This tool converts any image into text characters. You can use it as an ascii art filter to build retro terminal graphics, text portraits, or plain-text banners for your codebases.
Detail and grid sizing
The tool samples the image into a monospace grid. Detail (columns) sets the width of that grid. Higher column counts create finer resolution for faces and complex photos, while lower column counts produce chunky, abstract results. Because text characters are usually taller than they are wide, Character Aspect and Line Height help compensate so the final output doesn’t look vertically stretched.
Tone mapping
The algorithm maps the brightness of each pixel to a specific character. You can choose different character sets—from dense blocks for heavy shading to minimal punctuation for clean outlines. Adjusting Contrast and Brightness directly changes how the image luminance maps to these characters, which is crucial for making the subject readable. The Invert toggle swaps the mapping, turning shadows into bright characters and vice versa.
Color and export
By default, the tool acts as an image to ascii color converter, tinting each character with the original pixel data. For a more classic ascii effect, switch to monochrome and pick a custom text color. While not a traditional dithering pixel art generator or halftone dot art tool, it creates a similar textured graphic aesthetic. You can download the rendered visual as an image (useful for transparent ascii overlays) or use Copy ASCII to grab the raw text.