Various techniques relating to the alteration of image data are provided herein. An electronic device capable of carrying out such techniques may include data processing circuitry configured to receive image data and detect the occurrence of a device operation event (e.g., an audio event, a motion event, a location event, or an image event, and so forth). The data processing circuitry may alter the image data using a full-quality version or a reduced-quality version of an image alteration effect associated with the device operation event, depending on currently available resources.