We obtained a copy of Twisting Pixels latest application for photo-enhancement called “Pixel Creation“. It’s available as a stand-alone app or as a Photoshop plug-in.

Pixel Creation is a suite of visual effects filters that are designed to allow you to create “fluffy clouds, spectacular constellations, and celestial skies. Drop in a moon, add a soft glow and some twinkling stars with easy to use tools…” (yup, that’s what they said!).

Well, we decided to see if it did what was promised. Having used Photoshop since version 2, and using (but not always likeing) plug-ins for as long as they were available, we were curious if we could create heaven on earth.

We downloaded the files to our Macintosh iMac and proceeded to unzip and decompress the DMG files. Installation was Mac-easy after figuring out the web-site install instructions for the Mac must have been written by a Windows user. They mention “.exe” files, and “Install wizard”, but if you’ve ever installed any OSX software, it’s business as usual.

I went the “plug-ins” route, and installed the files to my plug-ins folder in Photoshop CS (I have CS2, but I’m more familiar with CS and didn’t want my unfamiliarity to hamper the testing).

I’ve selected a picture I’d taken of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles because it had a plain sky and could use some clouds which seem to be less common here in L.A. then in a lot of other places.

The Twisting Pixels web site has some tutorials, so we clicked on them to make sure we used the software as designed. We chose the “Castle Moonglow” tutorial and followed the instructions.

The first thing we did was to select and isolate the Concert Hall so we could make sure the effects only appeared in our sky. Then we went to the Filters menu in Photoshop and selected Pixel Creation from the drop-down menu.

Things started happening then! The Twisting Pixels splash screen appeared and the menus for the Pixel Creation tools appeared. We selected the Cumulus Nibus filter to create some clouds. Pretty quickly we were rewarded with some nice puffy clouds that were based on the pre-sets. They appeared behind our building, but all we had to do was to drag the bounding-circle up to where we wanted them to be.

Here, we could drag the bounding circle’s handles to size the cloud formation to our likeing. There are also a bunch of sliders in the top toolbars to adjust many of the parameters of the clouds (and all the other filter-objects) allowing you good latitude to customize your creation from within the plug-in window.

…and Voila! Clouds made to order.

Having made some cool clouds (we could have played here all night), we wanted to check out some of the other filter-effects.

We made our photo of the Concert-hall a bit darker to simulate nightfall, and then proceeded to check out the moon, stars, & constellation effects.

We selected the Moon-glow filter and “poof” in dropped a full-moon. We had all the sliders to control the opacity, contrast and even phases of the moon. Then we created some stars and constellations using the sliders to modify the parameters to our likeing.

Constellations too…

We did notice however, on our iMac (G4) that when you start stacking multiple filters in the Pixel creation window, things started to slow down a little. It wasn’t a big deal, just not the instantaneous response I had experienced with the solo filters. More powerful and/or newer machines probably wouldn’t even notice a slowdown.

We got our”Moonglow LosAngeles” picture without having to wait for the next full moon. It was all pretty intuitive and we’d barely scratched the feature set.

The plug-ins include these filters:

Altocumulus
Celestial
Constellation
Cumulus Nimbus
Milkyway
Moonglow
MoonRing
Starry Night
Northern Lights
9 Tonal & Enhancement Filters:
Aura, Color Intensity, Colorize, Glint, Luminescent Brush, Tonal Blur, Tonal Intensity, Tonal Sharpness, and Vibrancy.

So, in the end, I think these filters delivered on their promise. If you have the need to create clouds, or any of the celestial objects included in the pack, these filters work well and will save you a lot of time.

If you know any kids who like to walk in the clouds, and touch the stars, check out the Twisting Pixels web-site for all the details. Look at the galleries, the tutorials, and the other info on the site and see if Pixel Creation is for you!