MotherFluxer Docs

Visual effect ​

A visual effect is a treatment of a picture: it grades the colour, relights it, warps it, paints it, gives it a film finish, or reads its depth. Select the item, open its Effects menu and pick a card, and its Recipe holds every setting listed below. Every effect holds the same settings, so any effect can be dialled into any other: View: Applied lists the settings the effect uses, All lists every one.

The settings stand in the order the picture is made, so a setting further down acts on what the ones above it left. The Video only settings at the end move the effect over time — a still picture lists them dimmed and keeps them for when the effect is used on a video. An effect someone wrote, such as one drafted with AI or copied from the community, opens the same Recipe — every setting its parts use, under these same headings — and can also open with its own Controls, the handles its author named.

Where you can use a visual effect ​

  • Image — Image · 3D · Text · Emoji · Shape · Freeform · Table · Mask · Groups
  • Video — Video · Image · 3D · Text · Emoji · Shape · Freeform · Table · Mask · Captions · Groups
  • Document — Image · 3D · Text · Emoji · Shape · Freeform · Table · Mask · Groups

What you can do with a visual effect you made ​

You can keep an effect you have tuned, share it, or put it on another item:

Star · Post · Copy

Strength ​

  • Strength — How much of the effect shows over the untreated picture, from none to all of it.

Adjust ​

  • Protect skin — How much skin is kept out of the colour change.
  • Smooth face — How much the face’s skin is smoothed.
  • Face radius — How broad the smoothing on the face is.
  • Face texture — How much of the skin’s fine texture stays.
  • Brighten — How much brighter the face is made.
  • Lip color — The colour the lips are tinted.
  • Lips — How strongly the lips are tinted.
  • Feature edge — How softly the tint fades at the edge of each feature.
  • Eye color — The colour the eyes are tinted.
  • Eyes — How strongly the eyes are tinted.
  • Brow color — The colour the brows are tinted.
  • Brows — How strongly the brows are tinted.
  • Blush color — The colour of the blush on the cheeks.
  • Blush — How strong the blush on the cheeks is.
  • Blush spread — How far the blush spreads across the cheeks.
  • Smooth skin — How much the skin is smoothed.
  • Smooth size — How broad the smoothing on the skin is.
  • Keep texture — How much of the skin’s fine texture stays.

Distort ​

  • Warp — Which warp bends the picture.

Ripple ​

  • Magnitude — How far the picture is pushed out of place.
  • Waves X — How many waves run across the picture.
  • Waves Y — How many waves run down the picture.
  • Ring offset — Where the rings sit in their cycle, sliding them in or out.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Radius — How far from its centre the warp reaches.
  • Profile — How the warp’s strength falls from its centre to its reach.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Displace ​

  • Magnitude — How far the picture is pushed out of place.
  • Waves X — How many waves run across the picture.
  • Waves Y — How many waves run down the picture.
  • Map picture — The picture whose colours push each part of the frame across and down.
  • Lean X — How far the push leans across.
  • Lean Y — How far the push leans down.
  • Fineness — How fine the noise’s smaller detail is.
  • Roughness — How strong the noise’s finer layers are against its broad one.
  • Ratio — How much finer each layer of the noise is than the one before.
  • Separation — How far apart the colour channels are pulled.
  • Split angle — Which way the colour channels are pulled apart.
  • Evolution — Where the moving pattern stands in its change.
  • Field — What pattern pushes the picture: a noise or a picture.
    • Displace · Wave · Tear · Turbulent · Water · Map
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Bulge ​

  • Magnitude — How far the picture is pushed out of place.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Radius — How far from its centre the warp reaches.
  • Profile — How the warp’s strength falls from its centre to its reach.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Swirl ​

  • Twist — How far the picture is twisted around the centre.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Radius — How far from its centre the warp reaches.
  • Profile — How the warp’s strength falls from its centre to its reach.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Fisheye ​

  • Curvature — How much the picture bulges out like a barrel, or pinches in.
  • Curve 2 — How much the lens bends the picture’s outer parts further.
  • Curve 3 — How much the lens bends the picture’s farthest corners.
  • Tilt Y — How much the lens is tilted up or down.
  • Tilt X — How much the lens is tilted left or right.
  • Aberration — How far colours fringe apart toward the edges, as a cheap lens does.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Radius — How far from its centre the warp reaches.
  • Lens — Which kind of lens bends the picture.
    • Distort · Correct
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

RGB Split ​

  • Separation — How far apart the colour channels are pulled.
  • Split angle — Which way the colour channels are pulled apart.
  • Lens fringe — How strongly colours fringe toward the edges.
  • Channels — Which colour channels are pulled apart.
    • RGB Split · Anaglyph
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Kaleido ​

  • Wedges — How many mirrored wedges the picture is folded into.
  • Rotation — How far the pattern is turned.
  • Zoom — How far in or out the pattern is zoomed.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Mirror · Empty · Wrap

Funhouse ​

  • Funhouse — Which funhouse mirror bends the picture.
  • Warp depth — How strongly the mirror bends the picture.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Spiral ​

  • Recursion — How many times the picture repeats inside itself.
  • Spiral arms — How many arms the repeating spiral has.
  • Inner radius — How big the innermost copy of the picture is.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Pixel Sort ​

  • Angle — Which way the effect runs across the picture.
  • Band low — The darkest parts the sorting reaches.
  • Band high — The brightest parts the sorting reaches.
  • Sort by — What the pixels are sorted by.
    • Brightness · Hue · Saturation
  • Order — Whether the sorted pixels run low to high or high to low.
    • Ascending · Descending

