Sort image pixels
Melt photos into flowing databend streaks with pixel sorting. Nothing is uploaded.
- Your files are never uploaded
- Processed on your device
- Works offline
- Free, no sign-up
Drop your images here
Images · up to 10 files, 100 MB each
or paste with Ctrl+VLive preview
Settings
Rows streak sideways, columns drip down.
Which pixel quality orders the streaks.
How it works
Add images to databend
Drop in bold photos with skies, neon or gradients that streak well.
Choose direction and key
Sort rows for sideways melt or columns for drips, by light, hue or punch.
Download glitch PNGs
Preview the streak flow, then save crisp glitch art for covers.
Glitch streaks from ordered light
Pixel sorting takes every row or column, ranks its pixels by brightness, hue or saturation, then lays them back in order, turning natural gradients into liquid smears and hard edges into dripping icicles. Skies stretch into pastel ribbons, city lights trail like wet paint and portraits dissolve into flowing veils that feel both digital and painterly. Unlike random glitch filters, sorting is fully deterministic, so the same photo plus settings always yields the same composition, letting you art-direct streak direction and tonal rhythm with intention rather than luck.
Direction shapes narrative: horizontal rows evoke speed lines, VHS tracking errors and desert wind, while vertical columns suggest rain, melting and cathedral organ pipes. Sorting by light builds clean monochrome flows, sorting by dark inverts the energy, hue sorting swirls rainbows from ordinary scenes and saturation sorting pulls vivid accents into neon rivers against grey banks. High-contrast sources with clear dark-to-light spans sort most dramatically, while flat pastels produce gentle combed textures suited to backgrounds.
Art-direct the melt
Crop deliberately before sorting, because the longest continuous tone runs dominate the final streak field. Placing horizons slightly off-centre yields asymmetric flows that feel composed rather than filtered, and isolating a subject against sky gives you an island of detail amid surrounding melt. If faces smear beyond recognition, pre-mask or accept partial abstraction — pixel sorting is an all-over transformation that honours tonal structure over identity, which is precisely why it electrifies posters, mixtape covers and stream overlays.
Exports are PNG to hold razor streak boundaries without JPG mosquito noise. Keep originals safe, try both axes from the same source before settling, and pair sorting with modest contrast lifts afterwards when streaks wash pale. Very large panoramas sort slowly but reward patience with gallery-scale flows; preview at reduced zoom first, then run full resolution once direction and key are locked for final delivery.
Databends forged on your own bench
Glitch aesthetics often travel through upload-to-filter pipelines that claim licences over derivatives, but this sorter ranks bytes solely within your tab. Frame buffers are read, ordered and re-encoded locally with no packets exchanged, so commissioned portraits, unreleased album art and brand photography never enter training sets, mood-board scrapers or ad-targeting reservoirs while you chase the perfect melt for public release.
There is no login, no credits and no watermark: open Sort image pixels when a layout needs voltage, melt up to ten frames, download the streak PNGs and close the tab. Only the tool code caches for offline sessions, never your work. Re-sort archived originals whenever palettes shift, because sources persist pristine and each databend remains a reproducible experiment rather than a destructive overwrite.
Questions
Are databent images sent to a server?
No. Sorting runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Is it free?
Yes. Free to use with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily limits.
Rows or columns — which should I pick?
Rows streak sideways for speed and wind. Columns drip down for rain and melt. Try both on the same photo.
Why does my photo barely change?
Low-contrast or tiny images have little tonal range to reorder. Use bold, high-contrast photos with skies or lights.
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