Commodore 64
Converter

Convert photo to authentic Commodore 64 / CBM64 8-bit style using the real VIC-II 16-colour palette.

Open C64 Converter

How to get authentic Commodore 64 graphics from your photo

The VIC-II chip's 16-colour limit is important, every choice below is about working with that constraint the way C64 software did.

1
Upload a photo
Drag and drop it onto "LOAD IMAGE" or click to select. Photos with clear, separated colour areas convert most convincingly, the VIC-II palette can't do subtle gradients.
2
Choose a palette
Extract from Image picks 16 adaptive colours from your photo via k-means clustering which gives a richer, closer colour match. VIC-II Chip Palette locks to the real, fixed 16-colour C64 palette, less accurate to the source photo, but the authentic period-correct look.
3
Pick a graphics mode
Four conversion modes, each suited to a different kind of photo — see the table below for a quick pick, or the full explanation further down the page.
ModeBest forAvoid for
320×200Photos, landscapes, skies — any soft gradient—
MulticolorGame-art style images, medium-contrast subjectsFlat skies, smooth gradients
HiresPortraits, logos, line art — sharp, high-contrast subjectsSoft photo landscapes, hazy skies
ChunkyBold, extreme retro-poster look on any subjectFine detail — resolution is very low
4
Pick a dithering algorithm
Floyd-Steinberg for smooth photographic gradients, Bayer Ordered for the crisp geometric grid pattern that resembles hand-placed C64 pixel art. Commodore 64 had no automatic dithering, this just approximates the look. Atkinson for a softer diffusion that suits portraits, or No Dither for a flat, blocky raw-palette look.
5
Fine-tune and save
Adjust brightness, contrast and saturation (and K-Means quality, if using Extract from Image) to taste, then hit SAVE to download the finished image. Everything runs locally in your browser — nothing is uploaded to a server.
Open C64 Converter

Four dithering algorithms

Dithering creates the illusion of more colours by mixing pixels in patterns that trick the eye into seeing a blend — mixing light blue and white dots to suggest sky blue, for instance. The Commodore 64 itself had no automatic dithering: with the VIC-II chip's strict 16-colour limit, pixel artists placed every dithered dot by hand. The automatic algorithms here (Bayer included) are a modern convenience real C64 software never had, commonly used by retro converters to approximate that hand-placed look. Read more about the VIC-II 16-colour palette.

Four CBM64 resolutions & colour modes

320×200 — Hires (attribute clash — high contrast) 320×200 — Standard (no clash — photos & landscapes) 160×200 — Multicolour (attribute clash) 80×50 — Chunky

Hires and Multicolour apply the real VIC-II per-cell colour limit; Standard renders the same 320×200 resolution without it, so it's the better pick for continuous-tone photos where the cell constraint would just look blocky.

Open C64 Converter

Conversion examples

Sunset on lake — original photo
Before
Sunset on lake converted to Commodore 64 style
CBM64 converted
Skier in mountains — original photo
Before
Skier in mountains converted to Commodore 64 style
CBM64 converted
Robot show in colour — original photo
Before
Robot show converted to Commodore 64 pixel art style
CBM64 converted
Open C64 Converter