Glitch ​

  • Tear amount — How far the torn bands slip sideways.
  • Band height — How tall each torn band is.
  • Colour split — How far the glitch splits the colours apart.
  • Slices — How many slices the glitch cuts the picture into.
  • Noise scale — How big the noise’s pattern is.
  • Stretch — How far the noise is stretched across and down.
  • Fineness — How fine the noise’s smaller detail is.
  • Roughness — How strong the noise’s finer layers are against its broad one.
  • Ratio — How much finer each layer of the noise is than the one before.
  • Corrupt from — Where the corrupted range of the picture starts.
  • Corrupt to — Where the corrupted range of the picture ends.
  • Freeze share — How many blocks freeze in place.
  • Freeze hold — How long a frozen block holds.
  • Slip down — How far the slipping blocks move down as well as across.
  • Tone levels — How few tones the colours are crushed to.
  • Scanlines — How dark the glitch’s scan lines are.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Polar ​

  • Amount — How strongly the effect applies.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Start angle — Where around the circle the wrapped picture starts.
  • Direction — Which way the effect works.
    • Rectangular to polar · Polar to rectangular
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Mirror · Empty · Wrap

Corner Pin ​

  • Top left — Where the picture’s top left corner is pinned.
  • Top right — Where the picture’s top right corner is pinned.
  • Low right — Where the picture’s lower right corner is pinned.
  • Low left — Where the picture’s lower left corner is pinned.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Pixel Stretch ​

  • Amount — How strongly the effect applies.
  • Angle — Which way the effect runs across the picture.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Side — Which side of the line the picture is stretched from.
    • One side · Both sides
  • Strength — What the effect’s strength changes: how far it reaches or how much it shows.
    • Moves · Blends
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

VHS ​

  • Tape wear — How worn the tape looks.
  • Wear shape — Where down the picture the tape’s wear shows.
  • Color bleed — How far colours bleed sideways.
  • Tape noise — How much tape noise covers the picture.
  • Dropouts — How many white dropout streaks flash across the picture.
  • Head switch — How strong the torn band at the bottom of the picture is.
  • Tracking — How strong the rolling tracking band is.
  • Tracking shape — The shape of the tracking band down the picture.
  • Roll — How fast the picture rolls up the screen.
  • Distortion — How much the picture bends sideways.
  • Fine warp — How much fine wobble runs through the picture.
  • Static — How much static covers the picture.
  • Ghost — How strong the faint double of the picture is.
  • Scanlines — How dark the screen’s scan lines are.
  • Signal — Which kind of signal the picture is shown through.
    • Tape · Broadcast

Motion Blur ​

  • Amount — How strongly the effect applies.
  • Angle — Which way the effect runs across the picture.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Frames — How many moments the blur smears together.
  • Direction — Which way the effect works.
    • Set · Footage
  • Shape — Which way the motion blur smears: in a line, outward from the centre, around it, or along the footage’s own motion.
    • Directional · Radial · Zoom

Face shape ​

  • Bigger eyes — How much bigger the eyes look.
  • Slim face — How much slimmer the face looks.

Move ​

  • Offset — How far the picture is moved across and down.
  • Scale — How much bigger or smaller the picture is.
  • Turn — How far the picture is turned.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.
  • Edge — What shows where the warp pulls in picture from beyond its edge.
    • Empty · Mirror · Wrap

Paint ​

  • Brush — The size, length and direction of the brush marks.
  • Wander — How far the brush marks wander from the picture’s lines.
  • Wander size — How broad the brush marks’ wandering is.
  • Repeats — How many times each area is brushed over.
  • Dither — How much the picture’s tones are made of dots.
  • Dither size — How big the dots are.
  • Dither type — Which pattern of dots makes the tones.
    • Bayer · Noise
  • Stroke size — How big the paint strokes are.
  • Length — How long the paint strokes are.
  • Stroke width — How wide the paint strokes are.
  • Layers — How many layers of strokes are painted.
  • Bristle — How much the bristle lines show in each stroke.
  • Impasto — How thick the paint stands on the canvas.
  • Color touch — How much each stroke’s colour varies.
  • Paper — The colour of the paper beneath.

