'd normally get came out as hard squares. In November 2026 I rebuilt it to work on your own photo, with each block the exact average of the pixels under it.

Each block is one color, the exact average of the pixels under it, worked out on a copy of your photo no bigger than 2,000 pixels a side so the slider stays quick. I stretch that small grid back up with smoothing turned off, and Save PNG writes it at your photo's full size.

YOUR PHOTO JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, never uploaded WORKING COPY longest side 2,000 px at most BLOCK SIZE the slider, 1 to 120 px, starts at 24 AVERAGE EACH BLOCK one color: the exact average of its pixels STRETCH IT BACK UP smoothing off, so blocks stay square SAVE PNG the photo's full size, up to 8,000 px a side
YOUR PHOTO JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, never uploaded WORKING COPY longest side 2,000 px at most AVERAGE EACH BLOCK the exact average color, slider: 1 to 120 px STRETCH IT BACK UP smoothing off, so blocks stay square SAVE PNG the photo's full size, up to 8,000 px a side

Lineage

See it live →Get the code on GitHub →Read why I built it

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