Use pixel effects to create stunning patterns, hide elements or add texture to an image.
Pixel effects have a wide range of uses, from hiding someone's face to creating a canvas for a piece of pixel art. Pixelation occurs when an image is either resized or zoomed to a resolution which exposes its structure, has its color depth reduced or a filter is applied which creates pixel-like squares of color by sampling the image. How you choose to pixelate an image depends on the effect you want to achieve, the software you have available and if you want to pixelate all or part of the image. Most graphic editing programs include a pixelate filter, but many free online editors exist too.
Instructions
Pixelate Using a Filter Pixelate
Corel Paint Shop Pro: Effects > Distortion Effects > Pixelate
GIMP: Filters > Blur > PIxelise
Pixlr: Filter > PIxelate
FotoFlexer: Effects > Super PIxelate
Splashup: Filters > PIxelate
3. Adjust the controls, if prompted, to produce the desired effect. To pixelate only part of an image, use the "Marquee" or "Selection" tool to left-click and drag a selection around the desired area before choosing the filter. If using a filter does not produce the appropriate effect and you want to zoom in on your design to view the pixels, try using the resize method.
Pixelate With Resize
4. Open your image in an image or graphic editing program. Use the "Resize" option to resize your image by 200 percent to 500 percent. You can choose a higher percentage depending on how small your original image is. The resulting file size may be extremely large. The maximum size image you can produce is limited by your computer's graphics card and memory, so be careful not to exceed 500 percent or the software may take too long to process the request.
5. Choose the resize option again, but set it to use pixels instead of percentage and set the dimensions to the original size of the image. For example, in Microsoft Paint, you would choose "Resize" and select either the "Pixels" or "Percentage" radio button before entering a height and width.
6. Repeat this process to zoom in your image, then reset the original dimensions. Continue to resize and reset until you achieve the desired pixelation. This method can take a long time and may not produce the best results on image with large areas of solid color. An alternative is to use the "Zoom" control to zoom in on the image until you reach the desired pixel level, then take a screenshot by hitting your "Print Screen" or "Prt Scr" key. Paste the screenshot into the image editor and use the "Crop" tool to isolate the part you want.
Tags: your image, effect want, graphic editing, part image, size image