# Pick to Pixel: Photo-Pixel Art — Pixel Art Maker, Smart Palette

> Pixel Art Maker, Smart Palette (iPhone/iPad app by Jun Park.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pick-to-pixel-photo-pixel-art/id6766071345 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Jun Park](https://appshunter.io/developer/1885056895)
- Category: Graphics & Design, Photo & Video
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 15.0 · 29 MB
- Languages: American English, French (France), German (Germany), Italian, Japanese, Korean, European Portuguese, Russian, Chinese (Simplified, China), European Spanish and 1 more
- Released: 2026-05-18
- Data updated: 2026-08-26
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pick-to-pixel-photo-pixel-art/id6766071345/reviews.md

## What is Pick to Pixel?

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 (8–64) with a slider — the app finds the dominant tones and quantizes the photo to match.
• Remove background before extracting colors — tap the eraser button to isolate your subject on-device, so busy backgrounds don't pollute the palette.
• 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 with three modes — Fast for quick results, Sharp (contrast-aware downsampling) for clean edges on larger canvases, and Lines (XDoG) for a line-art look — bake them in or keep 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 — rectangular or magic-wand select, then move, duplicate, flip, fill, or delete the region.

WORKS ON iPhone AND iPad
• Universal app — same projects, palettes, and editor whether you start on iPhone or iPad.
• Portrait and landscape on iPad both supported; opens alongside other apps in Split View.

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. Paste a list of hex codes to import multiple colors at once.

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, or export your full animation (all frames + palette) as a single JSON file — handy for cross-stitch, perler-bead tools, web games, and sprite scripts. Find exports in the Files app under On My iPhone / iPad - 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.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.2.1 — 2026-08-26

Version 1.2.1 — onion skin arrives.

• Onion skin: tap the layers button in the frame strip to see the previous frame in blue and the next one in orange while you draw. Long-press it to set the ghost opacity.
• Picking the brush, eraser or fill now clears the current selection instead of leaving the marquee on the canvas.
• Pick to Pixel now requires iOS 15 or later, so it can build on current Apple frameworks. Devices on iOS 13 or 14 can keep using version 1.2.0.

### 1.2.0 — 2026-06-29

Version 1.2 — background removal, adjustable palette size.

• Remove background: tap the eraser button on the palette screen to strip the background using Apple's Vision framework — cleaner palettes from photos with busy surroundings.
• Adjustable color count: use the new Max colors slider (8–64) to control how many colors are pulled from your photo. Default is 24.

### 1.1.0 — 2026-06-06

Version 1.1 — new outline modes, multi-frame JSON, bulk color import.

• Sharp and Lines outline modes: Sharp uses contrast-aware downsampling for cleaner edges on larger canvases (128×128+); Lines applies XDoG edge detection for a line-art look.
• Multi-frame JSON: export your full animation (all frames + palette) to a single .json file and re-import it on any device.
• Bulk color import: paste a list of hex codes to add multiple palette colors at once — editor menu ⋮ → "Add custom colors (HEX)".
• Add another: add multiple custom colors back-to-back without reopening the color picker.
• Sharper project gallery thumbnails.

### 1.0 — 2026-05-18

No release notes.

## Apps similar to Pick to Pixel

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Mosaic Pixel Studio](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mosaic-pixel-studio/id6771497117) | — | Free | Graphics & Design |
| [Spryt - Pixel Art Editor](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spryt-pixel-art-editor/id6761500866) | — | Free | Graphics & Design |
| [CutHouse: AI Rug Design & Earn](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cuthouse-ai-rug-design-and-earn/id6760633273) | 5.0 (3) | Free | Graphics & Design |
| [豆趣工坊](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/id6762086215) | — | Free | Graphics & Design |
| [Pixel Art Kit](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pixel-art-kit/id6479316795) | 5.0 (2) | Free | Graphics & Design |
| [Safe Area Insets Device Specs](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/safe-area-insets-device-specs/id6772275490) | — | Free | Graphics & Design |

## More apps by Jun Park

- [Memoself: Visual & AI Insights](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/memoself-visual-and-ai-insights/id6760569509)
- [Pick-to-Draw: Photo Palette](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pick-to-draw-photo-palette/id6761232570)
- [TXToCHART – Text to Charts](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/txtochart-text-to-charts/id6761669073)
- [Nonogram Drag](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nonogram-drag/id6761694721)
- [Voyaero: Charter Air Sim](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/voyaero-charter-air-sim/id6763437712)

All apps by Jun Park: https://appshunter.io/developer/1885056895

## Related topics

[photo to art pixel](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/photo-to-art-pixel) · [pixel photo art](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/pixel-photo-art)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-26.*