Photo ASCII: colored characters floating over a blurred copy of your photo
Photo ASCII is the starting point of Photo art mode: every cell of your picture is swapped for one character from a ramp that runs from @ and # in the highlights down to colons and dots, and each character keeps the color of the spot it replaces. Underneath lies the same photo with an 8-pixel blur, while cells darker than the Dark cut-off are skipped. Shadows therefore turn into soft color and only the lit parts of the subject are spelled out in type, the way the blue anthurium in the preview glows out of its dark leaves under a scatter of letters.
Make it yours
Bring type into the shadows
With Dark cut-off at 30 the dimmest cells stay empty so the blur shows through. Raise it toward 70 and characters spread into darker areas, which helps on low-key photos where too much of the subject disappears.
Turn the backdrop into pure color
Backdrop blur at 8 pixels keeps the photo recognizable behind the type. Push it to 25 and the picture melts into broad color fields, so the characters carry all the detail and the background stays calm.
FAQ
What makes Photo ASCII different from the classic ASCII presets?
Classic ASCII mode draws characters in one or two colors on a flat background. Photo art keeps the photograph in play: each character is tinted with the color of the pixels it stands for, and a blurred copy of the image fills the space between them, so the result reads as a photo first and as text art second.
How it works
Upload an image
Add a PNG, JPG or WebP up to 20 MB, or start from a sample photo, and keep the original ratio or crop to 1:1, 4:5, 3:2, 16:9 or 9:16.
Choose a style
Photo art draws with 8 glyph styles such as Characters, Blocks, Braille and Mixed glyphs; ASCII offers 8 character sets including Matrix, Binary and your own characters.
Style and use it
Add glyph glow, an RGB split, scanlines or bloom, then sign in with a free UX Pilot account to use it on the canvas or export it.