Stack Exchange site for asking how to recreate an image effect

Question

I have an image with an animated image effect (a nice glitch effect) and would like to recreate the effect as a filter that can be applied to other images or videos using graphics libraries like OpenCV instead of graphic programs.

On what Stack Exchange site should I ask?

I want to create the effect as code, so Stack Overflow comes to mind. But I do not need help creating the effect, I need help understanding the parts the effect is composed of (e.g. brightness change, pixelisation, etc.) and the order of these processing steps, so I need the help in the analysis and not for the program that should mimic the effect. In addition I am not sure how many people there are skilled in creating graphics (as in "applying a series of effects to an image to create the wanted appearance", not as in "programming an effect when I already know how it works").

Stack Exchange has some sites for computer artists, but I fear that the question may be too broad there and I am not sure if they can tell tell elements or just functions (e.g. in Photoshop) that execute a lot of different steps to create such an effect.

Is the question suitable for Stack Exchange at all?

I just asked on Meta Graphic Design but will keep this question open for more opinions on where I could get the best help.

To make it easier to decide: Here is the video fragment: https://i.sstatic.net/LQ8mY.jpg

I would like to create a similar effect. It does not need to be exactly the same and when people suggested what parts the effect is composed of I may even combine them in a slightly different way. The main goal is to create such a scifi/cyberpunk effect using different video filters.

I tried to create a few parts, e.g., the blocky moving noise and then I noticed that it will only work like in the video, when I understand the effects that are applied to the noise itself.

EDIT: I try computer graphics for a start. It seem still to be a small community, but probably with people who have an idea how to apply effects in real-time.

• Create a TV noise effect
• How to filter a photo to look like a cartoon / anime?

Answer 1

There's a Graphic Design site that allows questions about

• illustration and image manipulation;

• how to achieve something with design software

amongst other things but recommends that you read their FAQ first.

It has an adobe-photoshop tag for

Questions about Photoshop, Adobe's graphics and photo editing program. Ask anything related to designing and editing graphics with Photoshop.

Perhaps you might try asking on their Meta whether your question would be too broad or not.

Answer 2

For your general problem, the following sites come to mind (with added comments on your specific case):

• Graphic Design, Video Production, and to some extent Photography are communities which usually “artistically” apply effects. Through usage, they naturally should have some expertise in identification as well. What community is suited best here depends on your effect. Since most of the effects appear to be frame-wise and not something you would usually apply to photography, I think Graphic Design is best suited for most effects.

• Signal Processing is the community for applying filters to images and videos for technical purposes. Open CV is on topic there. They may have expertise on the parts that resemble real distortions observed in TV signals, etc.

• Computer Graphics is the community for the creating graphics from scratch (and not with a high-level software). This does not to be a part of your effect.

• Finally, what you are doing appears to be reverse engineering to some extent, which has a dedicated community. I would guess that they may help you with how to attack the problem on a broader scope. In your case, I don’t think there is much insight to be had at this level.

For every site except the last one, you should split your problem into smaller ones as far as reasonably possible and ask about them separately, for example:

• how to create the horizontal stripe structure,
• how to create the white dots in the centre of the face,
• how to create the “ghost” copies appearing in some frames,
• how to create the colour discretisation.

(I guess half of these aren’t even what you are interested in, which makes this as important.)

Still, describe your motivation as far as possible, to avoid an XY problem.