TOOLS › ROTATE AND FLIP
FREE · NO SIGN-UP · RUNS IN YOUR BROWSER

Rotate and Flip Pixel Art

Turn a sprite by 90 or 180 degrees, mirror it left to right, flip it top to bottom. Pure pixel moves, no resampling, so nothing goes soft.

1 · YOUR SPRITE

DROP, PASTE OR BROWSE
PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF · up to 16 megapixels

2 · OPERATIONS

Each button applies to the current result, so you can chain them. Reset goes back to the file you dropped in.
A flip is a mirror, not a new facing. For a sprite drawn from the side, back or three-quarter view, the rotation feature in the app redraws it properly.
Result appears here
NOTHING HERE YETDrop a sprite on the left, then use the buttons. Hold the ORIGINAL button to compare.

How it works

Drop in a sprite

Any PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF. Transparency is preserved. The image appears in the preview unchanged.

Press the buttons

Rotate clockwise or anticlockwise by 90 degrees, rotate 180, flip horizontally or vertically. Every press applies to the current result, so a CW then a Flip H is a different sprite from a Flip H then a CW.

Download

The meta line always tells you the current size and a plain description of what has been applied. Reset returns to the original file at any point.

Why only 90° steps?

Pixel art lives on a grid. Rotating by 90, 180 or 270 degrees just moves every pixel to a new cell on that same grid, so the result is lossless. Any other angle has to place pixels between cells, and the only way to do that is to resample, which means blur, broken outlines and invented in-between colours.

What a 30° rotation does

Every straight edge becomes a staircase with uneven steps, 1 px outlines turn into 2 px smudges, and a 16 colour sprite comes out with a few hundred colours. There is no setting that avoids this; it is the geometry.

What to do instead

If you need a character facing a new direction, redraw it. SpriteLab's rotation feature takes a sprite and produces the front, side and back views, or eight facings, drawn on the pixel grid rather than rotated off it.

FAQ

Does rotating or flipping change any pixels?

No. A 90 degree rotation or a flip only moves pixels to new positions; no colour is blended or invented. The output has exactly the same colours and the same number of pixels as the input, just arranged differently.

Can I make a left-facing sprite from a right-facing one?

Yes, that is the most common use. Drop the sprite in and press Flip H. Check details that should not mirror, like a sword hand, text on a shirt or an asymmetric hairstyle. If those matter, the app's rotation feature draws a proper left view instead.

Why does rotating by 90 degrees swap the width and height?

Because the image turns on its side. A 48 wide by 64 tall sprite becomes 64 wide by 48 tall. Rotating by 180 degrees keeps the original dimensions.

Can I rotate by 45 degrees or another angle?

Not here. Any angle other than a multiple of 90 degrees needs resampling, which smears pixels off the grid and breaks the pixel art. For a sprite that faces a different direction, use the rotation feature in SpriteLab, which redraws the character from other facings.

Is the image uploaded?

No. All the rotating and flipping happens in your browser. Nothing leaves your machine and nothing is stored.

More free tools

In the app

Open SpriteLab to keep building with your sprites.