Grain, light leaks, color shifts, low contrast caused by lens flare—these are all familiar Instagrammatical filters which mimic the limits of film. And ironically, they were all considered Bad Things when people actually shot with film.
Now we try to avoid digital noise just as we add back fake analog noise (grain). But what about native digital glitches? There is—as you have no doubt predicted—an app for that. It’s called Glitché.
If you can get past Glitché’s eye (and ear)-searing website, you can grab the app for free. Glitché uses some digital voodoo to monkey with your images, crapping them out with filters named Glitch, Scan, Invert, Scene, Grid, Datamosh and more. The results are as jarring to our eyes as film grain and light leaks were to the first folks to load up on high-ISO color film.
There are two upgrade options in the app. You can pay a buck to get GIF export (some of the effects move, but you can only save stills in the free version) and a bunch of extra effects. Or you can pay for the Pro version which gives you the same, plus high-res PNG export.
I kind of like the idea of combining both faux-analog and digital grungification together, and the simple act of going back and forth between apps ads another layer of degradation. I’d say that the free version of Glitché definitely deserves a place in your iPhone’s Photo App folder, and the paid one is there if you decide you need more.
