Not sure why this has so much negative feedback, as it really is an excellent piece of software.

It's not an image editor, and nor does it pretend to be.

Rather it stands alone as a useful utility for quickly and easily applying effects to a picture - using a brush rather than a selection tool is inspired................obvious when you think about it, and I'm amazed this has never been part of most image editors over the years.

Don't expect to be downloading Photoshop, as it isn't what this is. But as a useful tool, it could quickly gain a place in your software library - especially if it's kept developed.

Installed on Windows XP without issue

The program worked, .. BUT .... Its functionality is severely limited .

issues:
1) the auto scroll did not work at all at first. In fact I have no idea why it started working. It later shut down again
2) there is no undo
3) There is no way to reset all parameters without shutting down and restarting the program.
4) It would be nice to at least drag and drop another image, and have all of the memory vectors reset. When I tried to use a different tool, the tool area was limited to what I tried to do in the first attempt (picture area wise.) That's not too cool.

There is a definite need for an effects tool like this, but seriously, this is not ready for prime time.

This is like an ALPHA prototype

Amending my #38 comment (Pixo would disappear after splash screen):

I'm glad I didn't have time to uninstall Pixo. It now works.

Most of my day after installing Pixo was spent using this laptop for a presentation, with a projector as an external monitor. So there are multiple things that might have "fixed" Pixo: simply shutting down, connecting the projector (video port), changing display properties, and then reversing everything when I was done. If it turns out that Pixo requires a reboot for some, that should be stated in the install instructions.

I agree with what has been said about the need for zoom, keyboard shortcuts, and tools that follow the standards of other editing software. When using this as part of a personal toolbox, it's frustrating when keys don't work as expected. I do image work with my right hand on the mouse and the left using keyboard shortcuts, and expect that capability on all software I use. I also prefer programs to follow general standards for menus and such. My eyes can barely make out the icons on Pixo's dark upper toolbar. It seems like much functionality has been disabled merely to prevent using screen print -- is that really more important than providing a functional program?

Thanks GOTD and Bendigo Design for the opportunity to try this. I'll keep it but look forward to a new and improved version.

Activate seems to work but the program only gives me the option to try it for 14 days or buy it at my XP SP1 (repeatedly tried). What can I do to use it anyway?

Interesting little program.
It installed easily on Windows 7 x64.
It's not hardcore like the Gimp or Photoshop, but it presents it's limited features in a very usable fashion.
It didn't crash on my computer, but I found the copy/paste bug to be very frustrating.
I like to leave several programs open at the same time and switch between them, but the copy/paste issue takes that option away.
I would suggest to the developer that he change that immediately.
Other than that, it was fun and easy to use.

#39 friendinme - thank you, turning off a clipboard manager (in my case ClipX) does allow Pixo to run.

Software seems buggy. It appears to only allow me to make one or two changes to the photo until the paint brush no longer works. For instance, the software will let me apply a b&w effect to a portion of a picture. If I then select another effect, the paintbrush no longer shows up and I can't use the program without shutting it down and restarting it. Selecting undo doesn't help either. Then, same thing happens again . . .

Thanks to all who have commented and given feedback.
I'm holding off from this sw until its improved. Being a simple amateur photographer, I can live without special effects.

it's a good software, but many of the effects work well with straight edges, or a "feather" effect. this isn't quite available in the software which only has round brushes.

also, there is no easy way to apply the whole effect to the whole picture.

overall, its value for money, but i really wish they had square brushes, or a "fill" option!

I am sorry , i think its unuseful program.

I think it's a great little program.
To all the negative commentators I say,Be grateful, it's either free or very cheap to purchase. I've paid hundreds of $'s for PSP, have to go through several processes to get an effect in a specified area whereas with this, it's all in changing the paintbrush size and one's dexterity with the mouse.
Well done to the creator.

A good job!

I have to agree the effect selection (and 'description', since no text showed for me) is a pain, and the auto-resize down for large images is mildlty offensive, it does seem at least temporarily interesing, and an app I'll add to my toolbox for the rare occasions it's handier than more powerful programs.

@#41,33, and others bashing other's posts: please don't feed the trolls!

