You’d think using a powerhouse like Photoshop for something as tiny as a 32x32 sprite would be like using a chainsaw to cut a grape. It feels overkill. Honestly, most beginners dive in, grab the brush tool, and immediately wonder why their "pixel art" looks like a blurry, anti-aliased mess that belongs in a 2005 PowerPoint presentation. Photoshop is a photo editor first. It wants to smooth things out. It wants to blend. To actually succeed at making pixel art with photoshop, you have to basically bully the software into turning off every smart feature it has.
It’s about restriction.
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Pixel art isn't just "small art." It’s a specific discipline where every single square of color is a deliberate choice. If you let the computer make decisions for you—like "feathering" an edge or "interpolating" a transform—you’ve already lost the game. We're going to talk about how to break Photoshop's defaults so you can actually create something that looks like it belongs on a SNES.
The Canvas Setup That Doesn't Ruin Your Eyes
Don't start with a 1920x1080 canvas. Just don't.
If you want to make a character sprite, start tiny. I’m talking 64x64 pixels. Maybe 128x128 if you’re feeling ambitious. When you open the New Document window, ensure your Resolution is set to 72 Pixels/Inch because "DPI" is a print concept that means absolutely nothing in the world of digital pixels.
The real secret? The Image Interpolation setting.
Usually, Photoshop is set to "Bicubic Automatic." This is great for wedding photos. It is the enemy of making pixel art with photoshop. You need to change this to Nearest Neighbor. This tells Photoshop, "Hey, when I move something or resize it, do not try to be smart. Do not blur the edges. Just keep the pixels hard and crunchy."
You also need the Grid. Without a grid, you’re just guessing. Go to Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices. Set your Gridline Every 1 Pixel and Subdivisions to 1. Suddenly, your canvas looks like graph paper. It’s glorious. It’s also the only way to stay sane when you’re trying to figure out if your character’s legs are actually symmetrical.
Tools of the Trade: Throw Away the Brush
Forget the Brush Tool (B). It is useless here. Even at 1px size, it often carries a slight soft edge depending on your pressure settings. You live and die by the Pencil Tool.
If you don't see it, it’s hidden under the Brush Tool. Long-press the icon and swap it. The Pencil Tool is binary. It’s either 100% color or 0% color. No transparency at the edges. No "softness."
The Eraser is Also Your Enemy (Initially)
By default, your Eraser (E) is set to "Brush" mode. This will leave behind semi-transparent ghost pixels that will ruin your life when you try to use the Paint Bucket later. Change the mode in the top toolbar from Brush to Block. This gives you a hard, square eraser that matches the pixel grid perfectly. It feels clunky at first, but it's the only way to ensure your transparency stays clean.
Layers and the Magic Wand
When you're making pixel art with photoshop, you’ll likely use the Magic Wand (W) a lot. Turn off "Anti-alias" in the top bar. I cannot stress this enough. If Anti-alias is on, your selections will have a soft fringe, and when you fill them, you’ll get a ring of "almost-color" pixels that look terrible against a dark background. Also, uncheck "Contiguous" if you want to select every instance of a specific green across your entire layer.
The Workflow: Big Shapes to Tiny Details
Most people start with the eyes. Don't.
Start with a "blob." Use a medium gray and just block out the silhouette. If the silhouette looks like a recognizable character, the pixel art will work. If the silhouette looks like a lumpy potato, no amount of fancy dithering will save it.
Once the shape is there, create a new layer for your "flats." This is where you drop in your base colors. Pro tip: keep your palette limited. Real retro hardware like the NES or GameBoy had strict color limitations. Even though modern Photoshop gives you 16.7 million colors, using more than 16 or 32 in a single piece usually makes it look amateurish. Limited palettes force you to be creative with shading.
Shading and Dithering
Since we aren't using soft brushes, how do we do gradients? We use Dithering.
Dithering is that checkerboard pattern you see in old games. By alternating two colors in a 50/50 pattern, the human eye perceives a third, middle tone. It adds texture. It looks "techy." It’s also incredibly satisfying to draw by hand, though you can create custom patterns in Photoshop to speed this up.
Why Everyone Sucks at Exporting
You finished your masterpiece. It’s a 64x64 pixel knight. You save it as a PNG, upload it to Twitter or Discord, and... it’s a blurry dot. Or worse, it’s tiny and nobody can see it.
This is the most common mistake when making pixel art with photoshop.
You cannot just "Save As." You have to upscale it first. But you have to upscale it the right way.
- Go to Image > Image Size.
- Change the dropdown from "Inches" or "Percent" to Pixels.
- If your art is 64x64, and you want it to be viewable on a modern screen, you probably want it to be at least 600 or 800 pixels wide.
- Crucial: Change the Resampling method to Nearest Neighbor (preserve hard edges).
- If you use "Bicubic," your art is ruined. It becomes a blurry smudge. Nearest Neighbor keeps those crisp squares perfectly sharp, just larger.
Always upscale by whole numbers (200%, 400%, 1000%). If you upscale by 153%, some pixels will be bigger than others, and your art will look "jittery."
The "Index Color" Trick for Pros
If you really want to commit to the bit, try changing your Image Mode to Indexed Color.
This restricts the entire Photoshop file to a specific palette. If you try to paint with a color that isn't in your palette, Photoshop will force it to the nearest match. It’s a bit restrictive and makes layers act weird (it flattens them or limits them), so I usually stay in RGB mode until the very end. However, Indexed Color is how you create those tiny, optimized GIFs that take up almost zero kilobytes.
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Your Practical Next Steps
- Fix your preferences first. Open Photoshop, go to Preferences > General, and set "Image Interpolation" to "Nearest Neighbor." This saves you from forgetting it later during a transform.
- Build a 1px Brush. Even though the Pencil tool exists, some artists prefer a custom square brush. Create a 1x1 pixel selection, fill it with black, and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
- Download a palette. Don't guess your colors. Go to Lospec and download a classic palette like "DB32" or "Pico-8." Import these swatches into Photoshop. Using a pro-made palette instantly makes your work look 10x better.
- Practice "Cluster" drawing. Instead of placing single pixels (which looks "noisy"), try to group pixels of the same color into cohesive shapes or "clusters." This is what separates modern "indie game" style pixel art from just messy low-res drawings.
Making pixel art with photoshop isn't about the tools you use; it's about the tools you refuse to use. Turn off the "smart" tech, embrace the grid, and remember that in this medium, less is almost always more.