Create with JPEG Damage

Break image detail into quantized blocks and ringing edges, with separate quality, block scale, and color-loss controls.

JPEG Damage processed image preview
JPEG Damage processed image preview

Creative applications

  • Degraded image treatments, archival-looking title cards, and early digital artwork.

Starting workflow

  1. Begin with a detailed image containing lettering or sharp edges.
  2. Lower Quality until edge ringing and block boundaries are visible, then set Block scale for the final output size.
  3. In the desktop app, add Levels for clipped tones, then VHS Signal Bandwidth and Tape Noise for a combined digital and analog treatment.

Key controls

Quality

Lower Quality to discard more spatial detail. The highest setting returns the original image.

Default: 35% · Range: 1% to 100%

Block scale

Enlarge the eight-sample blocks to make compression visible at poster sizes.

Default: 2 · Range: 1 to 8

Color loss

Increase Color loss to quantize the two color-difference channels more strongly than luminance.

Default: 1 · Range: 0 to 2

Mix

Blend the damaged image with its input.

Default: 100% · Range: 0% to 100%

Practical tips

  • Judge fine texture at full size as well as in the final delivery size.

Limitations

  • This is a spatial compression simulation, not a JPEG encoder or a video codec. It does not reproduce a particular encoder quality setting.
  • Four transform stages use additional intermediate textures. Block dimensions fit the frame; small images and enlarged blocks can produce coarse sampling.
  • The source alpha is preserved; compression changes color within its coverage.

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.