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Pixel Processor

@pixel-processor.bsky.social

23 followers 21 following 39 posts

An in-development macOS image processing app from the team behind the Retrospecs iOS app.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Of course, sometimes less is more. (This might not be one of those occasions.)

A macOS icon consisting of a off-black "P" character in the top left and a large, bright blue cog towards the bottom left, both of which are sitting on a slightly graduated yellow background. The cog has faint white gridlines running across it.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Playing around with some icon options. (Yes, I still suck at icons.) These are the macOS 27 renditions, as there's not a great deal of value in targeting the macOS 26 Icon Composer look at this point in time.

A macOS icon consisting of a black "P" character in the top left and a large cog cutout towards the bottom left, both of which are sitting on a graduated yellow to black background.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Doing more typings of late - trying to move towards a 1.0 release, although there’s still lots to do. It’s fair to say that it’ll always be a (very, very) niche app, but hopefully it’ll be useful to some

An abstract image of large, chunky blocks in orange and sea-green, depicted as they’d appear on a low quality CRT television.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Did another beta. Mostly tidy-ups. Mostly.

An image of a hand holding a physical representation of a mouse pointer over a green cutting mat. It’s rendered as it would appear on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Beta seven is now available. I think this is the first version of Pixel Processor where it feels like it’s becoming its own thing rather than just an increasingly elaborate test bench for potential future Retrospecs functionality. Grab the TestFlight via pixelprocessor.co.uk

An image of a macOS image processing app window. Three quarters of the window are filled with a heavily pixelated interpretation of Drew Struzan’s artwork for The Thing, rendered in a lurid, predominantly purple palette.

The other quarter of the window contains various user interface controls. They look a bit nicer than the last time I posted a screenshot.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Next up is something long overdue - The Great UI Tidy-Up™ has finally begun. Although it’s mainly just putting things in boxes. 🤔

A screen from an in-development macOS showing a large image of a magic 8-ball sitting on a table, rendered as if it was on a late 80’s computer and TV. To the right of the image are some user interface controls, but they’re not particularly relevant or indeed exciting.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

What's next, you might wonder? (It'll be the mutator functionality. The mutator functionality will be next.)

A screen grab from the Pixel Processor iOS app, consisting a grid of images filling 3/4 of the window, with some UI controls on the right hand side. Each image in the grid is different, but are clearly different interpretations of the same source image of a magic 8-ball sitting on a table.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

There’ll be a few new bits in the next beta, such as the ability to process media at native resolution, and “crop mode” that’ll let you use the source media aspect ratio. There’s also a few fixes and improvements such as ensuring that noise-based effects are randomised for each video frame, etc.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

And if you’ve not seen the app, and you’re wondering why there’s a need for The Great UI Reckoning™, here’s the current state of play. Admittedly this is close to the worst case scenario, and you can close all the options you’re not using, but even so. 😬

A screen grab of a very, very, very long and complex looking set of UI controls.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Beta three brings news from afar, the headline being that video conversion is now supported. 🥳 You can now also use Pixel Processor on macOS 13 (Ventura) and up, rather than needing Sequoia. Join the TestFlight via pixelprocessor.co.uk

A heavily pixelated still from the film They Came from Beyond Space, processed as if to appear from an early 90’s computer. It consists of a head and shoulders image of a man in a suit wearing a bizarre headset consisting of what appears to be riveted metal with two mismatched camera lenses stuck on the front.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The initial beta is actually a few weeks old - recently I've focused on palette and character set importers. Having spent lots of time manually tweaking font images into a format Retrospecs could parse, I wanted to create an importer that was flexible enough to handle most situations.

A image of a macOS window showing a grid of pixel font glyphs with a coloured grid overlaid over the top. Below the glyphs are a series of controls and buttons.

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Pixel Processor @pixel-processor.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Here's where things are currently at. There's a long way to go in terms of fleshing out the editors and adding import and export tools, but all of the new options in the re-written underlying engine are available to explore and experiment with.

A screenshot of the Pixel Processor macOS app. It shows a heavily processed pixelated image of a cassette tape from the 1980's on the left hand side of the screen, with a variety of controls and settings on the right.

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