Color ​

  • Color temp — How warm or cool the colours are, and how green or magenta.
  • Exposure — How bright the whole picture is, in camera stops.
  • Highlights — How bright the picture’s highlights are.
  • Highs range — Which tones count as highlights, and how softly.
  • Shadows — How bright the picture’s shadows are.
  • Lows range — Which tones count as shadows, and how softly.
  • Whites — How bright the very brightest parts are.
  • Whites range — Which tones count as whites, and how softly.
  • Blacks — How dark the very darkest parts are.
  • Blacks range — Which tones count as blacks, and how softly.
  • Dehaze — How much haze is cleared from the picture, or added.
  • Stock mix — How much of the film stock’s colour the picture takes.
  • Film gamma — The film’s contrast in each colour.
  • Stock speed — The film’s sensitivity in each colour.
  • Red dye — The colour of the film’s red dye.
  • Green dye — The colour of the film’s green dye.
  • Blue dye — The colour of the film’s blue dye.
  • Film stock — Which film stock the picture’s colours imitate.
    • Daylight · Tungsten · Slide · Cinema print · Black and white
  • Invert — How far the picture’s colours are turned into their opposites.
  • Red mix — How much of each colour goes into the red channel.
  • Green mix — How much of each colour goes into the green channel.
  • Blue mix — How much of each colour goes into the blue channel.
  • Levels — Where black and white are set and how the tones between them are spread.
  • Lift — The colour and brightness pushed into the shadows.
  • Gamma — The colour and brightness pushed into the midtones.
  • Gain — The colour and brightness pushed into the highlights.
  • Offset — The colour and brightness added to every tone alike.
  • Red — How each level of red maps to a new one.
  • Green — How each level of green maps to a new one.
  • Blue — How each level of blue maps to a new one.
  • RGB — How each tone of all three colours maps to a new one.
  • Luma — How each brightness maps to a new one, keeping the colours.
  • Even skin — How far skin’s patchy colour is evened toward one tone.
  • Target tone — The skin tone the colour is evened toward.
  • Skin warmth — How far skin’s hue is turned toward a natural flesh tone.
  • Contrast — How far apart the dark and bright tones are pushed.
  • Pivot — The tone the contrast turns about, left as it is.
  • Vibrance — How much stronger the dull colours become, sparing the strong ones.
  • Saturation — How strong every colour is, from grey to vivid.
  • HSL hue — How far each band of colour is shifted to a neighbouring hue.
  • HSL vivid — How vivid each band of colour is.
  • HSL light — How light or dark each band of colour is.
  • Hue shift — How far every colour is turned around the colour wheel.
  • Shadows — The colour the shadows are tinted toward.
  • Midtones — The colour the midtones are tinted toward.
  • Highlights — The colour the highlights are tinted toward.
  • Wheel range — Which tones count as shadows, midtones and highlights for the tints.
  • Tone bands — How few bands of tone the picture is flattened into.
  • Band edge — How soft the edges between the tone bands are.
  • Color ramp — How much the picture’s tones are recoloured along the colour ramp.
  • Ramp edge — How sharply the ramp’s colours change from one to the next.
  • Ramp mode — What the colour ramp follows across the picture.
    • By brightness · Nearest color
  • Blend via — Which way around the colour wheel the ramp blends between its colours.
    • Straight · Shorter hue · Longer hue
  • Color 1 — The ramp’s first colour, for the darkest tones.
  • Color 2 — The ramp’s second colour.
  • Color 3 — The ramp’s third colour.
  • Color 4 — The ramp’s fourth colour.
  • Color 5 — The ramp’s last colour, for the brightest tones.
  • Color 2 at — Which tone the ramp’s second colour sits at.
  • Color 3 at — Which tone the ramp’s third colour sits at.
  • Color 4 at — Which tone the ramp’s fourth colour sits at.
  • Top rolloff — How gently the brightest tones roll off instead of clipping.
  • Low rolloff — How gently the darkest tones roll off instead of crushing.
  • White point — How bright a tone must be to become pure white.
  • Bleach — How far the colours are bleached as they near white.
  • Table mix — How much of the lookup table’s colours the picture takes.
  • Lookup table — The colour lookup table the picture’s colours are mapped through.

Detail ​

  • Sharpness — How much sharper the edges are made.
  • Radius — How wide the sharpened edges are.
  • Halo limit — How much the sharpening is kept from leaving bright halos.
  • Masking — How much the sharpening is kept to the edges, sparing flat areas.
  • Method — How the edges are sharpened.
    • Unsharp mask · Deconvolve
  • Clarity — How much the midtone contrast of the picture’s detail is raised.
  • Clarity size — How broad the detail that clarity works on is.
  • Clarity edges — How much clarity keeps strong edges free of halos.
  • Texture — How much the fine texture is brought out, or softened.
  • Texture size — How fine the texture that is brought out is.
  • Structure — How much the picture’s larger shapes are brought out.
  • Struct. size — How large the shapes that structure brings out are.
  • Struct. edges — How much structure keeps strong edges free of halos.
  • Denoise — How much noise is cleaned from the picture.
  • Denoise size — How coarse the noise that is cleaned is.

Metal ​

  • Metal — How metallic the picture looks.
  • Relief — How raised the picture’s shapes look.
  • Detail — How much fine detail shows in the raised surface.
  • Finish — How rough or smooth the surface’s finish is.
  • Metal colour — The colour of the metal.
  • Gloss — How glossy the surface is.
  • Plastic — How much the surface looks coated in plastic.
  • Glass — How much the surface looks like glass.
  • Foil — How much the surface looks like foil.
  • Liquid — How much the surface looks liquid.
  • Emboss — How deeply the picture is pressed into the surface.
  • Holographic — How much the surface shimmers like a hologram.
  • Relief soft — How soft the raised shapes’ edges are.
  • Facet size — How big the surface’s facets are.
  • Sky — The light the surface reflects from above.
  • Ground — The light the surface reflects from below.
  • Light from — Which side the light comes from.
  • Light height — How high the light stands above the picture.

Light ​

  • Glow start — How bright a part must be to start glowing.
  • Glow soft — How gently the glow starts at that brightness.
  • Reach — How far the glow spreads.
  • Glow level — How bright the glow is.
  • Tint — The colour it is tinted.
  • Tint amount — How strongly the glow is tinted.
  • RGB spread — How far the glow’s colours spread apart.
  • Spill — How much the glow spills past the item’s edge.
  • Sparkle — How much the glow sparkles.
  • Shoulder — How gently the glow’s brightest parts roll off.
  • Colour key — How much the glow is kept to one colour of the picture.
  • Key hue — Which colour of the picture glows.
  • Key width — How wide a range of colours around it glows too.
  • Key chroma — How colourful a part must be to glow.
  • Angle — Which way the light’s streaks run.
  • Thickness — How thick the streaks are.
  • Tail — How far the streaks trail out.
  • Spike fade — How fast the star’s spikes fade along their length.
  • Star points — How many points each star has.
  • Star rotation — How far the stars are turned.
  • Angle jitter — How much each ray’s angle varies.
  • Length jitter — How much each ray’s length varies.
  • Ray pattern — Which of its random patterns the rays follow.
  • Glint ring — How strong the ring around each glint is.
  • Far glow — How much more the far parts of the picture glow.
  • Glow split — How much the glow parts into its colours.
  • Glow shape — The shape the glow spreads in: a halo, a streak or a star.
    • Halo · Streak · Star · Glare
  • Glow from — What glows: the brightest parts or a chosen colour.
    • Highlights · Edges

Ink ​

  • Flow size — How big the pattern the strokes flow along is.
  • Line — How the picture’s outlines are drawn: their weight, length and softness.
  • Line flow — How smoothly the drawn lines follow the picture’s shapes.
  • Line ink — The colour of the drawn lines.
  • Pigment — How much the colour pools like pigment along the lines.
  • Tone carried — How much of the picture’s tone the marks carry.

