Create JPEG compression artifacts
A JPEG compression artifacts effect breaks image detail into quantized blocks and ringing edges, with separate quality, block scale, and color-loss controls.
Creative applications
- Degraded image treatments, archival-looking title cards, and early digital artwork.
Starting workflow
- Begin with a detailed image containing lettering or sharp edges.
- Lower Quality until edge ringing and block boundaries are visible, then set Block scale for the final output size.
- 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.
