put attached file into ~/picture.png start emacs -Q evaluate (insert-image (create-image "~/picture.png")) The image is scrambled. With imagemagick the image displays correctly (insert-image (create-image "~/picture.png" 'imagemagick)) Of course, not all png images are scrambled. So it seems to be a bug that is triggered only by certain png images. In GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.18.9) of 2018-05-29 built on regnitz Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11804000 System Description: Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 THREADS LCMS2 Important settings: value of $LC_COLLATE: C value of $LANG: en_US.utf8 value of $XMODIFIERS: locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Fundamental