Glitch Your Photos

James Paterson uses a combination of filter effects and layer skills to transform portraits with a fun digital glitch effect in Affinity Photo

- James Paterson

THE MISSION

Use the Pixelate filter, blend modes and simple selections to create a ‘corrupted’ image

Time needed

30 minutes

Skill level

Intermediate

Kit needed

Affinity Photo

A corrupted photo file will usually send us photographers into a cold sweat, but as a visual effect it can result in a striking photograph. Here we’ll show you how to get the pixelated glitch look in Affinity Photo using a range of simple tools.

We’ll begin by making two copies of our layer, then we’ll apply the Pixelate filter to each layer in varying amounts. This handy filter effect breaks our image up into a series of coloured blocks, each an average of the segment of image underneath.

By utilizing blend modes we can combine the different pixelated versions of our picture. Once that’s done, we can select little slivers of the pixel blocks then shift them slightly to enhance the glitch effect in the photograph. Along the way we’ll encounter several fundamental Affinity Photo editing tools, such as layer masks, adjustment layers and Curves.