PixelToy for Mac

Create psychedelic image and music displays

They say that every picture tells a story and in the case of PixelToy, every picture has a psychedelic message or audio signature attached to it.

PixelToy creates special effects for image slide shows or videos. In theory, all you have to do is select the material and PixelToy does the rest. PixelToy should then generate abstract, colorful effects that can be embedded into a web page in PICT format. It could be ideal for creating an unusual or eye-catching avatar for forums and blogs, or simply something a bit wacky to show your friends.

However, the program is blighted by two main problems - a rather ugly interface that makes it impossible to work out what the hell you're supposed to do, and it consumes a huge amount of RAM. Within seconds of starting PixelToy, my fan was doing overtime to try to cool the Mac down.

On startup, you're presented with lots of fancy and impressive effects that show what PixelToy can do, but given no guidance as to how to get going. Although switching between effects is simple enough, adding my own image to see what it could do resulted in nothing at all. It just continued to cycle through what appeared to be a demo mode. There are 25 different filters but unfortunately, I wasn't able to work out how to use any of them with my own photos, let alone add audio.

PixelToy certainly makes some impressive fractals and psychedelic images, but using it soon becomes tiresome not to mention, resource-consuming.