About This Software

Place a lens, and watch any video turn into pixel art in real time.

■ Overview

Pixel Lens is a real-time conversion tool that overlays a "pixel-art lens" on top of your desktop.

Just drop the lens over a video or game, and our in-house lightweight AI turns the image into pixel art on the spot. Anime, YouTube, web browsers, gameplay — anything on your screen, only the area you choose.

Audio plays through unchanged, so you can add the fun of "watching in pixel art" without compromising your viewing experience. You can also record the pixel-art image as a GIF or as an MP4 with sound, and share it on social media and elsewhere.

* A DirectX 12-compatible GPU is required. Please see the system requirements below for details.

■ Features

• Ultra-light, fast in-house AI: The model is just a few MB. Runs in real time at about 24 FPS on an RTX 3060-class GPU, and about 30 FPS on RTX 3090-class hardware. It produces pixel art with crisp outlines and keeps color noise down in dark scenes. When nothing on screen changes, it skips the conversion to lighten the GPU load. * Measurement conditions: Full HD (1920×1080) input / Target FPS = 30 / Dot size = 4

• Overlays on any app: Works with video players, browsers, games, and any other Windows window or screen region. Pin the lens and clicks go through to the window below, so you can play mouse-controlled games (such as visual novels) through the lens, still in pixel art.

• Dot size and Sharpness to taste: Five dot sizes from 4×4 to 8×8, each with its own AI, so lines stay crisp and unbroken even with large dots. Turn Sharpness on for crisp outlines, or off for a calm, anti-aliased look.

• Thin Lines for true pixel-art lines: Removes the extra dot that doubles up where diagonal lines step, for one-dot outlines that look hand-placed.

• Palettes and dithering for a retro-game look: 39 palettes included, from Game Boy and PICO-8 to Windows 95 styles. Adjust how the colors mix with Blend, Opacity and Dither (Bayer / error diffusion), and add your own palettes from sites like Lospec.

• CRT effect for an old CRT TV look: Recreates scanlines, glowing light, a gently curved screen and more, for the feel of watching on an old CRT TV. Choose from five profiles (Home TV, Arcade, Pro monitor, Subtle, Crisp), or fine-tune every detail. Also works in Stream mode, in screenshots and in MP4 recordings.

• Small text stays readable (Raw Text): Automatically finds small text such as subtitles and UI labels, and keeps just those areas as in the original video.

• Presets (five official presets included): Save every setting, palette, dither and CRT effect included, under a name and recall it in one click. Five official presets, each pairing a dot size with the CRT effect, are ready to try right away.

• Recording (GIF / MP4 with sound): Record the lens at the press of a button. Save a looping GIF (3 to 30 seconds) that's easy to post on social media, or an MP4 that records your PC's sound too.

• Screenshot capture: Save the perfect moment in one click. Screenshots are also added to your Steam screenshots, so you can share them straight from Steam.

• Drop images and videos to convert them: Just drop image or video files on the control panel to turn them into pixel art with your current settings. Videos become MP4s with sound.

• Stream mode (OBS integration, screen sharing): Send the pixel-art image to OBS through a virtual camera, ready for streaming or recording. In screen sharing on Discord, Teams, Zoom and others, you can also pick the Stream mode window as it is.

• Batch conversion of images and videos (CLI): The included command-line program pixellens-cli converts images, image sequences and videos into pixel art in one go. Presets saved in the app work as they are, CRT effect included.

• Steam achievements: 14 achievements to unlock. They come as you use the various features, so they're also a good way to discover what Pixel Lens can do.

• 15 languages: The app can be displayed in 15 languages, including English and Japanese.

■ How to use

[Lens mode]

1. Launch the app

2. Select "Lens" mode

3. Place the lens over the area you want, and adjust its size

4. Watch the pixel-art image directly (to record, press the record button at the top right of the lens; for mouse-controlled games, press the pin button)

[Stream mode]

1. Launch the app and select "Stream" mode

2. Pick the window you want to capture

3. In OBS, add a "Video Capture Device" source → choose "Pixel Lens Virtual Camera"

4. Stream or record as usual in OBS

For screen sharing on Discord and the like, instead of steps 3 and 4, choose the window "Pixel Lens — (name of the window you picked)" as the window to share.

[Converting files]

1. Launch the app

2. Drop the images or videos (or a folder containing them) on the control panel

3. When the conversion is done, click the status bar to open the folder they were saved to

■ Tips

• If pixels look smudged, try widening the lens. Expanding it toward Full HD (1920×1080) makes things sharper.

• Lens size directly affects rendering load. To raise the FPS, make the lens smaller.

• Anime and illustration-style high-contrast content works best. Live-action footage may lose fine detail.

• If outlines feel too crisp, try turning Sharpness off for a calmer, softer look.

• With large dot sizes (such as 6×6 to 8×8), turning on the CRT effect softens blocky dots and black outlines just enough.

• Choose the recording format in Settings, under "Output". GIF is best for posting on social media, MP4 if you want to keep the sound too.

• You can change the keyboard shortcuts, or switch them off, in Settings under "Shortcuts".

■ Notes

• DRM-protected content (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, etc.) cannot be captured by design and will appear as a black screen. This is expected behavior of content protection, not a bug in Pixel Lens.

• We recommend using Pixel Lens at Full HD (1920×1080) or below. Higher resolutions still work, but the processing load grows with the square of the resolution, so the FPS will drop.

• Recording works in Lens mode. To record Stream mode, please use OBS or similar.

• MP4 recordings include every sound coming from your PC (game and video sound, but also the other person's voice on calls and notification sounds).

■ Support

For the full manual, please visit the official PanzerSoft website.

For feedback, feature requests, and bug reports, please use the official Discord.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

This app uses our in-house AI for the pixel-art conversion process. Generative AI content is used in the trailers and screenshots shown on this store page.