Film ​

  • Grain — How much grain covers the picture, how big it is and how soft.
  • Grain tone — Which tones the grain shows in most.
  • Hatching — How the tones are drawn in hatched lines: their spacing, weight and angle.
  • Flow size — How big the pattern the strokes flow along is.
  • Deposit — How the hatching’s lines are laid down.
    • Graphite · Chalk
  • Paper tooth — How much the paper’s tooth shows.
  • Paper picture — The picture of the paper’s surface.
  • Tooth size — How big the paper’s tooth is.
  • Paper fibre — How much the paper’s fibres show.
  • Fibre angle — Which way the paper’s fibres run.
  • Wear — How worn the picture is: its specks, scratches and dust.
  • Speck size — How big the specks are.
  • Speck edge — How hard or soft the specks’ edges are.
  • Scratch size — How long and wide the scratches are.
  • Scratch gap — How far apart the scratches are.
  • Dust size — How big the dust is.

Print ​

  • Impression — How deeply the print is pressed into the paper.
  • Ink mottle — How patchy the printed ink is.
  • Mottle size — How big the ink’s patches are.
  • Cell size — How big each printed cell is.
  • Rotation — How far the pattern is turned.
  • Ink cover — How much of each cell the ink covers.
  • Ink starts at — How dark a tone must be before ink prints.
  • Jitter — How much the printed marks jitter out of line: across, in size and dropped.
  • Screen picture — The picture the print screen is made from.
  • Smallest dot — How small the smallest printed dot is.
  • Phosphor — How dim the screen’s phosphor dots are between their peaks.
  • Mark ink — The colour of the printed marks.
  • Ink opacity — How opaque the ink is.
  • Grout — How wide the lines between the tiles are.
  • Second ink — The colour of the second ink.
  • Registration — How far the inks are printed out of line with each other.
  • Mark — Which mark the print is made of.
    • Screen · Fill · Glyph · CMYK · Line · Relief · Bricks · Beads · Stitch
  • Screen type — Which kind of screen the print uses.
    • Radial · Bayer · Blue noise · Organic · Mezzotint
  • Dot shape — The shape of the printed dots.
    • Round · Diamond · Square · Line
  • Inks — Which inks the print uses.
    • Process · Newsprint · Vivid · Pastel
  • Tube mask — Which pattern of the screen’s tubes shows.
    • Aperture grille · Shadow mask

Gate ​

  • Gate weave — How much the picture wobbles in the film gate.
  • Flicker — How much the picture’s brightness flickers.
  • Film breath — How much the picture’s focus breathes in and out.
  • Gate edge — How much of the film gate’s edge shows around the picture.
  • Compress — How heavily the picture is compressed into blocks.
  • Block size — How big the compression blocks are.

Frame ​

  • Edge wash — How much the picture’s edges are darkened or lightened.
  • Radius — How far from the centre the edge wash begins.
  • Midpoint — Where between the centre and the edges the wash is half way.
  • Tint — The colour it is tinted.
  • Centre — Where on the picture the effect is centred.

Haze ​

  • Blend — How the weather lands on the picture.
  • Scale — How big the weather’s pattern is.
  • Thinnest — How thin the haze’s thinnest parts are.
  • Thickest — How thick the haze’s thickest parts are.
  • Height — How high up the picture the haze reaches.
  • Bend — How much the haze bends as it rises.
  • Behind — How much the weather goes behind the nearer parts of the picture.
  • Behind at — Which distance the weather starts going behind.
  • Density — How thick the haze is.
  • Fog start — How far away the fog begins.
  • Fog height — How high above the ground the fog lies.
  • Fog wisps — How much the fog breaks into wisps.
  • Fog glow — How much the fog glows around a light.
  • Glow at — Where the fog’s glow is centred.
  • Stretch — How far the haze is stretched across and down.
  • Churn — How much the haze churns.
  • Far web — How big the haze’s far pattern is.
  • Glow size — How big the glow around lights in the haze is.
  • Ground shape — How the haze thickens toward the ground.
  • Behind soft — How softly the weather goes behind the nearer parts.
  • Drop shape — How round or streaked the drops on the glass are.
  • Dry cells — How much of the glass stays dry between the drops.
  • Color — The weather’s colour.
  • Kind — Which kind it is.
    • Mist · Caustics · Fire · Smoke · Rain on the lens
  • Spread — How the haze spreads over the picture.
    • Even · By depth

Particles ​

  • Layers — How many layers of particles fall at different distances.
  • Blend — How the weather lands on the picture.
  • Amount — How many particles there are.
  • Size — How big the particles are.
  • Size variety — How much the particles’ sizes vary.
  • Wind — How hard the wind blows the particles sideways.
  • Slant — How far it leans from straight.
  • Turbulence — How much the particles swirl.
  • Behind — How much the weather goes behind the nearer parts of the picture.
  • Behind at — Which distance the weather starts going behind.
  • Twinkle — How much the particles twinkle.
  • Light variety — How much the particles’ brightness varies.
  • Halo — How strong the glow around each particle is.
  • Splash — How much the particles splash where they land.
  • Color — The weather’s colour.
  • Far color — The colour the farthest particles fade to.
  • Far amount — How much denser the farthest layer is than the nearest.
  • Far speed — How fast the farthest layer moves against the nearest.
  • Far size — How big the farthest layer’s particles are against the nearest’s.
  • Far fade — How bright the farthest layer is against the nearest.
  • Hue variety — How much the particles’ colours vary.
  • Ground — Where the rain splashes, down the picture.
  • Blades — How many sides each bokeh disc has.
  • Rays — How many rays each firework throws.
  • Fall — How far a firework’s rays fall as they fly.
  • Fade — How each particle fades in and out over its life.
  • Stretch — How much the flakes streak as the field speeds up.
  • Shaft — Where the shaft of light stands across the picture.
  • Sprite — The picture each particle is drawn as.
  • Sprite tint — The colour each particle’s picture is tinted.
  • Shape — The shape of each particle.
    • Streaks · Flakes · Sparks · Confetti · Discs · Embers · Leaves · Motes · Bubbles · Fireworks

