Sam Brimlow

I’ve been messing around with image manipulation again in Python and Streamlit, this time because I wanted something that could give my photos that crunchy pixel art vibe you see in old RPGs and retro games.

I already had some functional dithering code from a while back, but I wanted something more flexible: blocks, limited palettes, even optional black outlines to make everything pop.

I call it The Pixalator!!!!

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What it does

• Upload an image straight from your browser
• Choose a pixel size (or average blocks for perfect tiling)
• Posterise the colours down to a few bits per channel
• Optionally quantise to a fixed palette (8-bit, NES, Game Boy, etc.)
• Adjust brightness, saturation, contrast, sharpen if needed
• Add a simple black outline to emphasise edges
• Download the final image or batch process a whole folder – untested but should work… hopefully

Next steps

I might add:

• Custom palette upload (for NES or Game Boy swatches)
• Export to a sprite sheet or animated GIF – a big maybe