A true sort, not a directional blur: your own pixels reordered into streaks by brightness, hue, or saturation, on images and video.
How to use it
- Open the editor from this page — it loads demo media with the effect already set up — then drop in your own image or video.
- Set the threshold to choose how much of the image melts, pick highlights or shadows, and aim the streaks with the angle.
- Choose the sort key, cap the streak length, add randomness, then export a PNG, JPG, or MP4.
What the pixel sorter actually does
Most pixel sort filters online are a directional blur behind a threshold: they synthesize a smooth smear that only resembles sorting. This tool sorts. Each line of the sort direction is scanned for stretches of pixels that pass the brightness threshold, and the pixels inside every stretch are physically reordered by the key you pick, brightness, hue, or saturation. Nothing new is painted, so the streaks are built from your image’s own material: its grain, its colors, its exact edges where the threshold stops the sort.
The controls carve the look. Threshold sets how much of the picture detaches, on whichever side you point it at, highlights or shadows. Angle aims the streaks anywhere in 360 degrees, and because the sort travels along exact pixel staircases instead of rotating the image, diagonal streaks stay as crisp as vertical ones. Streak length caps how far a run can grow, from full-frame cascades down to short shimmering ticks, and randomness leaves a share of runs untouched so photographic islands survive inside the glitch. On video the sort re-runs every frame: static regions hold perfectly still while the streaks grow and collapse with the motion. The same Pixel Sort effect ships in the Modulate editor, where every parameter can be keyframed and it stacks with datamosh, VHS, and CRT for a full glitch chain.
Common questions
Is this pixel sorter free?
Yes. This page opens the full Modulate editor, free with no signup, with the effect already set up. Anonymous exports run up to 5 seconds at 1080px with a small watermark; a free account removes the watermark and raises exports to 1920px and 30 seconds, and Pro raises the caps to 4K and 5 minutes.
Does it work on video or just images?
Both. Most pixel sorters online are image-only; here you can drop in an MP4, WebM, or MOV and the sort re-runs on every frame, so still regions hold steady while the streaks track the motion, and the result exports as an MP4. Photos work the same way and export as a PNG or JPG.
How do I get the classic falling-light look?
Keep the angle at 90 so the streaks fall downward, sort the highlights by brightness, and leave streak length at full so runs grow until the threshold stops them. Then lower the threshold until the right amount of the image detaches into light.
Why does nothing seem to happen on my image?
The threshold isn’t catching anything. Sorting the highlights of a dark image, or the shadows of a bright one, can leave no runs to sort: move the threshold toward your image’s tones, or flip between highlights and shadows. A threshold of zero with highlights selected sorts everything, which is a good sanity check.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The sort runs entirely in your browser on your GPU. Your media never leaves your computer unless you save it to a Modulate project yourself.
Go deeper
Pixel sorting
Pixel sorting rearranges the actual pixels of an image along straight lines: contiguous runs of pixels that pass a brightness test are reordered by brightness, hue, or saturation, so each run becomes a smooth ramp and the image appears to bleed into streaks of light. Nothing is added and nothing is lost, every pixel survives in a new position, which is why sorted images keep an unmistakably photographic grain inside the abstraction.
Datamoshing
Datamoshing is a glitch technique that breaks the motion side of video compression: the decoder keeps applying fresh motion to stale pixels because the clean keyframes that would correct them are gone. Moving subjects smear into blocky trails, stopped motion keeps flowing, and the image only recovers when a new keyframe finally lands. It is the most cinematic glitch there is, because it is made of the video’s own movement.
Chromatic aberration
Chromatic aberration is the lens flaw where colors focus at slightly different positions, leaving red and blue fringes along high-contrast edges. Glass bends short blue wavelengths more than long red ones, so the color channels of the image land slightly apart, worst toward the corners of the frame. Lens designers spend enormous effort correcting it; digital artists add it back on purpose, because a trace of fringing reads as a real camera and a heavy split reads as a signal breaking apart.
VHS effect
The VHS effect makes digital video look like it was recorded and played back on tape: soft resolution, a wobbling image, tracking bands that tear across the frame, color that lags and bleeds behind the brightness, dropouts, and noise. Every one of those artifacts has a physical cause in the tape or the player, which is why a convincing VHS effect is a simulation of the machine, not a scanline overlay.
There's more where this came from
The full editor lets you use every effect together, over video, text, 3D, and shapes. Free, no signup, nothing to install — it opens with this effect already set up.
Open the editor