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Pix Picks is a simple designer's utility that when given a folder of bitmap images, will interleave the pixels from each image sequentially to form a new bitmap, the result of which is an abstract mosaic of familiar colours and textures. Depending upon the number of images used, the variation between the source images, and the resolution and dimensions of the output image, highly varied results can be produced.

Using the software

Because Pix Picks interleaves pixels sequentially, if the horizontal resolution of the output image is a multiple of the number of source images, the resulting image will consist mostly of vertical stripes. Make the horizontal resolution 1 less or more, and you will obtain 45° angled stripes. If you have two source images, and the horizontal resolution is an odd number, you will obtain a halftone-style checkerboard composite of the two source images.

Limitations and known issues

Yes, Pix Picks can be picky about the pics it picks (thanks, George).

Pix Picks needs to load every bitmap you give it and retain them in memory for fast operation. This means that Pix Picks can use a lot of memory. To help prevent this being a problem, Pix Picks automatically limits the number of source images to 100, and also will skip any source images whose files are larger than 500k. If this is a problem, re-encode the source images at a lower resolution, or use a lossy file format such as JPG and increase the amount of compression. You don't tend to notice badly compressed JPG source images once they've been put through Pix Picks' pixel picking routines.

Pix Picks can only output 24 bit TIFF files.

Download

SWPP100.dmg (Mac OS X Disk Image, 1MB)

Requirements

Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
QuickTime 5 or higher
Suitable design software for using the files generated
Some bitmap images in a common format

Availability

This tool is provided for free for your enjoyment and - if you're creative enough - use in your own designs. Please consider making a small donation to us if you find this software useful. You can make a donation using PayPal easily and securely by visiting our online store.

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