The art of destroying a photo: 4 of the best photo glitch apps for iPhone

Glitch art is kind of a weird movement. It utilizes visual artifacts, bugs, or other analog errors, which would otherwise be deemed undesired, and turns them into an aesthetic, an adornment which gives a picture a special kind of look. Be it due to the nostalgic effect these images may have on those of us that remember the VHS era, or just because they unlock a new, mostly unexplored frontier of creativity and expression, glitch effects are certainly here to stay, despite the fact that they are a bit of a niche art at the moment.

If you've been thinking about adding a special oomph (more like a hiccup or a stagger) to your photos, you've probably thought about testing out the odd image glitch app in the App Store. As can be expected, there are a ton of them out there, most not as good as one might hope, while a small number are creative, well thought-out pieces of software. We dug through the glitch photos that the App Store gave us after a search query and plucked out 4 of the best ones. Check them out below!

Glitch Wizard

If you want to enter the deep rabbit hole of photo glitching, Glitch Wizard is probably one of the best places to start. The app offers 30 filters that will distort your image in a specific way, most of which can have their intensity set by a user-manipulated slider. Each time you use a new filter, the app automatically creates a new frame. At the end, you can either export all the images as a looping GIF animation, or just pick your favorite frame and export it as a picture. Deleting frames from the timeline is easy, too – just swipe them upwards. The app is in dire need of an "undo" button, however.