Databending: how to change pictures without graphic editors

What is databending?
Databending is a kind of glitch which uses text or sound editors to change images and videos.

The aims:
To examine the possibilities of programs;
To find the changeable image formats;
To explore possible reasons why the pictures are changed in this way.

Software
Graphic editors:
MS Paint
GIMP 2.8

Software
The programs we used:
Wordpad
Audacity
notepad++

Formats that we used
BMP
FIT
Compressed
JPG
PNG

How to databend:
Wordpad

How to databend:
Audacity

How to databend:
notepad++

The example

Results and reasons
Wordpad

Results and reasons
Wordpad

Results and reasons
Audacity: BMP

Results and reasons
Audacity: BMP

Results and reasons
Audacity: BMP. Equaliser

Results and reasons
Audacity: FIT

Results and reasons
Audacity: FIT, Equaliser

Results and reasons
Audacity: JPG

Results and reasons
Audacity: PNG

Results and reasons
notepad++

Conclusions
Uncompressed raster image files are the best for databending;
The result is a little bit unpredictable, so you should have a copy of the original file;
Text editors don’t change the codes of the pixels, but they change other parts of the files like DIB headers which move the pixels;
Sound editors can change every part of the file.
.fit files are probably more colourful than .bmp’s, but you should download GIMP to work with them.