How To Upload Pixel Art From Photoshop

Need to resize pixel art? Larn how to enlarge your artwork and proceed those blocky shapes looking well-baked and precipitous with Photoshop!

In this tutorial, you'll acquire how to go slap-up results when resizing pixel art in Photoshop! Pixel art is different from standard images and presents unique challenges when resizing information technology. Normally when enlarging an image and adding more pixels, Photoshop tries to prevent the result from looking blocky and pixelated past blending the pixels together and smoothing everything out.

But "blocky and pixelated" is the whole point of pixel art! Then to resize pixel art, we need a way for Photoshop to merely add more pixels, and that's it. Instead of smoothing things out, we demand to go along the shapes and the edges of the artwork looking crisp and sharp. In this lesson, I'll show you exactly how to do it.

Along with resizing pixel art, I also apply this same technique for resizing screenshots used in my tutorials. And y'all tin can use it to resize any graphic where you lot need to maintain precipitous, hard edges or readable text. To get the all-time results with this lesson, you'll want to exist using Photoshop CC, only whatever version of Photoshop will work.

I'll apply this little pixel art character that I downloaded from Adobe Stock:

Our pixel fine art hero. Credit: Adobe Stock.

This is lesson 7 in my Resizing Images in Photoshop series.

Let's go started!

How to enlarge pixel fine art in Photoshop

Here'south the character open up in Photoshop. And as you can see, he's looking pretty minor:

The pixel art at its original size.

Step 1: Open up the Image Size dialog box

The best way to enlarge pixel art is past using Photoshop's Image Size dialog box. To open it, go up to the Image bill of fare in the Carte Bar and choose Prototype Size:

Going to Image > Image Size.

In Photoshop CC, the dialog box includes a handy preview window on the left, along with the image size options on the right:

The Paradigm Size dialog box in Photoshop CC.

Viewing the current image size

The current size of the image is plant at the top. Next to the give-and-take Dimensions, we run across that my artwork is pretty small-scale, with a width and peak of just 500 pixels:

The electric current pixel dimensions of the artwork.

Step 2: Plow on the Resample option

Let'southward say I need to make my character much bigger. Maybe I desire to use him in a affiche or as a desktop groundwork. To do that, I'll need to overstate the artwork by calculation more than pixels.

Starting time, brand sure that the Resample option in the dialog box in turned on. With Resample off, the pixel dimensions are locked and all we tin can change is the print size. To add or remove pixels, Resample needs to exist on:

Resample should be on.

Stride three: Enter a percent into the Width and Height boxes

Rather than upsampling pixel art to a specific size, the best way to overstate it is by using percentages. And to avert distortions and keep each block in the artwork perfectly square, yous'll want to stick to percentages that are multiples of 100 (so 200%, 300%, 400%, and so on). I'll overstate the image by setting both the Width and Height to 400 Percentage:

Upsampling the width and tiptop by 400 percent.

This will increment the pixel dimensions from 500 px by 500 px upwards to 2000 px by 2000 px:

The new pixel dimensions later resizing the artwork.

Resizing the preview window

Notice that, by making the width and height four times larger, the artwork is at present too large to fit within the small preview window. To brand the preview window bigger, I'll make the Epitome Size dialog box itself bigger past dragging the bottom right corner outward. And so, I'll click and elevate inside the preview window to center the artwork within information technology:

Resizing the Image Size dialog box for a larger preview.

Learn more: Photoshop CC'due south Image Size dialog box - Features and Tips

The problem with resizing pixel fine art

So far then adept. Or is it? If we look at the artwork in the preview window, nosotros meet that it doesn't wait right. Instead of the edges around the shapes looking well-baked and sharp, they're looking a bit soft and blurry:

The edges expect besides soft later enlarging the artwork.

And if we look closer, nosotros tin see halos effectually the shapes, specially in college contrast areas. I'll zoom in on the artwork using the zoom buttons at the bottom of the preview window. And here, at a zoom level of 400%, we can clearly see the halos, peculiarly around the graphic symbol's optics:

Enlarging the pixel art blurred the shapes and added halos around them.

Notice, though, that if you click and hold on the artwork in the preview window, the halos disappear and the edges expect very abrupt, which is exactly what nosotros want:

The pixel art looks corking when you lot click and hold.

But as soon as you release your mouse push, you're dorsum to seeing the halos:

The softness and halos return when the mouse push button is released.

The image interpolation method

The reason is that when you click and agree in the preview window, yous're seeing the upsampled artwork before Photoshop applies any image interpolation. Interpolation is how Photoshop averages the pixels together and smooths out the result. When you release your mouse push, you see the artwork with the interpolation applied. And it's the interpolation method that's causing the problems and creating that halo consequence.

The Interpolation pick is found to the right of the Resample pick. And by default, it's gear up to Automatic:

The image interpolation option.

