Image to Pixel Art

Most "pixel art" generators are lying to you. They shrink the image and call it done, and you end up with mushy blended blocks that look like a JPEG at 2% quality. This node does the real thing: it downscales to a discrete low-resolution pixel grid, quantizes colors down to a limited palette, optionally dithers, then scales back up with nearest-neighbor so every pixel block is hard-edged and solid - no anti-aliasing, no blending, no cheating. If you want an honest retro look, this is the node.

How it works

The pipeline is three steps, and the order matters:

1. Downscale to a pixel grid. pixel_size sets how many original pixels become one pixel-art pixel - 8 on a 512px image gives a 64×64 grid. The downscale_filter controls the averaging: "Box (smooth)" averages each block before quantizing (better color), "Nearest (harsh)" samples a single pixel (harder, more aliased, more authentically crunchy).
2. Quantize to a palette. Either a fixed historical palette or an auto-computed one. This is where the retro character comes from.
3. Dither (optional). Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion, or ordered Bayer at 2×2 / 4×4 / 8×8. Dithering is what lets a 4-color GameBoy palette still render gradients.

Then upscale_to_original (on by default) scales the grid back to the original size with nearest-neighbor so the blocks are visible; disable it to get the raw low-res art as output.

Inputs and outputs

• image - anything from a Load Image or a generated frame.
• pixel_size (default 8, 1–128) - the chunkiness dial. Bigger = chunkier.
• num_colors (default 32, 2–256) - max palette size, but only for the Auto and Grayscale palettes.
• dithering - None, Floyd-Steinberg, or Bayer 2×2/4×4/8×8.
• palette - the fun one: Auto, Grayscale, C64 (16), CGA (16), GameBoy (4), NES (52), Pico-8 (16). Each is a faithful fixed palette, so the output genuinely reads as "that machine".
• downscale_filter - Box (smooth) or Nearest (harsh).
• upscale_to_original - boolean.

Output is a single pixel_art IMAGE.

When to reach for it

Game assets and mockups, album-cover vibes, profile pictures, or turning a generated portrait into something that looks like it came off a Game Boy screen. The fixed palettes are the killer feature - GameBoy (4) with Bayer dithering produces that unmistakable LCD look that no "reduce resolution" filter ever gives you.

Install

Part of the vsLinx pack. ComfyUI Manager → search "ComfyUI vsLinx Nodes", or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/vslinx/ComfyUI-vslinx-nodes.git comfyui-vslinx-nodes

Restart and find it under vsLinx/image as "Image to Pixel Art". No extra dependencies - the dithering and palette code runs on PIL and numpy that ComfyUI already ships.

The honest take

For a one-input fun node it's surprisingly well-made - the ordered Bayer dithering against fixed palettes is the kind of thing most "pixel art" nodes skip, and it's what makes the output actually look like hardware. The main trap is dithering choice: on the 4-color palettes, no dither gives you big flat bands (sometimes exactly what you want for a chunky sprite) while Floyd-Steinberg gives that grainy scanline texture. Try GameBoy with Bayer 4×4 and GameBoy with None side by side - they're almost different art styles.