Glitching JPG (or JPEG) images by corrupting their data is a relatively straight-forward affair. Simply open up the file in a hex editor and wreck up the place. Corrupted JPG images can be identified by the telltale offset horizontal bands of changing hues and small square sequences of artifact patterns at the beginning or end of these bands.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to manually glitch JPG images you can use dedicated apps such as Glitch for iOS.
We can see where some data ripe for glitching is in the above example where the file changes from structured, to seemingly random data. Not to say that there’s no structure, it’s just harder to discern in compressed image data. Once we’ve identified the raw image data we can copy/paste chunks, search/replace sequences or just manually corrupt the data by changing the text (on the right side in the example) or the hex (on the left side in the example) of the raw data.
Now we can begin the process of making changes and checking the result in our favorite image viewer. Making backup copies after every successful change will avoid heartaches when, not if, a misstep renders the image unviewable.
Hello, my name is Ralph. I am a Digital Stuntman, Ecosystem Manager and Director of Studies at the University of Applied Sciences HWZ, Zurich. This is my Digital Playground especially for topics from my lectures in the Master of Advanced Studies in Digital Business.