PixelSharp: Perfectly Sharp Pixel Art Scaling for Chrome
PixelSharp is a free Chrome extension developed by Lee White that enhances image scaling on web pages. It focuses on pixel art and low-resolution images, ensuring that they are displayed with sharp and accurate pixels. By default, most browsers use a linear scaling method that can make scaled-up pixel art appear blurry. However, activating PixelSharp changes the scaling method to "nearest neighbor," which is specifically designed for pixel art.
To use PixelSharp, simply pin the extension and click on its icon to activate it. Alternatively, you can activate it by clicking on the "Extensions" button next to the URL bar and selecting PixelSharp from the list of installed extensions. Please note that you need to enable "Allow access to file URLs" for the extension to work on images loaded from your computer.
Technical details of PixelSharp are straightforward. The extension only activates when clicked, triggering a single update to the current page's display styles to use nearest neighbor scaling. Reloading the page will revert the images back to the browser's original scaling behavior.
The "before and after" image used to demonstrate PixelSharp's effectiveness was created from real screen captures at a 500% browser zoom scale. The pixel art used in the demonstration, "Ninja Adventure - Asset Pack" by pixel-boy and AAA, is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, making it freely available for use.
