Kaleidoscope Effect
NewFold any photo into a kaleidoscope. Pick six to twenty-four mirrors, drag the picture to choose what gets folded, turn it, zoom it, and download the result at the photo's full size. Free, in your browser.
Drop a photo here
or paste with Ctrl+V. Color, texture and strong shapes fold best: flowers, food, fabric, a face.
- Nothing uploadedYour images stay on your device
- Works offlineOnce this page has loaded
- No size capOnly your device's memory
- No watermarkYou get back only your image
- No accountNothing to sign up for
How it works
- Drop in a photo. Anything with color and texture folds well: flowers, food, fabric, a crowd, a face.
- Pick how many mirrors. Six keeps the photo recognizable; twelve or more turns it into a mandala.
- Drag the picture to change what sits under the mirrors. Zoom in to fold one detail large, or out for more of the photo in every wedge.
- Turn the pattern or the photo, or press Shuffle until something lands.
- Download it at the photo's full size or as a square, as PNG, JPG or WebP.
Common use cases
- Phone and desktop wallpapers made from a photo you took, square or the photo's own shape.
- Album art, posters and social posts that start from a real picture instead of a stock pattern.
- Mandalas to print, frame or color in, made from flowers, leaves or fabric.
- Pattern and textile design: a repeat built from one detail of a photo.
- Seeing how a kaleidoscope works, with any photo as the glass.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a kaleidoscope effect?
- A kaleidoscope is a tube with mirrors inside and bits of colored glass at the far end. The mirrors reflect the glass into a symmetrical pattern that changes as the tube turns. The effect here does the same with a photo: one wedge of it is reflected around a circle, every other copy flipped, so each edge is a mirror and the picture folds back on itself. Six mirrors give a snowflake, twelve a mandala.
- How do I make a kaleidoscope from a photo?
- Drop the photo in and it is folded immediately with twelve mirrors. Drag the picture to move it under the mirrors, which changes the whole pattern, and zoom in or out. When you like what you see, download it. There is nothing to install and no account.
- Why are there no seams or lines in the pattern?
- Because every edge between two copies is a true mirror. Each copy is the reflection of its neighbor across the edge they share, so the picture is continuous across it: whatever reaches the edge from one side carries on from the other, flipped. Tools that rotate copies without flipping them show a break at every edge.
- What happens when I zoom out past the edge of the photo?
- The photo repeats in mirror image, the way the glass would if you kept turning a real kaleidoscope. There is never a black corner, so you can zoom out to put more of the photo in every wedge.
- Can I make it square?
- Yes. Square uses the photo's shorter side, so nothing is stretched, and it is the right shape for a wallpaper tile, an album cover or a profile picture.
- Is my photo uploaded?
- No. The fold is drawn in your browser, and the file you download is made there too. The photo never leaves your device. iPhone HEIC photos work.
- Can I animate it?
- The Kaleidoscope in the Lab turns the same fold slowly, full screen, with a timer. It is made for leaving on a television or watching for a few minutes before a meditation rather than for a file, but it is the same mirrors, and it takes the same photo.
Related tools
- Halftone GeneratorTurn a photo into halftone dots: newspaper, comic book CMYK or your own colors, as PNG or vector SVG.
- Posterize ImageReduce a photo to a few flat bands of color, the screen print and poster look.
- DuotoneMap a photo onto two colors, the way a poster or a Spotify cover does.
- Circle CropCrop an image into a circle for profile pictures.
- Flip ImageMirror a picture horizontally or vertically. Nothing is lost.
Understand what this does
Plain explanations of what is happening to your file, and what it costs you.