PNG-bending bling

icypng-1, originally uploaded by stallio.

a year ago i played around with databending PNG files and i accidentally stumbled across this great effect, with weird color blocks that smear all over the place. but PNG is one of the most difficult formats to bend without breaking, and i wasn't able to get very far with it.

i've learned a lot about databending images over the past year, and decided to try again, this time with a hex editor, and figure out how to create this look. i haven't entirely gotten the hang of it yet, and need to practice more, but as you can see, i did eventually find a way to create this kind of glitch again. it's tricky, but i think it's worth it.

also, i was wrong in that cat-bending post last year: databent PNGs will open in photoshop. (in fact, my current method for generating this effect involves glitching the file so it's unreadable in photoshop, and then adding a second glitch that makes it readable again... like i said, it's tricky.) perhaps PNGs are just so fragile that editing them in audio software in any way damages them too much to photoshop (but not too much for MSpaint), but hex editing can be gentle enough to bend them without breaking.¶