Installs and activates easily win xp home sp3
cool effects, needs a better preview of them so you don't have to scroll up & down all the time, easily applies, basically a cool filter program that lets you paint the effect on instead of selecting a whole area or pic.
You can't zoom in the picture for better editing, there's a bug in the save options, in my case I couldn't re-save my pic after the first save (a bug), you have to undo (click the left arrow at top) then redo (right arrow at top) and then the save button will work again the second time. It needs the ability to resize the brush using the mouse wheel instead of just the slider on the right and also needs the few keyboard shortcuts previously mentioned by others.
Help file isn't much help
More cons than pros (read above comments from previous posts)
I wouldn't buy it, but it's cool for a filter program to add to the others you may have, though limited, cool that it's free to test today

Thanks GAOTD Team and Bendigo Design :)

Installed in Vista business 32-bit (admin). This is not a photo edit programme. However, the software offers some great features which, if combined with a photo processing programme like GIMP or Pain.NET, can create supprising pictures.

- You can paint any part of your picture with ease. This is especially useful when you want to highlight some part of the pictures (e.g. for folks who want to color the molecules/atoms,... in chemistry, biology,...). This could even be much easier if the programme has a zoom function!
- This software offers quite a few incredible effects for your photos too, and is evry easy to use.

Cons:

- It doesn't support transparent background in the output picture (what a pity!).
- The prog runs quite slow.
- No zoom! dead Copy/Paste (but Cut/Paste still functional).

Anyway I still keep this software, just for its coloring function. Thank GAOTD and Bendigo Design.

can't download and install the program--download page flips out!--the same with all your programs--ummmm!--tried every fix their is--no answers--all other pages and sites work but not yours?--haven't got a clue.

Simple but easy to use,I like being able to paint an effect,thanks GAOTD!

This program isn’t anything that will compete against the likes of Photoshop, Irfanview, or PhotoScape but it’s not suppose to. As the Renegade pointed out it’s a nice addition that supplements those other imagine editing programs. It doesn’t take any advanced knowhow to think up something bad about a program. But thinking up something bad to write about a GiveAwayOfTheDay program on a premise that nothing is perfect can always be taken to an extreme. Ashraf would point out in a bad list of his that a hammer is ”fairly cumbersome” because he hit his thumb with it. And as for that “nothings perfect” premise I wish he’d apply that to his comments! He’s a visitor no different than the rest of us except he only posts comments here to bait people to visit his personal homepage using the good name of GiveAwayOfTheDay!

Nice little program which I found very useful for simple and quick editing.
But... there are some really irritating cons about it.
A zoom function would be great and a better way to show and choose the different effects would be appreciated.
And there is definitively a stability problem, the program has a tendency to crash very easily.

Otherwise I like the idea of "painting" the effects on the photo !

installed under admin on Vista Home Prem sp2 32bit. This is a very cool little program. I have been using Paint for all my editing till now but always wanted more options. Can't afford Photoshop so this is a nice alternative to be able to add all kinds of effects.

As someone who is legally blind, I find the dark text/icons on black background quite hard to see and as others have said a drop down box or other method of sellecting effect would be easier to use than only viewing 2/40 options at a time. The little blue dot is hard to see! A zoom feature would also be very useful. That being said, I did a little playing with some of the effects and think this is going to be a fun little program to add some interesting touches to my photos.

@1 Ashraf, thanks for your insight and helpful evaluation. Your good and bad comments, plus detailed review make it easier to decide if a program will be useful for me.
@9 Inas, I also installed Paint.Net as an alternative. Will play with it later. Note: If you do install Paint.Net do the custom install or it will become your default editing program!

Thank you GOTD and Bendigo Design! This is a keeper!!

#34:

"The sort of thing most of us could throw together in an afternoon for a specific purpose and discard the next day. Only we wouldn’t, because there are so many free alternatives that work so much better."


I always wonder why those who can take so much time to criticize --
and there's nothing wrong with that -- can't take a few extra minutes
to name those other "free alternatives" that they claim are so abundant.

1. No problems with download and install (Windows XP-64)

2. The program uses ffdshow filters. It is normal, but... During program work a system message pop-upped claiming problems with IE calling by ffdshow (or something of the kind). Why???

