✨ retrofy

Transform your photos into nostalgic pixel-art masterpieces with authentic retro gaming palettes — straight from the NES, Game Boy, CGA, and PICO-8 era.

Ever want to turn a selfie into an 8-bit character? Or make your vacation photos look like classic Nintendo box art? That's what retrofy does — it's your time machine for digital images.

Get Started

npm install @rdnr/retrofy

Quick Example

In Node.js:

import { retrofy } from '@rdnr/retrofy'

const result = await retrofy('photo.jpg', {
  pixelSize: 8,           // Chunky 8×8 blocks
  palette: 'nes',         // Use authentic NES colors
  dithering: 'floyd-steinberg', // Smooth color transitions
  output: 'retro.png',    // Save the result
})

Via CLI:

retrofy photo.jpg --pixel-size 8 --palette nes --dithering floyd-steinberg --output retro.png

Supported Formats

retrofy uses sharp under the hood.

| | Formats | |---|---| | Input | JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, GIF, SVG, HEIC/HEIF | | Output | PNG (always) |

Configuration

Fine-tune your retro transformation with these options:

| Option | Type | Default | What it does | |---------------|-------------------------------------|---------|----------------------------------------------------| | pixelSize | number | 8 | Size of each pixel block (bigger = chunkier) | | palette | 'nes' \| 'gameboy' \| 'cga' \| 'pico8' \| RGB[] | none | Which color set to use (or define your own) | | dithering | 'none' \| 'floyd-steinberg' \| 'bayer' | 'none' | How to blend colors smoothly | | colorDepth | 8 \| 16 \| 32 | none | How many colors to extract from your image | | output | string | none | Where to save the retro image | | scale | number | 1 | Make it bigger without blurring (2× = double size) |

Pick Your Era

Choose a palette that brings back memories — each one is authentic hardware:

NES — 64 colors
The original 1983 Nintendo Entertainment System's PPU palette. Rich variety perfect for detailed pixel art.

From deep black to burnt orange—and 56 more authentic colors in between.

Game Boy — 4 colors
That iconic monochrome green screen from 1989. Nostalgic, minimal, unforgettable.

CGA — 16 colors
The legendary IBM PCjr (1984) color palette. Pure 80s computing vibes.

PICO-8 — 16 colors
Modern retro: the PICO-8 fantasy console's beloved 16-color set. Indie game darling.

How It Works

Pixelation — Imagine dividing your image into a grid of blocks. retrofy averages all the colors in each block and paints the whole block with that single color. Bigger blocks = chunkier look. It's like viewing your image through a low-res security camera.

Color Quantization — Real hardware had limited colors. retrofy uses the median-cut algorithm to extract a balanced palette from your actual image — finding the most important colors and bundling similar ones together. This keeps your image looking good while respecting the palette limits.

Dithering — When you have fewer colors than you need, dithering tricks the eye into seeing more colors through patterns. Floyd-Steinberg spreads color errors to neighboring pixels for a smooth, natural look. Bayer creates a regular crosshatch pattern — more stylized, more "retro console."