Flare ​

  • Light level — How bright the light is.
  • Source at — Where the light comes from on the picture.
  • Slant — How far it leans from straight.
  • Leak edge — How the light leak fades in from the edge.
  • Light tint — The colour of the light.
  • Flutter — How much the light flickers.
  • Stretch — How far the flare is stretched.
  • Warm color — The warm colour the light blends from.
  • Cool color — The cool colour the light blends to.
  • Ray cutoff — How bright a part must be to cast rays.
  • Ray block — How much dark parts block the rays.
  • Ghost gap — How far apart the flare’s ghosts are.
  • Ghost size — How big the flare’s ghosts are.
  • Iris blades — How many sides the flare’s ghosts have, as the lens iris does.
  • Ring — How strong the flare’s ring is.
  • Ring size — How big the flare’s ring is.
  • Starburst — How strong the flare’s starburst is.
  • Bar — How strong the flare’s bar of light is.
  • Dirt — How much dirt on the lens the flare lights up.
  • Ring color — The colour of the flare’s ring.
  • Bar color — The colour of the flare’s bar.
  • Ray count — How many rays there are.
  • Sun size — How big the sun is.
  • Sun edge — How soft the sun’s edge is.
  • Strike odds — How often lightning strikes.
  • Kind — Which kind it is.
    • Leak · Flare · Rays · Sun · Lightning
  • Source — Where the light comes from.
    • Placed · Brightest spot
  • Ghosts — Which kind of ghosts the flare throws.
    • None · Three · Six
  • Shafts — Which kind of shafts the light falls in.
    • Drawn · By depth

3D ​

  • 3D spread — How far near and far parts move apart, for a 3D look.
  • Eye angle — Which way the two eyes’ views part, for a 3D look.
  • Depth shift — How far the picture is shifted by depth.
  • Shift angle — Which way the depth shift moves the picture.
  • 3D plane — Which distance stays still while the rest moves apart.

Focus ​

  • Focus point — Which distance is in focus.
  • Focus range — How deep the in-focus range is.
  • Focus falloff — How gently focus falls off beyond that range.
  • Blur — How blurred the out-of-focus parts are.
  • Near blur — How blurred the parts nearer than the focus are.
  • Blur shape — How stretched the blur’s highlights are.
  • Blur peaks — How bright the blur’s highlights stand out.
  • Iris blades — How many sides the blur’s highlights have, as the lens iris does.
  • Iris angle — How far the blur’s highlight shapes are turned.
  • Toy color — How much brighter the colours are made, for a toy model look.

Rings ​

  • Rings — How many rings of equal distance are drawn.
  • Ring shade — How dark the rings are.
  • Ring glow — How bright the rings glow.
  • Ring color — The colour of the rings.
  • Ring width — How wide the rings are.

Front/back ​

  • Depth split — Which distance divides the front from the back.
  • Split edge — How softly the front blends into the back.
  • Back cool — How much cooler the far parts are made.
  • Back fade — How much colour fades from the far parts.
  • Front warm — How much warmer the near parts are made.
  • Warmth — How warm the light’s colour is.

Lighting ​

  • Light at — Where the main light stands on the picture.
  • Light depth — How far into the picture the main light stands.
  • Unlit level — How bright the parts the light does not reach stay.
  • Lamp — How bright the main light is.
  • Lamp warm — How warm the main light is.
  • Lamp relief — How much the light shapes the picture’s surfaces.
  • Spotlight — How much the main light is narrowed to a spotlight.
  • Spot size — How wide the spotlight is.
  • Fill light — How bright the fill light is.
  • Fill at — Where the fill light stands on the picture.
  • Fill distance — How far into the picture the fill light stands.
  • Fill warmth — How warm the fill light is.
  • Back light — How bright the light from behind is.
  • Back at — Where the light from behind stands on the picture.
  • Back warm — How warm the light from behind is.
  • Back depth — How far into the picture the light from behind stands.
  • Shine — How much the surfaces shine where the light catches them.
  • Shine focus — How tight the shine is.
  • Contact — How dark the shadow where things touch is.
  • Contact size — How far that contact shadow reaches.

Blend ​

  • Wrap — How much the light behind wraps around the item’s edges.
  • Wrap reach — How far the wrapped light reaches into the item.
  • Blend mode — How the look lands on the picture beneath it.
    • Normal · Multiply · Screen · Overlay · Soft light · Hard light · Color dodge · Color burn · Darken · Lighten · Difference · Exclusion · Add · Hue · Saturation · Color · Luminosity

