Convert any image to ASCII art with 6 character sets (standard, blocks, detailed, emoji, braille, minimal), width slider, color ASCII mode, invert toggle, and adjustable contrast. Download as TXT or render as PNG. Real-time preview.
Upload an image to generate ASCII art…
Upload any PNG, JPG, or WebP image. For best results, use images with high contrast, clear subjects, and good lighting. Simple portraits, logos, and bold graphics work best. Complex scenes with many fine details may look cluttered at smaller widths.
Use the Width slider (40–200 characters) to control detail level. Choose a Character Set: Standard (@#*+=-. for photos), Blocks (█▓▒░ for bold art), Detailed (dense symbol set), Emoji (🌑🌒🌓🌔 for fun output), Braille (⣿⣷⣯⣟ for fine detail), or Minimal (just space and #). Toggle Invert for white-on-dark effect. Enable Color ASCII to colorize each character.
The ASCII output appears in real time in the preview panel. Click Copy to Clipboard, Download as TXT (for pasting into terminals or documents), or Download as PNG (renders the ASCII art as an image with monospace font).
The tool loads your image onto an HTML canvas and scales it down to the target character width. For each cell (pixel region), it calculates the luminance (brightness) value (0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B for human-accurate brightness). This brightness is mapped to a character — dark pixels get dense characters like @ or #, light pixels get sparse characters like . or space. Characters are taller than wide, so the image height is scaled by a factor of ~0.55 to correct the aspect ratio.
Standard (@#S%?*+;:,.) works for most photos. Blocks (█▓▒░ ) use Unicode block characters for bold, graphic results. Detailed uses a dense 70-character set for maximum tonal range. Emoji replaces brightness with moon phase emojis (🌑→🌕) for a playful look. Braille uses dot patterns (⠿⣿) for fine line detail. Minimal (just # and space) gives a high-contrast silhouette effect.
ASCII characters are typically taller than they are wide (roughly 2:1 ratio). The tool compensates by using about half as many rows as columns to correct aspect ratio. If the art still looks stretched, adjust your display font size — monospace fonts like Courier New or Consolas in a fixed-character width terminal give the most accurate result.
Best: high contrast photos with a clear subject against a plain background, bold logos, simple illustrations, faces with strong lighting, and silhouettes. Worst: busy landscapes, low-light photos, images with many subtle gradients, and photos with fine text. Try inverting brightness if your subject (e.g. a dark object on a light background) looks washed out.
Color ASCII renders the same character grid but applies the original pixel colors to each character using HTML span tags. The output is an HTML snippet where each character inherits the color of the image pixel it represents. This creates a colorful mosaic effect and looks best when pasted into a web page or HTML document.
For printing, use the Download as PNG option which renders the ASCII art on canvas with a monospace font. Set a larger canvas size (high-DPI scale) for print quality. TXT output can be pasted into a word processor with Courier New font at small point size (4–8pt) for full-page prints. A width of 150–200 characters fills a standard A4 landscape page.