3. Horrible method of choosing effects, no image zooming, etc. It was said here not ones. Almost useless for photo editing at all, I think

4. Horrible help file

I see here some people trying to put down other people's comment. Let anyone tell anything about the product. Why do you go and attack someone’s comment about software. Don’t you think people have their right to tell anything they want about the product? Criticizing someone about their point of view about the software is trying to deny their rights to comment. This site is not to put down on people’s commenting behaviour of the products. This site is to comment on about the software only. Doesn’t matter how deep you analyse or what angle you analyse about the software as long as you comment about software you are doing a great job. Don’t put yourself down by criticizing other people’s commenting behaviour. Let anyone show off. If you think someone is trying to show off you laugh. I hope I make sense. Thanks.

Installed fine on win7 64. However, I have a trial version, which is good for 14 days. When I clicked to activate, it takes me back to the beginning. So, what did I do wrong, and how do I get a non-trial version?

Installed easily an XP home with SP3, I agree with other comments; it's annoying to have to scroll through all the effects, many of which look alike, and pick out the one you want based solely on a thumbnail of what that effect would do to a certain picture that you can't select.

That said, there are many effects, if not overly varied.

What might take a new user a while to learn: on the right are two thumbnail images of effects. That is the menu from which you select your effect. Directly above and below that menu are two buttons that you can click on to scroll that menu up and down. They're not well-labeled; just know that they are about the same size as the thumbnails, and that should help you click on them.

I did have it lock up twice out of two attempts playing with it. Both crashes occurred when I scrolled to the last effect in the list and tried to select that one and use it. Once that happened, I had to go into task manager to terminate Pixo. My recommendation: you can scroll to the end, you can select that last effect, but don't try to use it on your picture. If you want to try using it anyway, you might want to save your picture-as-is before doing so.

Good luck!

--H

Hey I'm having lot's of fun with this giveaway of the day TY

Downloaded and installed. Opened program checked settings and it says it's a 7 day free trial??????????

I do a lot of graphic work and like the idea of being able to paint effects into areas.

Installed/activated fine WinXP SP3 2.5 GHz with 2 GB RAM.
Opened a 2112 x 2816 jpg fine but with a warning about resizing the image. When I look at the bottom of the screen it says 600 x 800 24bit.
Started adding effects, mostly around the edges and after about 8-9 the program stopped working.
Task manager showed Pixo using around 72MB RAM and little to no CPU usage. Ended up having to force close.

As noted earlier, Undo/Redo keyboard shortcuts are essential for graphic work and the ability to zoom for detail work. Overall a great idea but needs to iron out a few issues. Thanks GAOTD and Bendigo

@32 TK - Does changing the default email client change that behavior?

@15 aRenegade - Thank god for Ashraf because, without him, what would you do with your day? ;-)

i have not noticed a lock-up yet but I have just found another rather unusual little bug.

load pic then select effect (Greyscale is the easiest to spot) and place cursor on screen. Click Mouseleftbutton FOUR times then move cursor by one pixel whilst holding down the button.

Interesting glitch.

After trying Pixo for a while, I see why this paint-on feature isn't used by other image programs. For example, it is much too difficult (for me, at least) to draw a straight line with the mouse when needed to make a professional-looking modification. It seems it would only be useful for minor modifications that didn't require very much accuracy.

Aside from that, it is somewhat fun to play with occasionally. I gave it a thumb-up for that, but I won't be keeping it. IMHO, it needs a lot more work before being worth even the low price the developer is asking for it now.

Thanks Bendigo Design and GOTD for the opportunity to try it out. Also, I especially liked the FrameZ freeware from their site.

I keep getting an error and cannot run the progra, I installed and then ran the activate.exe, which also seemed to load just fine, but when I tried to open the program, it said, "Isbar.ocx" or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid. I have Windows 7. Any ideas?

Note that if you use a clipboard manager, this program will crash and burn. When I first ran Pixo, it caused ClipMate make all sorts of sounds (some clipboard managers use sounds to notify about clipboard activity). Then, Pixo crashed. When I disabled the manager, Pixo worked.

Pros: interesting and easy to use

Cons: --no zoom. This makes "fine tuning" of an effect very difficult.

--very cumbersome method of selecting effects (side bar that shows a few at a time, hover to find out what it is supposed to do)

--this seems like a program that is still in beta. What it does, it does well. But it doesn't do much.

I have the same problem as #20 SpodoCommodo. Had no problem with the install or activation, but when I run Pixo I get a transparent splash screen and then it terminates. No error message, just vanishes. I watched the process list and it appears and disappears in a couple seconds. I have XP SP2.