Region ​

  • X — Where the region’s box starts across the frame.
  • Y — Where the region’s box starts down the frame.
  • Width — How wide the region’s box is.
  • Height — How tall the region’s box is.
  • Rotation — How far the region’s box is turned.
  • Edge blend — How softly the effect fades in from the box’s edge.
  • Apply the filter outside the region — Applies the effect outside the box instead of inside it.
  • Fuzziness — How much around the picked colour the key catches, from only it to much like it.
  • Hue — Which hues the key catches: its centre, how far around it, and how softly.
  • Saturation — How colourful a pixel must be for the key to catch it: its centre, range and softness.
  • Luma — How bright a pixel must be for the key to catch it: its centre, range and softness.
  • Key black — Lifts the key’s faintest parts to nothing.
  • Key white — Makes the key’s strongest parts fully caught.
  • Key soft — How much the key is blurred.
  • Key grow — Pushes the key’s soft edge outward or pulls it in.
  • Apply the filter outside the key — Applies the effect to every colour but the key’s.
  • Near — How near the nearest part the effect reaches is.
  • Far — How far away the farthest part the effect reaches is.
  • Feather — How softly the depth range fades at its ends.
  • Depth black — Lifts the depth range’s faintest parts to nothing.
  • Depth white — Makes the depth range’s strongest parts fully caught.
  • Depth soft — How much the depth range is blurred.
  • Depth grow — Pushes the depth range’s soft edge outward or pulls it in.
  • Apply the filter outside the depth range — Applies the effect to every distance but the range’s.

Video only ​

  • Displace
    • Speed — How fast the pattern changes over time.
    • Rise — How fast the pattern drifts upward over time.
  • Glitch
    • Bar rate — How fast the glitch’s bars move over time.
    • Steps — How many times a second the effect’s pattern changes.
  • VHS
    • Bend rate — How fast the bending moves over time.
  • Light
    • Gate weave — How much the picture wobbles, as film does in its gate.
  • Flare
    • Drift — How far the light drifts over time.
    • Light speed — How fast the light moves.
  • Haze
    • Speed — How fast the weather moves.
    • Drift across — How fast the weather drifts across.
    • Drift down — How fast the weather drifts down.
    • Slide rate — How fast the drops slide down the glass.
  • Particles
    • Speed — How fast the weather moves.
    • Gusts — How much the wind gusts.
    • Sway — How far the particles sway as they fall.
    • Sway speed — How fast the particles sway.
    • Tumble speed — How fast the particles tumble.
    • Twinkle speed — How fast the particles twinkle.
    • Life — How long each spark lives, in seconds.
    • Beat — How often the fireworks burst.
  • Paint
    • Repaint rate — How often the strokes are repainted over time.
  • Gate
    • Wander rate — How fast the gate’s wobble wanders.

The effects in each section ​

The Effects strip is one list in nine sections — Adjust, Beauty, Filters, Styles, Distort, Light, Weather, Depth and Form, followed by Starred once you have starred effects or weather of your own — sorted by what the effect does to the picture rather than by how it is built — so a colour correction and a colour preset sit together, and finding "the one that makes it look like tape" no longer means knowing which part of the engine drew it. Picking a card in any section puts that effect on the layer you are working on, and Recipe opens its settings in place of the cards; every tile previews on your own picture.

