Pictures that play tricks

Challenges

• Challenge · 7 picturesLight and DarkSeven pictures about how light a thing looks — and how little that has to do with how light it is.Play — about two minutes →
• Challenge · 7 picturesHow Long Is It?Seven pictures, seven comparisons of length and size. The rulers are hidden; your eyes are not.Play — about two minutes →
• Challenge · 5 picturesStraight or Crooked?Five pictures of lines that are exactly straight, parallel or continuous — and do not look it. One question each.Play — about two minutes →
• Challenge · 5 picturesLook TwiceFive pictures, one guess each: four walls of real websites hiding a shape, and a pair of lines. How many can you call before you look again?Play — about two minutes →

Pixeloom Originals

Pictures woven from the sites listed on Pixeloom. Every tile is a real website, each gets the same number of tiles, and nobody pays for a place in them.

• Pixeloom Original · ColourTrue ColoursStare at a wall of websites in their opposite colours for twenty seconds, then watch their own colours appear on a grey one.
• Pixeloom Original · HiddenUnder the LensA wall of real websites with a picture hidden in its light and dark — and a lens to find it with.
• Pixeloom Original · HiddenStep Back YourselfA close-up of a wall of real websites and a slider. Step back until you can tell what they are drawing.
• Pixeloom Original · Series of 4What the Sites Are DrawingA wall of real websites, seen close up. Guess what they are drawing before you step back.

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• Pixeloom Original · HiddenStep BackReal websites, woven so closely that the picture they make only appears when you step away from it.

Illusions and experiments

Classic tricks of colour, motion, size and shape, each explained after you have tried it.

• GeometryThe Café WallRows of black and white tiles, thin grey lines between them, and a question about which way those lines run.
• PerspectiveThe Railway LinesTwo orange bars laid across a railway track that runs off into the distance.
• GeometryThe Hidden LineA line runs behind a band and comes out the other side. Three lines come out; only one is it.
• GeometryParallel LinesSix long slanting lines, crossed with short strokes, and a question about whether they run side by side.
• GeometryBowed LinesTwo red lines across a burst of rays. Are they straight?
• GeometryRing AroundTwo dark discs, one in a tight ring and one in a wide one.
• GeometryTwo ArchesTwo curved shapes, one above the other. One of them is bigger — or is it?
• GeometryThe Tall TAn upside-down T. Which of its two lines is longer?
• GeometryThe ParallelogramTwo red diagonals in two parallelograms, a big one and a small one.
• PerspectiveTurning the TablesTwo tables: one long and thin, one short and wide. Or are they?
• ColourTwo GreysA grey square on black and a grey square on white.
• ColourStripes and GreysGrey bars woven into black and white stripes, two ways.
• ColourThe StaircaseNine bars of grey, each one step lighter than the last.
• ColourSame OrangeOrange bars woven between yellow stripes on one side and blue stripes on the other.
• IllusionThe Triangle That Isn’tThree black discs with a bite taken out of each, and a white triangle nobody drew.
• IllusionGrey GhostsA grid of black squares and white streets. Something grey keeps turning up at the crossroads.
• IllusionFlashing DotsGrey lines on black, a white dot at every crossing — and black dots that flash where nothing black is drawn.
• IllusionThe Spiral That Isn’tA twisted cord winding in towards the centre. Or four circles.
• InteractiveTurning RingsTwo rings of small squares. Keep your eyes on the centre and move the picture in and out.
• ColourFading OutSix soft patches of colour around a cross. Stare at the cross and see what becomes of them.
• PerspectiveWhich Way It FacesA wire cube that cannot make up its mind which of its faces is at the front.
• GeometryFilled SpaceTwo stretches between three marks: one filled with ticks, one left empty.
• GeometryThe Company It KeepsTwo orange circles, two crowds around them, and one question about size.
• ColourThe Colour That Isn't ThereStare at a strange landscape for twenty seconds, then watch colour appear on a grey one.
• ColourThe Lilac ChaserTwelve lilac dots and one gap going round — keep your eyes still and see what the gap becomes.
• GeometryEqual LinesTwo lines, a few fins, and a question that is easier to answer than it looks.
• MotionThe Floating DiscA picture in which nothing moves, and something will not keep still.
• HiddenNear and FarA field of fine lines with something else in it — visible only if you step back.