Usually, the Automatic setting is fine because it lets Photoshop choose the best method for the chore. But the problem hither is that Photoshop assumes we're resizing a standard paradigm with lots of fine detail. So information technology'due south choosing a method that would make a standard image look good. But that same method makes pixel art, and similar types of graphics, look bad. And so when upsampling pixel fine art, we need to choose a different interpolation method ourselves.

Step 4: Ready the interpolation method to Nearest Neighbour

To do that, click on the Interpolation option to open a list of the methods we can choose from. If you're using Photoshop CC, then the interpolation method Photoshop chooses for upsampling images is Preserve Details. And in Photoshop CS6, it chooses Bicubic Smoother. Only neither of them work well with pixel art:

Photoshop'due south interpolation methods.

To upsample your artwork without averaging the pixels, the interpolation method you need is Nearest Neighbor:

Choosing Nearest Neighbor.

Equally soon every bit you cull Nearest Neighbor, the artwork in the preview window looks crisp and sharp! And if you click and hold in the preview window, and and then release your mouse push, yous'll see that this time, nothing happens. The artwork looks just every bit sharp earlier and after the interpolation method is applied.

That's because it'southward at present the same interpolation method both times. Photoshop always adds the pixels initially using Nearest Neighbor. Only now that we've called Nearest Neighbor ourselves, information technology's non using annihilation else that would cause the pixel fine art to wait worse:

Nearest Neighbour is perfect for upsampling pixel art.

Step 5: Click OK

When you're ready to upsample the artwork, click OK to accept your settings and shut the Image Size dialog box:

Clicking OK to enlarge the pixel art and close the Image Size dialog box.

And now, my little pixel art hero looks a whole lot bigger, notwithstanding he notwithstanding maintains the same blocky, pixelated await that we'd wait:

The upsampled pixel art.

How to enlarge pixel art - Quick summary

Earlier nosotros go any further, let's quickly summarize the steps for getting the all-time results when enlarging pixel art in Photoshop.

• 1. Open up the Image Size dialog box (Image > Prototype Size).
• 2. Prepare the Width and Elevation to Percent, and so for best results, choose a percentage that'south a multiple of 100 (200%, 300%, 400%, and so on).
• 3. Change the interpolation method to Nearest Neighbor.
• four. Click OK.

How to resize pixel art to an verbal size

And then far, we've learned that the all-time way to enlarge pixel art is by upsampling it using a percentage that'south a multiple of 100. Only what if you demand to enlarge information technology to specific pixel dimensions, and y'all can't go in that location using 1 of those percentages?

For example, by upsampling my artwork past 400%, I've enlarged the width and height from 500 pixels up to 2000 pixels:

The dimensions of the upsampled artwork.

But what if I needed the width and meridian to be something a bit smaller, similar 1600 pixels? If I had upsampled my 500 px x 500 px image by 300%, it would have fabricated the width and superlative only 1500 pixels, leaving information technology nevertheless too modest. And upsampling information technology by 400% fabricated it too big. What I actually needed was something in between. In that case, what you'll desire to do is resize the artwork in two steps.

Pace 1: Upsample the pixel art as a percentage

Outset, upsample the pixel art using a percentage, and a multiple of 100, that will brand information technology larger than you demand. In my example, I've already done that by upsampling it by 400%, so the offset step is washed.

Step ii: Re-open the Image Size dialog box

Then, resize it a 2nd time, this time to downsample information technology to the exact pixel dimensions. To practice that, open the Image Size dialog box once over again by going up to the Image menu and choosing Image Size:

Going to Image > Image Size.

Step 3: Go out the Resample option turned on

Make sure the Resample selection is still on so you lot can change the number of pixels:

Leaving the Resample option checked.

Step 4: Fix the Width and Elevation, in pixels

Enter the verbal size you demand, in pixels, into the Width and Height fields. I'll fix them both to 1600 pixels:

Inbound the new pixel dimensions.

Stride 5: Set the interpolation method to Automatic

And finally, while the Nearest Neighbor interpolation method works great for upsampling pixel art, you don't want to use it when downsampling. Instead, for the sharpest results, change the interpolation method back to Automatic. This will hand control back to Photoshop, and when downsampling images, information technology will automatically choose Bicubic Sharper:

Setting the interpolation method dorsum to Automatic.

When yous're ready to resize the artwork to the verbal size, click OK to shut the dialog box, and yous're done:

Clicking OK to downsample the pixel art.

And in that location we have it! That's how to get the best results when resizing pixel art, screenshots, or like graphics, in Photoshop! In the next and final lesson in this series, we'll look at the best way to enlarge images in Photoshop using a brand new feature known as Preserve Details 2.0!

You can leap to any of the other lessons in this Resizing Images in Photoshop chapter. Or visit our Photoshop Basics section for more topics!

Source: https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/how-to-resize-pixel-art-in-photoshop/

Posted by: sardinakepon1975.blogspot.com

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