  • Beauty — the face looks: Smooth, Brighten, Bigger Eyes, Slim Face, Lips, Eyes, Brows, Blush and Glam. Pick a card and point at the face, and the look lands on that face; a face this picture already tracks is used again. Each is an ordinary layer, with its colour and amount in its Recipe.
  • Filters — colour and tone: the colour presets — X-Pro, Sutro, Silver, Vivid, Kodak, Cinema, Bleach, Moonlit, Midnight, Vapour, Blush and Fade — plus Vignette, Negative and Thermal. No card is a hand grade: to grade by hand (exposure, contrast, saturation, white balance and the rest), open the stack, press the rail's +, and the settings icon on the armed slot opens a blank recipe; your first adjustment creates the layer, and its card reads Custom. A hand grade and a preset can both be on the picture at once, each on its own row. A Recipe's colour settings go as far as a grading suite: Curves, Levels, the Red mix, Green mix and Blue mix mixer, Wheels and Tone wheels, HSL hue, Film stock, Dehaze, a Blend mode, and a Lookup table you can Import from a .cube file and Export again. The two corrections that work on a chosen part of the picture have their own Adjust section at the start of the strip: Recolor, which picks one colour and changes it, and Retouch, the skin-tone correction. Each is an ordinary layer: its card puts it on like any other, and it sits in the layer list with its own Remove and Recipe, on any item or on a whole group. What it acts on is the colour key in its Recipe's Region: for Recolor the Color to change — picked straight off the picture — with how widely it reaches (Fuzziness), for Retouch the skin, on the same rows. The key tidies up there too — Key black drops what the key barely catches, Key white fills in what it nearly catches, Key soft softens its edge and Key grow widens or narrows it. What it does are ordinary rows of its Recipe: a Recolor's are Color rows — it turns its colour toward the colour ramp's Color 1, as far as Color ramp says, and takes Saturation, Exposure or Hue shift as well; a Retouch holds Protect skin and the Smooth skin, with Smooth size and Keep texture, that smooths the skin without taking its texture, in Adjust, which works first, on the picture as it stands, and Even skin with its Target tone and Skin warmth in Color. Add as many as you like: each keeps its own row in the picture's Effects list, in the order it is drawn, so you can grade under one look and over another.
  • Styles — the picture redrawn as another medium or another screen. For paint and drawing, Painting, Painterly, Pointillist, Watercolor, Sketch, Comic, Ink Drawing, Ink Wash, Charcoal and Linocut; for print, Halftone, Newsprint, Risograph, Mezzotint, Letterpress, Line Screen, Photocopy, Stipple and Emboss; built of small pieces, ASCII, DotMatrix, Voronoi, PxArt, Mosaic, Bricks, Beads and Cross Stitch; for a material, Chrome, Gold, Plastic, Glass, Foil, Liquid, Stamped and Holographic, with Cutout beside them; for a screen or a tape, VHS, Bad TV, Y2K, NightVis, CRT, GameBoy, NES, Dither, Retro Dither and JPEG; and for film, Grain, Film Grain, Old Film, Film 50D, Film 500T, Super 8, Mono 400, Old Reel and Lens Dust. The restylings are one effect at several settings: they share a Brush control (how big the mark is, whether it follows the picture's edges or strays across them, and how flat the areas it leaves are), a Line control for the drawn outline — its weight, where it starts inking, how softly it commits, how wide the pen is, and whether the pen draws from the flattened picture the brush just made or from the picture as it stood before it — with Line flow beside it, which carries a line on through the gaps in its own edge, and the line's colour, Line ink, over the one Paper, so you can dial a watercolour toward a pencil drawing or an oil painting toward a plain soft blur without swapping effects. The print looks add Dot shape (Round, Diamond, Square or Line), Mark ink for the colour their marks print in, on that same Paper, and, for a four-colour print, Inks (Process, Newsprint, Vivid or Pastel), and Paper tooth, with Tooth size and Paper fibre, gives the sheet a surface of its own — or take the sheet from a Paper picture of yours, its light and dark the paper's height. A print whose dots scatter rather than grow, such as Dither, Risograph, Mezzotint or Photocopy, can take its pattern from a Screen picture of yours. Both are chosen with the picker a weather look's Sprite uses — Procedural, a ready-made picture, or one of your own from Image gallery, Emoji / icon / shape or Upload image — and the look draws its own pattern while your picture loads. The looks that shade a raised surface — a paper's tooth, a press's impression, Painterly's raised strokes, Plastic and Stamped, Bricks and Beads — take their light from one direction, Light from, with Light height where the surface reads how high the light stands. The film looks share a Grain control, a Grain tone control for which brightnesses the grain sits in, and a Wear control for dust and scratches. Hatching is how Sketch, Charcoal and Linocut shade: strokes drawn out along whatever the picture is doing, as long as its Length says, where Deposit picks Graphite, which only darkens and gathers in the shadows, or Chalk, which only lightens and gathers on the highlights.
  • Distort — where a pixel comes from rather than what colour it becomes: RGB Split, Wave, Bulge, Swirl, Fisheye, Displace, Ripple, Tear, Glitch, Anaglyph, Kaleido, Funhouse, Spiral, Pixel Sort, which smears the mid-tones into streaks, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Zoom Blur, Turbulent, Heat Haze, Water, Polar, Mirror, Corner Pin, Pixel Stretch and Lens Fix. Where a distortion pulls the picture away from its own edge, the gap it opens is see-through, so whatever is beneath shows — it never fills with black. The look's Edge changes that: Empty leaves the gap see-through, Mirror fills it with the picture reflected back across its edge, and Wrap with the picture again; Kaleido and Polar, built from reflections, start on Mirror. A Bulge, Swirl or Ripple works out from a Centre as far as its Radius, with a Profile curve for how it fades on the way out; Fisheye and Lens Fix have a Centre and a Radius too, and Kaleido, Polar, Radial Blur and Zoom Blur a Centre. Displace can push the picture by a picture of your own: set its Field to Map and choose a Map picture, with the same picker a weather look's Sprite uses — it draws its own pattern while your picture loads.
  • Light — light and focus: the halo family — Bloom, Halation, the warm glow that bleeds off bright highlights on real film stock, and Diffusion, the dreamy Pro-Mist soft glow of a cinema lens — plus Blur, Sparkle and Streak. Every glow here can take another Glow shape (Halo, Streak, Star or Glare), reach past the edge of a cut-out with Spill, roll its brightest light off gently with Shoulder, or answer to one colour with Colour key. On a group, Light Wrap lets what is behind it glow in around the group's edges. Bloom, Halation and Diffusion are one effect at three settings, so you can dial any of the three into either of the others instead of swapping between them.
  • Weather — what is thrown over the picture: Rain, Snow, Sparks, Confetti, Bokeh, Light Leak, Lens Flare, Embers, Fog, God Rays, Leaves, Dust Shaft, Bubbles, Caustics, Fire, Smoke, Lens Rain, Lightning and Fireworks. A weather look is built from up to three parts, each a category of its Recipe — Haze, Particles and Flare — and every number that shapes it is there to tune: how dense and how big, how fast it moves, wind, sway and twinkle, its colour; the particles' shape, how many layers deep they fall and whether they glow are choices beside them. Once you have changed one, the star in its Recipe stars it as your own weather. Behind stands the weather behind what is near, so snow falls behind the person rather than over them, and Behind at says how far back it stands: on a picture it reads how far away each part of it is, as a Depth look does, drawing over everything until that reading lands, and on a group it falls behind what the group holds. Lens Rain paints nothing of its own: each drop on the glass bends the picture behind it, by its Bend. A generative field would play on a video; a picture has no clock, so each one is that same effect held still at a Moment you choose. The Moment belongs to the item — one for each item and one for each group — and closes the Recipe of every look on it that moves with time: a weather look, a grain or film look that re-rolls, a warp that flows. Drag it to re-roll where the raindrops fall or where the shafts of light land, exactly as you would scrub a video to the frame you liked; every such look on that item moves with it, because they all stand at the one instant. Every weather look with particles but Rain and Fireworks has a Sprite in its Particles category — the picture each particle is drawn from: Procedural (the effect's own shape), one of the ready-made sprites, or one of your own from Image gallery, Emoji / icon / shape or Upload image — with Sprite tint beneath it once a sprite is set. The cards, the picture and your export all draw the same sprite.
  • Depth — the twelve looks that light, haze and focus a picture by distance: Haze, Tint, Focus, Tilt-Shift, Relight, Spotlight, God Rays, Dreamy, Golden, Contours, Stereo and Parallax.
  • Blend — the last card of Adjust: how the item or group lands on what is beneath it. Its Recipe holds Strength and Mode. Normal and the colour modes, such as Multiply, Screen and Overlay, work on anything; an item inside a group also has three that act on the group's own layers beneath it — Keep keeps what is beneath only where the item is, so words set to Keep over a picture show that picture only inside their letters; Remove takes away what is beneath where the item is, so text set to Remove cuts its shape out of the picture beneath it, and a drawing set to Remove erases without deleting anything; and Only over what is beneath shows the item only where something is beneath it. The card is dotted while the item carries a Blend, and choosing Normal takes it off.
  • Form — what the item is shaped into rather than what it wears, as two cards. Repeat lays out copies of it, with Count, Step across, Step down, Turn, Scale, Fade, Pivot across and Pivot down, and Copies in front to stand them over the original; a click on any copy selects the item. Deform bends it by hand: press Liquify in its Recipe and push the picture around with your finger or pointer, Brush size setting how wide each push reaches and Strength how much of the bend shows. Each is a layer of its own after the looks, with its own Remove.

