Skip to content
Musterli
Support
Image effects

Fractal Glass Effect

Put your photo behind reeded glass: strips with refraction, mirroring, blur and gloss, at any width and angle. Your picture stays on your device.

Open the generator

Runs right in your browser. Your graphics are made on your device.

Example motif made with the Fractal Glass Effect

Start from a preset

Pick a preset and it opens right in the editor, ready to adjust.

What is it?

Fractal glass, also known as reeded or fluted glass, is a popular look in graphic design and photography: a picture appears to sit behind a pane made of many narrow glass rods. Each strip bends the light a little differently and shows a shifted, squeezed or mirrored slice, with fine gloss lines along the edges. The effect turns photos and gradients into abstract, refined backgrounds.

What you can use it for

  • Website backgrounds

    A photo behind reeded glass becomes a calm, abstract background that keeps text readable.

  • Posters and covers

    The glass look feels modern and premium. It suits album covers, posters and presentations.

  • Subtly abstract images

    Reeded glass hides faces and details while the mood of the photo stays. Good for placeholders and mood images.

How it works

Upload a photo or try the presets on the sample picture. Set the strip width and angle and choose a profile: flat like a prism, rounded like a glass rod, or ridged. Distortion sets how much of the picture each strip shows, Mirror flips every slice, Offset shifts the strips at random. Blur turns it into frosted glass; gloss and glass color add depth. Space rolls width, angle and distortion. Export as PNG, JPG or WebP.

Try the Fractal Glass Effect now

Tips

  • Narrow strips with high distortion give a fine, almost textile look. Wide strips show more of the subject.
  • Photos with strong colors and contrast give the best refraction, such as city lights at night or a sunset.
  • A little blur and a glass color from your Brand Kit give you a background in your brand colors.

FAQ

Is my photo uploaded?
No. The photo is processed in your browser only and never sent to a server. Share links leave the photo out; if you save the design, everything stays local in your browser.
What do the profiles mean?
Flat shifts and squeezes the slice evenly, like a prism. Rounded enlarges the middle of each strip and squeezes the edges, like a round glass rod. Ridged does the opposite: the edges stretch and the middle squeezes.
What does Offset do?
With an offset above 0, every strip moves by a random amount and the picture breaks into fragments. Each variant has its own pattern, and a share link shows exactly the same.
Does the export look like the preview?
Yes. Strip width and blur are given in design pixels and grow with the output. At the same size, preview and PNG are identical pixel for pixel; at twice the size everything is twice as sharp.
Is there an SVG export?
No. The effect computes every pixel from the photo, which cannot be described sensibly as vector graphics. Export as PNG, JPG or WebP, also at twice the size.
  • ASCII Art

    Turn photos into ASCII art from characters, colored characters, an LED dot matrix or braille. Export as SVG, PNG, text or HTML.

    Open in editor
  • Halftone Effect

    Turn photos into halftone dots, lines, squares or diamonds like newspaper print. With screen angle, cell size, two colors and SVG export. Your picture stays on your device.

    Open in editor
  • CMYK Halftone

    Separate photos into cyan, magenta, yellow and black with a screen angle per ink, like offset printing. With misregistration and SVG export. Your picture stays on your device.

    Open in editor
  • Dither Effect

    Reduce photos to a few colors with Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson, Stucki or Bayer dithering, in 1-bit, grayscale, retro palettes or your own colors. Your picture stays on your device.

    Open in editor