How to Make a Large Bitmap Photo Effect in Photoshop

Photoshop Photo Effects

A popular effect in everything from retro-inspired posters to modern graphic design projects, as it gives photos a stylized, almost digital look that can be both striking and minimalist, is the bitmap photo effect. This versatile and bold design technique transforms images into a high-contrast, pixelated style. There are, of course, many different ways to create this effect in Photoshop, allowing for flexibility depending on the specific outcome you're after. You can use the Threshold adjustment for a quick high-contrast effect, apply Halftone Patterns for a more retro, dotted look, dive into Bitmap Mode, or use the technique I will show you today, where you can easily transform any image (no matter the size) into a large bitmap one.

Step 1

Open your image in Photoshop.

Step 2

Go to Image > Image Size, reduce the image size and click OK. In this case, I will make mine at 300 x 200 px.

Step 3

Go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).

Step 4

Select "GIF" from the file format dropdown menu, change the Dither to "Pattern" and choose how many colors you want to use (in this case, I will pick 8 colors).

Step 5

At this point, you may change any of the 8 colors that will be used on your image. To do that, double-click on any of the colors thumbnails available on the Color Table, pick any color you want in the Color Picker window and click OK.

Step 6

Click the "Save" button and choose a location on your computer.

Step 7

Open the saved file in Photoshop.

Step 8

Go to Image > Image Size.

Step 9

Select "Nearest Neighbor (hard edges)" from the "Resample" dropdown menu.

Step 10

Lastly, set any Width and/or Height you want for your final image and click OK.