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Retrospecs: system-accurate pixel art filter app for iOS [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-10-20  

Retrospecs turns photos and artwork into pixel art, and not just by crudely resizing them. It provides filters for a variety of classic systems, with accurate pixel aspect ratios, pallettes and character sets (for textmode art)—and tutorials on importing the images into the systems whose hardware they imitate.

• Different systems generally favour different dither styles. For example, a lot of ZX Spectrum images work best with Floyd-Steinberg dithering, whereas systems with a larger set of available colours tend to work best with Bayer 8×8.

• Adding noise (via the "Noise" slider under the Options tab in the converter) tends to help the character emulations produce good results.

• You can create a custom emulation based on an existing emulation by holding down two fingers on the preview in the converter.

• If you're using a "random" based Option in the converter (noise, corruption, etc.) you can double tap the preview image to change the random seed.

• If you're using an iPad that supports split-screen mode, you can drag media directly into the home view and converter.

The only drawback: it's iOS/iPadOS only

Previously:

• Run a pixel art sword shop

• How much game can you fit in 32×32 pixels?

• Multipaint: draw pixel art within the limitations of old computers

• New version of Pixatool, great app for turning images into pixel art

[END]
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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/10/20/retrospecs-system-accurate-pixel-art-filter-app-for-ios.html

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