ONE time, it did get past the splash screen, because it said something like "drag image here" in the middle before it disappeared.

If it helps, I found that if I clicked and held down the left mouse button on the splash screen, it would stay there until I released the button. Memory was always 31204K at the point I held it.

I've rarely had any problems with GOTD so this is disappointing. I could have used some software like this. I'll be away from home the rest of the day so have no time to troubleshoot before this giveaway is over.

I did get a bit of entertainment from the way each launch of the program showed a different image on the splash screen. :-)

Installed fine in Win 7 Ult 64-bit. Thanks to Inas and wetpaint for confirming that it does support single layer PSD's. The website is absolutely pants at giving you any real detail. Doesn't even have a good gallery - only two examples. Most of this stuff can be done in Photoshop. HOWEVER - it does have a few nifty quick border and image fracture and tiling options which make it worthwhile to have. Also one rather startling one that allows you to reverse sections of the image. Sadly you have to scroll through all the options and guess which ones they are. I expect after a while you'd get to know some of them, though most give very little clue. And those little blue arrows are REALLY difficult to find. If it hadn't have been mentions above I would certainly never have known they were there. For those looking for them - they're under and above the selection flowers on the right. Thanks everyone. A handy programme to have around, though you have to be careful of trying out too many options, as it also crashed for me and had to be closed through Task Manager.

Great little software!!!! It is amazing and simple to use. Will be busy with it this weekend. Thank you GAOD & Bendigo.

This would be a wonderful program if it wern't for the fact that each time I open up Pixo and I apply several filters with the paintbrush Pixo just stops working that you cannot even save what you have worked on. Besides this happening continuously with each use Pixo freezes and I have to restart my computer to restart Pixo. The only way to use this software is to save your progress every 15 to 20 strokes and then restart your computer to restart the program after it freezes. This is just too frustrating to have to proceed like this to complete one photo. Does anyone know how to fix this bug? or how to resolve the problem or can Pixo reply to my comment with some advice because it is worth having without such complications.

No image zoom. No control over brush hardness. No control over brush shape/orientation. No control over intensity of effect. Effect previews too small, not resizable, many extremely similar. Non-standard file dialogs with non-standard (i.e., too small on my display) fonts. File dialog controls are not anchored, so dialogs are not rationally resizable.

Yes, Pixo addresses a niche software category. It has some nice effects but look folks, in this day and age nearly anyone reasonably savvy can mashup a graphics library and a skin library with a little code to make this kind of crap. Obviously designed and assembled (one probably shouldn't say "programmed") by individuals not really in tune with graphics work-flows, noobs included.

The sort of thing most of us could throw together in an afternoon for a specific purpose and discard the next day. Only we wouldn't, because there are so many free alternatives that work so much better.

Don't waste your time.

Funny, if copy and paste suddenly stopped working whenever a program was open I'd think it was a bug too. It would never occur to me that in a windows multi-tasking environment that would be part of the 'feature' set.

aRenegade on the other hand thinks that's normal program behaviour. Guess what, turns out he's right. Sort of. It's normal program behaviour for this program. A person named Sean from the company had posted this on Ashraf's site:


Ashraf;
We have purposely disabled the copy/paste feature as in the unregistered version one could apply all the effects and simply “Print Screen” the image and resue it.
This is changed in the up coming version 2.
Futhermore Pixo is NOT an image editor and nor is trying to be. It really is about special effects and as you pointed out regarding our tag line, it applies the effects by “Brushing” them. I don’t think Photoshop or PaintShop Pro work in the similar way.
I hope this clarifies the issue.

Now why a program would want to remove copy/paste functions from a windows multi-tasking environment, and whether or not you really want that installed on your system is another thing. Obviously aRenegade does't mind as long as the progam operates on the idea of “keeping things simple”, but for me, that's a deal killer. I'm surprised in the couple of hours aRenegade said they used it that it was never an issue.

By the way, aRenegade, since you're hot on correcting people (yet happy to make mistakes and mislead people yourself), contact Sean. You think the progam is a "simple editor program", whereas Sean states "Pixo is NOT an image editor and nor is trying to be." Be sure and correct him on that so that he isn't misleading people. Please also post here endlessly about it until the whole world accepts your view as the true and correct one.

open settings and click on about It will say registered

Very elementary but something I definitely can use based on trying it out. I know, I can do the same thing with a dozen other apps but this is fast and easy and it does one thing good.

