Photo editing information
Browse background articles on the techniques and history behind PictorX effects, apps, and tools.
Fractals
Learn how the Mandelbrot set, Julia sets, Newton fractals, and Nova fractals are generated—and why zooming never runs out of detail.
Spirographs
Learn how hypotrochoids and epitrochoids form spirograph curves—R, r, and d, closing conditions, the Denys Fisher toy, and digital mandalas you can draw in PictorX.
Painting pendulums
Learn how a Blackburn painting pendulum paints Lissajous figures—two perpendicular oscillators, frequency ratios, damping spirals—and try Painting Pendulum in PictorX.
Double pendulum
How a double pendulum turns simple gravity into chaos: coupled angles, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, and why its tip paints stunning light trails in PictorX.
Image feedback
What image feedback and infinite zoom are: recursive canvas transforms, Droste-like echoes, blend and hue drift—and how to try Image Feedback in PictorX.
Flow field
What a flow field is: thousands of particles following curl noise, wind, gravity, and clickable forces—and how to try Flow Field in PictorX.
Nature generator
Grow trees, ferns, coral, and ice crystals from Lindenmayer rewrite rules. Turtle graphics walk the axiom in your browser.
Lorenz Attractor
How Edward Lorenz's weather equations revealed chaos theory: the butterfly attractor, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, and why long-term forecasts fail.
Find Edges
Learn how Find Edges, Canny, Sobel, Laplace, Glowing Edges, XDoG, and Morphological Gradient detect outlines in a photo.
Polaroid
The story of Polaroid: Edwin Land, instant cameras, the SX-70, the end of film, and how The Impossible Project brought Polaroid back.
Pop art
Learn how Pop Art turned advertising, comics, and consumer products into art—Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, silkscreen, and the rise of mass culture.
Piet Mondriaan
Piet Mondriaan’s life and art: from The Red Tree to Victory Boogie Woogie, De Stijl and neoplasticism, and how PictorX Mondriaan lets you compose grids in the browser.
Tessellation
Learn how tessellations cover the plane with regular and Archimedean tiles—then build them in PictorX with colour modes, edge warp, and SVG export.
M.C. Escher
M.C. Escher’s regular divisions of the plane: Alhambra tessellations, translation, rotation and reflection, metamorphosis, hyperbolic infinity, and figure–ground duality—plus PictorX M.C. Escher.
Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock's life and drip painting: Cody, the New York School, action painting, and how PictorX Pollock Painter lets you explore drip-and-splatter art in the browser.
Andy Warhol
The story of Andy Warhol: Pittsburgh, The Factory, Campbell's Soup, Marilyn, the 1968 shooting, Interview magazine, and the museum in Pittsburgh.
Cubism
A short guide to Cubism: Picasso and Braque, Analytic and Synthetic Cubism, fragmented planes, multiple viewpoints, and a digital homage you can try in PictorX.
Vincent van Gogh
A short guide to Vincent van Gogh: Dutch Post-Impressionism, swirling brushwork, Starry Night and sunflowers, and a respectful digital homage you can try in PictorX.
Pointillism
A short guide to Pointillism: Seurat and Signac, Neo-Impressionism, optical colour mixture with dots, and a digital homage you can try in PictorX.
Aboriginal art
Learn how Aboriginal art maps Country, story, and law—from rock art and ochre to Papunya dot painting—and try a respectful digital homage in PictorX.
Minimalism
A short guide to Minimalism: late 1950s–60s reaction to Abstract Expressionism, geometry and industrial materials, Judd, Flavin, Stella, and a digital homage you can try in PictorX.
Mixed Media
A short guide to mixed media: collage and assemblage, print textures like halftone and dotscreen, and a digital collage homage you can try in PictorX.
Blur
How blur really works: Gaussian softening, unsharp mask, radial and motion blur, smart blur, lens blur, and tilt-shift in PictorX.
Colors
How color works on screens and in print: RGB, CMYK, HSL, hex, the color wheel, gradients, contrast, and PictorX tools.
Kaleidoscopes
How kaleidoscopes work: Brewster’s invention, angled mirrors, radial symmetry, and digital kaleidoscope filters you can try on a photo in PictorX.
AI models
What AI and AI models are, how they power photo editing—background removal, inpainting, enhance, uncrop—and how PictorX runs many tools on-device.
AI image editing
What AI image editing is—cutouts, object removal, enhance, repair, and uncrop—how it differs from classic retouching, and how PictorX runs many tools on-device.
Black and white
How bilevel images work: simple threshold, Bayer ordered dithering, Floyd–Steinberg error diffusion, and when to use each look in PictorX.
Raster vs vector
Raster (bitmap) vs vector graphics: pixels, DPI/PPI, JPEG/PNG/WebP vs SVG/PDF/AI/EPS, scaling, file size, and when to use each in PictorX.
File formats
JPG vs PNG vs WebP: compression, quality, transparency, browser support, and when to use each format for web and print in PictorX.