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On the other hand, if the file is not interleaved, the color information is saved as three color channels, one each for red, green, and blue. you may see a lot of these in your databent interleaved images. this way, you can easily create RGB color shifts in bitmaps, where reds become greens, greens become blues, and blues become reds. (BMPs are also stored in BGR order rather than RGB.) so, if you were to, say, insert two bytes of data near the beginning of the bitmap data, right before the R value, it would then "push" the other pixels over, and the R would become G, and so on. the bitmap data in the file (which comes after the header) will be basically just one long block of RGB values-for TIFs, they're stored from top-left down, and for BMPs, they're stored from bottom-right up. If an image file is interleaved, the color values are stored in RGB order, one pixel at a time, like this: RGBRGBRGB. the interleaving refers to what order these pixel values are stored in. because the file is uncompressed, the file lists the color value for every pixel in the image. this means that color values are stored as a combination of red, green, and blue. your bitmap file most likely uses RGB color mode. in this context it refers to the way that the file stores color information. Interleaving is a method of storing data in a non-contiguous manner. what gives? the difference between that first example and these two is that the latter files are interleaved and the first example was not.
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that earlier example was full of bright, vibrant colors, while these are far more grey. i'm going to use this image:Īt this point, you may be looking at these two images (or your own, if following along at home) and thinking that they fall short compared to the example i showed earlier. write down this info if you think you might forget it. my fiancée's camera takes pictures that are 2272x1704 pixels by default, so that's the size i'll be working with. make sure you know exactly how large it is, in pixels. we'll use that to our advantage in part 3 when we glitch JPGs, but for now, let's avoid compressed files.įirst, find an image file you want to glitch. in compressed files, each bit is important, so even a tiny glitch in the wrong place can have a major effect. this is because the wordpad effect is highly destructive-it often adds lots of glitches-and file compression tends to make files fragile-difficult to glitch without breaking. if you try to use the wordpad effect on a compressed image file, such as a JPG or PNG file, the file will most likely break. specifically, it only tends to work on uncompressed bitmap files-the formats i use are BMP, TIF, and my favorite, photoshop RAW. The catch is this: the wordpad effect generally only works on certain types of image files. if you're thinking there has to be a catch, you're right, but it's not a big one. Pretty dramatic results, eh? is it really that simple? well, almost. here's how it works: you take a digital photo like this: The wordpad effect is a simple glitch effect i discovered a couple years back, with the help of my readers. let's talk about creating glitches on purpose-using databending techniques to create glitch art.
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hardware and software fail all the time, occasionally creating glitch art. (there's some debate over this, but for our discussions, we won't include art that simply "looks glitchy" it has to involve real glitches.) not all glitch art is databent sometimes it occurs naturally. Glitch art is visual art that involves or is caused by digital glitches or errors.
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the term is used most frequently in the context of electronic music (primarily glitch music). the term is inspired by the similar art of circuit bending you could say that databending is like circuit bending with no circuits. but first, let's define a few terms.ĭatabending is, in essence, the artistic misuse of digital information.
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i'm starting off with this effect because it's so easy that any windows user should be able to do it (note: i haven't tried it in vista), but it's complex enough under-the-hood that it allows me to discuss several important principles of glitch art. Welcome to my databending and glitch art primer! in part 1, we're going to talk about one of my favorite glitch art effects-the wordpad effect.
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