Installed fine with Vista. Frustrating trying to work with those 'little blue dots', but thankfully someone above mentioned it so I knew to look for them. My wrist is cramping after going through the options. Not all of the selections worked for me. A couple of the ones that appeared to feather the edges did nothing.
Not a bad start, but I'd like to see the developers make it just a little more user-friendly and also to be able to enlarge the subject photo.
Thanks GAOTD for another nice selection.

For what it is, it is a neat little program. I like being able to focus on parts of a photo for painting effects, as opposed to having to apply the effect to the entire photo. A neat way to be able to highlight parts of black and white photos. I don't mind having to then take the final product and entering it into a larger editing program for other adjustments, but it would be more convenient if it was also offered as a plug-in for larger photo editing programs.

I would prefer to have more ability to fine tune the effects and to have the ability to zoom in for detail work, rather than to have a built-in ability to email the photo when done, something I will not be using.

My main concern, however, and the reason why I will end up not using it that much, is that there is no ability to Zoom in for detail work. My eyesight is not what it was and without being able to zoom in for closeup painting, it simply becomes impossible for me to use this program in the way i would like to.

It does appear to be a program with a good starting foundation upon which to improve. Hope the developer is reading these comments and will continue to revise this program, as well as to consider making a plug-in version.

P.S. Installed on my Win 7 Professional (64 bit) - 4GB - without problems, and so far I have not experienced the crashes others have. One photo I played around with withstood over 40 effects applied, undone, redone, etc., and did not demonstrate even a hiccup.

Pros:
Cheap.

Cons:
1. Pixo is unstable and after several effects applying it hangs completely.
2. Awkward interface: non-visible effect selection triangles; the "eye" tool - it does not work as expected (read usability ABC)
3. The effects are monotonous, different kinds of blur and colour palette cut, nothing special at all.
4. The more you edit, the slower it works, then ... hangs and you can not save the result photo.
5. IT CAN NOT EVEN ROTATE A PHOTO!

Only thing I haven't figured out yet is zoom in (only did a quick play with it). Cool that you can paint the effect where you like it to be. Thanks GAOTD. :)

Program installed ok but would not navigate to files in my documents to open them. It locked up every time it was tried. Not worth a darn.

This program is both intriguing and frustrating. In some ways it's remarkably easy to use, and it's definitely good fun, but it's also very clumsy. It's not immediately obvious that there is a miniscule arrow allowing you to scroll through the special effects menu. It took me a while to figure out that if I hovered over a special effects image for an unnecessarily long period, a tooltip is displayed. I didn't find the menu images entirely intuitive. I'd much prefer to have the option to display the special effects menu in text format. I'd also have preferred a dropdown menu to the scrollable one which I find cumbersome to navigate. The effects are not configurable in any way, which renders many of them pretty well useless from my point of view because they're too coarse, whereas if they could be tuned, they'd be brilliant. I think the paintbrush metaphor is great but I'd like the option to apply some effects to the whole image in one click.

I can't understand why Bendigo went to the effort of developing email integration (including internal email!), which is completely unnecessary, rather than improving the core functionality. The Windows interface is a bit clumsy too. There's no context menu available on the Windows toolbar allowing you to close the program when it is minimised.

Those are the quibbles. What's much worse is that the program is unstable and buggy. It crashed twice with run time errors while I was playing with it. It also simply stops working after an indeterminate number of effects have been applied, and owing to the lack of a context menu, once it has become unresponsive, it needs to be terminated with Windows Task Manager.

I quite like this program, but it's not ready for market. It needs testing and further development. If it was debugged and improved, with configuration options, it would be worth more than $13 to me. Thanks GOTD and Bendigo. This was an interesting one.

Great little program
I use Photoscape another similar program which has a very few effects options. I think I will use Pixo from her on.
Dr Nitin

Lasted less time that it took to install

Awful effect Selection

I have a problem - downloads ok, installs ok, activates ok, but try to run Pixo and the title/splash screen appears and then disappears within a second, the program has terminated (task manager shows nothing left running in the background).

I have XP + SP3 and very rarely have any problems with GAOTD giveaways. Any suggestions for what has gone wrong?

Not to impressed at all. If I had to pay for this i'd be mad and would want my money back.