Why ordinary resizers blur pixel art
Photo resizers interpolate: they invent in-between colours to make edges smooth, which turns crisp pixel art into a soft smear. Nearest-neighbour scaling copies each pixel into an exact block instead. At whole-number factors (×2, ×3, ×4…) every art pixel becomes the same size.
Native size detection
Sprites are often shared already upscaled — a 32 × 32 character saved at 320 × 320. The resizer looks for the largest block size at which almost every pixel matches its block, reports it (for example “10 px per art pixel”), and can shrink the image back to its true 1× size before scaling it again. Light JPEG noise is tolerated.
Questions
How do I enlarge pixel art without blurring it?
Choose a whole-number scale such as ×4. The resizer uses nearest-neighbour, so each pixel becomes a sharp 4 × 4 square.
Can it shrink an upscaled sprite back to its original size?
Yes. If it detects an art pixel size above 1, “Shrink to native size” restores the 1× sprite.
What is the largest output?
Up to 8192 px on the long edge, which covers ×32 for a 256-pixel sprite.
Does it work with transparent PNGs?
Yes. Transparency is preserved; save as PNG to keep it.