Channel leak glitch effect for one color

Channel Leak smears one color channel sideways. Red, green, or blue can move; the other two channels stay on the current pixel.

Bright edges show the leak as a colored fringe. Flat color shows less, because the neighboring sample is similar.

Image preview with one color channel smeared sideways along bright edges.
Image preview with one color channel smeared sideways along bright edges.

Creative applications

  • Pull a red or blue fringe off lettering without shifting every channel.
  • Offset one channel on a cover image while the drawing stays put.

Starting workflow

  1. Open Channel Leak and choose Red, Green, or Blue.
  2. Increase Distance until the chosen channel separates from edges.
  3. Lower Coverage so only some horizontal bands leak.

Key controls

Distance

Move Distance away from zero to smear the chosen channel. Zero leaves the picture unchanged.

Default: 0.12 · Range: -0.25 to 0.25

Channel

Choose which single channel moves. The other two stay aligned.

Default: Red · Choices: Red, Green, Blue

Coverage

Lower Coverage to keep some horizontal bands registered.

Default: 0.8 · Range: 0 to 1

Practical tips

  • Use RGB Split when red and blue should separate together.
  • A small Distance reads as a fringe. A large Distance can detach the channel from the drawing.
  • Compare channels on the same paused frame before exporting.

Limitations

  • Leak follows horizontal bands about 4% of the short edge tall. There is no separate band-height control, and the offset is horizontal only.

Keep exploring

One collection is just the beginning.

Try this effect on one image in the free browser demo. Artfkt for Mac brings all collections and multiple image layers into one composition.