Shrinka Sprite

Shrink pixel art images as small as they will go!

For those who love to make pixel art, or just love looking at it in its miniature glory.

When people share their pixel art, they usually export it at 2-6 times its original size. This makes it tricky for when you want to download the image and play with it in your own favorite pixel art software—the image is way too big. Yes, you can import it then export it at a reduced size and make a bunch of new files until you've gotten it as small as you can...

But it would be much easier to just put the image through Shrinka Sprite.

Open an image with Shrinka Sprite and the program will automatically make a copy of it that is shrunk down as small as it would have originally been before the artist exported it. The copy will then be automatically saved next to your large file with "_shrunka" appended on the end of the original name.

In addition, Shrinka will tell you the dimensions of the shrunken picture, how many colors were used, how many pixels each color was used for, and the RGBA value of every color.

Disclaimers

This program...

1. is not pretty, but functional
2. only works with PNGs
3. is only meant to be used with low resolution art
4. doesn't work sometimes (rarely)
5. only works on windows for now

1. This program is not cute. I'm still learning programming, so this project was originally made as a homework assignment that I last minute decided to share. It is not slick, but it is functional. I don't expect it to gain a ton of attention, but if enough people like it maybe I will give it a real GUI someday. I'm mostly sharing it for the pixel artists like me who are sick of measuring an image by counting pixels in Aseprite and hoping that exporting it at 50 or 25 percent will be just right.

2. This program only converts PNGs (the only file type that pixel art should be saved to, anyway). TIP: I don't know why, but I've found that right clicking and selecting "open image in new tab" then saving it from the new tab has always worked for me, whereas downloading an image straight from Newgrounds or Twitter/X without that extra step sometimes confuses poor Shrinka Sprite. 

3. This program won't work with high resolution images. It was designed for pixel art. Too high of a color or pixel count and the program will simply close.

4. Occasionally Shrinka won't work. It's rare, but sometimes the dimensions of the big image make it so that Shrinka will return a copy that is not shrunka. In those cases...sorry!

5. Lastly, sadly, I have only gotten this to work for Windows. Again, this was homework that I decided to share, so I'm not going to sweat it. I just hope some other people find it useful. That said, if anyone were to take my program and make it work for Mac or Linux (or fix any of the shortcomings I've mentioned above), I'd be happy to include the new files on here in an update—with proper credit to the helpers, of course. Maybe I'll end up doing it on my own someday, but it isn't likely.

Final note

This program is meant for studying pixel art. Pixel art—like all art—should not be downloaded for the purpose of redistribution unless the original artist is credited. I personally use Shrinka Sprite to download images I like and practice drawing over them, or comparing my art to other art. Please use this program to develop your own original art and talent. Thank you.