This Mac Tool Has No Purpose But Is So Cool

We live in extraordinary times. Friday is a great day for reviewing free Mac software. Over the years I’ve uncovered a few hundred Mac applications and utilities which turn out to be legitimate gems.

Today is an exception. Maybe. I came across a Mac utility that is so cool you’ll want to try it out right away. After using it half the day I have yet to figure out why it’s useful or what purpose it can serve. Did I mention that it’s cool? Unique, too. But handy? Nope. Interesting? Very. Useful? Uh, not so much.

What Does Photosounder Do Again?

That’s the same question my husband asked after I showed him what Photosounder does.

You really have to see it—and hear it—to get an appreciation of just how cool Photosounder is.

This is the only Mac or Windows application I know of (I’m young, so I haven’t tried everything... yet) that is dual purpose without a purpose.

Photosounder is an image and sound editing application for Mac users and Windows users. In other words, it edits photos and turns them into sounds. And, it edits sounds and turns them into images.

See? Simple, but it doesn’t quite make sense. But it’s true.

Useful? Or, Interesting? Or, Neither?

Let me repeat that, but phrase it differently. Select a photo and Photosounder creates a sound based on the patterns in the image Select a sound (song) and Photosounder creates an image.

It’s stunningly simple, though I suspect there’s plenty of work going on behind the scenes to pull sound from a photo or to pull an image from a sound.

Fire it up and Photosounder gives you what looks like an audio control panel with a big Play button. The Open button lets you select an image or a sound from anywhere on your Mac.

Click the Play button and the photo becomes a unique sound. Likewise, a sound is translated into an image.

Fine Tuning Without Purpose

The control panel below the image in Photosounder, though it looks complex, is easy to figure out. For images you can adjust the Pixel Spray Width, Intensity, even rotate, flip, invert or change gamma.

For sounds you can adjust minimum and maximum frequency, change the frequency logarithmic base, or volume to modify the sound output.

Alright, Photosounder is amazingly cool technology. So, what does it do, you ask? Me, too. Think of Photosounder as a futuristic spectral editing tool that instantly creates otherworldly images and sounds, one from the other.

Once you see how a sound looks, or hear how a photo sounds, you can adjust accordingly, and create absolutely unique sounds and images—mostly like nothing you’ve ever heard or seen before. Photosounder does even more.

What? There’s More?

You can turn a sound upside down. Or, stretch a sound, even create instruments, arrange photos to a beat, isolate specific sounds, and add the standard effects of reverb, or filter via denoising techniques.

I know. You keep asking, “What’s it good for?” That’s the rub. If you don’t know then you don’t need Photosounder. If you’re a creative media type who understands the similarities between images and sounds and how they can be rubbed together to create a groundbreakingly unique effect, you’ll be in love immediately.

If you or someone you know, Mac or Windows user, are creative with photos, images, and sounds, then Photosounder becomes another arrow in your quiver, a one-trick-pony wrench in the toolbox, or a hidden utility which does easily what no one else you know can do with difficulty, experience, or a lot of money.