Effects
Every effect a layer's effects stack can hold: 56 of them, in 7 families. Some come in several styles.
Blur
Distort
- Water and hazeSeen through water, heat or slow rolling air
- WaveBends to and fro, like a flag
- Displace by picturePushed about by a picture
- SwirlTwisted round a point
- Bulge and pinchSwells out from a point, or is drawn in towards it
- PolarWrapped round the middle, or unwrapped from it
- KaleidoscopeMirrored into slices round a point
- MirrorOne half reflected onto the other
- Lens distortionBent as by a wide lens
- ShakeJitters as a handheld camera, or a film gate's weave
- Look at the pointerThe picture leans toward the pointer: an eye that follows it, or near and far parts moving apart by a depth picture
Stylize
- PixelsBig square pixels
- GlitchBands that jump, colours that tear
- OutlineA line round its shape
- ShadowA shadow cast behind it, or inside its edges
- EmbossPressed into metal or paper
- Find edgesOnly its edges, glowing
- PosterizeFewer colours, in flat steps or mixed in a fine pattern
- HalftonePrinted in dots
- ASCIIDrawn in letters, as on a terminal
- Oil paintPainted in soft, flat strokes
- SketchDrawn in pencil, shaded with hatching
- Cel shadingFlat bands of light with inked edges, like a cartoon
- ShaderYour own GLSL over the layer (a mainImage reading iChannel0), with its own settings; an imported wallpaper's own shader is one of these
Colour
- Adjust colourHue, saturation, brightness, contrast, exposure, gamma, vibrance or white balance
- TintWashed with one colour, keeping its light
- LevelsWhere black and white are, and the greys between
- CurvesAny tone mapped to any other, for all colours and for each
- Colour balanceShadows, midtones and highlights pushed towards colours
- Colour mapIts colours remade by a gradient, two colours or sepia
- Channel mixerEach of red, green and blue made from all three
- LUT (.cube)A colour grade from a LUT
- InvertA negative
- ThresholdOnly two colours: below and above a brightness
- Selective colourChange one colour only, and grey the rest if you like
Light and lens
- Colour splitRed and blue pulled apart, as a cheap lens does
- Light leakWarm light leaking in at the edges, drifting
- GlowLight spills from its bright parts, wide or close
- God raysBeams streaming from a light through its bright parts
- Lens dirtSmudges on the lens, lit by bright parts
- Film grainThe fine noise of film
- Scan linesDark lines across, as on an old screen
- CRTA curved tube screen: scan lines, phosphor stripes and flicker
- VHSA worn video tape: wobble, bleeding colour and tracking noise
- VignetteDarker towards the edges
- Light sweepA band of light passing over the picture now and then, as over glass or metal
Time
- EchoLeaves fading copies of itself behind as it moves
- Motion blurBlurred along the way it moves
- StrobeFlashes, or blinks out, many times a second
- Freeze frameHolds one frame, then catches up, every so often
Mask and reveal
- Noise dissolveBurns away in noisy patches, with a glowing edge
- MaskOnly inside a shape, on one side of a line, or where another layer is
- WipeShown up to a line that sweeps across
- Colour keyA colour made see-through, as a green screen is keyed out
Presets
A preset adds several effects at once, already set.
| Preset | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Colour grade | Levels, Curves, Colour balance, Vibrance |
| Film | Curves, Film grain, Light leak, Vignette, Shake |
| Retro TV | CRT, Scan lines, Colour split, Film grain |
| Dream | Bloom, Gaussian blur, Gradient map |
| Night vision | Black and white, Gradient map, Film grain, Vignette |
| Comic | Posterize, Cel shading, Halftone |
| Glass | Gaussian blur, Displace by picture, Glow |
| Heat | Heat haze, Colour balance, Bloom |
What every effect has
| Setting | Kind | Starts at | Range and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Onon | on or off | on | – |
Amountamount | number | 100% | 0% to 100% |
Blendblend | choice | Normal | Normal, Light, Screen, Lighten, Colour dodge, Multiply, Darken, Colour burn, Overlay, Soft light, Hard light, Difference, Exclusion, Subtract, Divide, Hue, Saturation, Colour, Luminosity |
Masks
Each effect can be limited to part of the layer.
| Setting | Kind | Starts at | Range and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Limit tokind | choice | Everywhere | Everywhere, A shape, A gradient, Another layer |
Shapeshape | choice | Round | Round, Box, Band across, Band down |
Whereat | point | [0.5, 0.5] | 0 to 1 |
Sizesize | two numbers | [0.6, 0.6] | 0 to 2As parts of the screen |
Turnangle | number | 0° | -180 to 180° |
Softnessfeather | number | 30% | 0% to 150% |
Invertinvert | on or off | off | – |
Layerlayer | layer | none | Its shape or brightness limits the effect |
Read itschannel | choice | Shape | Shape, Brightness |
Notes from the community
Written by creators and checked by the docs' editors. Not part of Motion's official reference.