← Guides · November 13, 2026 · 2 min read

How to resize pixel art without blurring it

Export at a whole-number scale with nearest-neighbor sampling. At 4×, each original pixel becomes a square block of 4 by 4 pixels of the same color. A 32 × 32 sprite becomes a crisp 128 × 128 PNG. PaintLasso’s Pixel Studio can export that directly.

Export a larger PNG from Pixel Studio

Open your project in Pixel Studio and select the frame you want in the timeline.
Open Export. Under Export size, choose Native (1×), 2×, 4×, or 8×. The menu shows the resulting dimensions.
Select PNG (this frame). Keep the original project at its working size so you can continue editing individual pixels.

The lantern at four times its original size with square pixels — Both files come from a single 32 × 32 frame. The project stays at its original size.

Choose a size for where it will appear

Keep the 1× version for a game asset if the engine will set the display scale. In a portfolio or tutorial where the sprite should be easy to study, try 4× or 8×. If a layout expects an exact size that is between whole multiples, put an integer-scaled sprite on a transparent canvas of that size. For example, center a 96 × 96 sprite in a 100 × 100 image and leave two transparent pixels on each side.

Check the final display for blur

Open the PNG at 100% zoom. If the edges are sharp there and soft in a game or on a webpage, check the settings where you display it. A game can use nearest-neighbor texture filtering. On a webpage, set image-rendering to pixelated and display the image at a whole-number multiple of its native width when the layout allows. A social platform may still resize an upload. Compare the posted image with your original file before attributing the blur to the export.

If the PNG itself already has cloudy edges, return to the smallest clean source and export again. Upscaling an image that has already been smoothed will preserve the intermediate colors along those edges.

Open Pixel Studio →