Working in an effect's Recipe ​

Every look shares one set of settings, so you can dial from any effect toward any other. Press Recipe in the layers container and its settings open in place of the cards, the container still at the right end; its buttons become a star on the left (once you have changed the look), Expand in the middle — which raises the settings over the picture to half the height of the screen, so the picture above stays in view while you work, and lowers them again on a second press — and a close on the right, which, like Escape, goes back to the cards. The settings are one list with a column of categories on its left, in the order the picture is made — on an effect someone wrote its Controls first, then Adjust, Distort, Paint, Color, Detail, Metal, Light, Ink, Film, Print, Gate and Frame, then a weather look's Haze and Particles, Flare, a Depth look's own stages and Blend, then Region, then the item's Moment on a look that moves with time, with Video only last on any look that moves on its own in a video: a weather look's speeds, sway, gusts and drift, a Glitch's Bar rate, a Bad TV's Bend rate, a glow's Gate weave, which shifts it against the picture from frame to frame, with the Steps it moves at beneath it, and the Steps of every look that re-rolls its grain, dirt, tears or jitter — VHS, Bad TV, Glitch, Grain and Old Reel among them — which say how many times a second it changes. A part of the picture's making that comes back later has a second category for its second visit: a paint look's brush, dots and strokes stand under Paint, before Color, and its drawn line and the line's colour under Ink, after Light; a JPEG look's damage and a film projector's gate are Gate, and a light that comes from a place — a leak, a flare, rays, a sun or lightning — is Flare. A picture has no timeline, so they stay grayed out and can't be changed here, while a look you starred on a video keeps them for when you use it on a video again. Region holds what the look acts on — a picture has no box to draw, so it is the look's scope alone: on a Recolor or a Retouch, its colour key's rows (Color to change, Fuzziness, Key parts, Key black, Key white, Key soft, Key grow and Apply the filter outside the key), and on any look on a picture or a group a Depth range that keeps it to a band of distance — Near, Far and Feather, tidied by Depth black, Depth white, Depth soft and Depth grow, with Apply the filter outside the depth range. Every look offers the Distort category's Warp and the Color grade, so one layer can warp the picture and grade it together; a second warp is a second layer. An effect someone wrote lists its author's Controls in a category of their own, each under the name its author gave it: moving one moves together the settings its author tied to it, each of which still stands in its own category to tune on its own, and on a video each control is a lane of its own in Automate too, unless what it moves cannot follow a curve. It opens on View: Applied: only what this look actually uses, with Strength — how strongly the layer shows over the untouched picture — first. Press View: Applied to switch to View: All and see everything, or press a category to scroll the list to its section; a category the look uses nothing from switches the list to View: All first. A setting the look does not use is blank until you move it, and costs nothing until then; a setting that belongs to another — band hardness to tone bands, or a vignette's Radius and Midpoint (how far its wash reaches, and where along that it is half-way) to its Edge wash — only appears once that one is on. Every number is a slider you drag, or press the number and type it, and the slider marks the look's own value with a thin line it gently snaps to. Hover a row, or hold a finger still on it, and it shows what that setting does — the sentence this page lists for it — with Learn more leading to its section here; the value does not change, and an author's Controls and the dimmed Video only rows on a picture show none. Under a finger a slider waits to see what you mean: it drags once the finger moves, a quick tap sets the value where you pressed, and a hold sets nothing. The star marks the look with your changes under the look's own name, filled while it is starred, and the layer stays exactly as it is; a change you make afterwards changes that star too. A control can carry more than one number where the numbers belong together: the colour ramp is one swatch strip (its swatches, where each sits on the light-to-dark axis, how much of the picture is remapped and how hard the bands are), Shadow, Midtone and Highlight balance are three colour pickers rather than nine channel sliders, and a Brush, a Line, a Grain or a Jitter is a small labelled group — its name followed by a colon, then each of its parts as a setting of its own. A setting you have changed from the look shows a small undo mark at the right end of its row, and pressing it puts the look's own value back — in a labelled group, each part has its own undo mark and puts back only that part. A setting that is a position — the centre a bulge, pinch, swirl or vignette works outward from, the place a light comes from, or where a Depth look's lamps stand — is set by dragging its point on the picture itself while the settings are open; the point also answers the arrow keys, one pixel at a time and ten with Shift held.

Depth looks ​

Where a border works on one layer's edge, a Depth look works across a whole picture by distance — light, haze and focus land at real depths instead of evenly over everything. It lives under Effects ▸ Depth, and it works two ways:

  • On a single image, pick a look and the editor reads the picture's depth on its own — no cutting into layers first — then draws the fog, glow or focus falloff by how far away each part of the image is. While the reading runs the effect shows progress, and a device that cannot run the reading says so plainly.
  • On a group, the Depth look reads the layers: each member carries its own distance, so you decide what sits in front. Its Recipe has a Distance category right after Strength: every member on one Near-to-Far line — dragging a member along it both changes what covers what and moves it through the look, with no separate Depth menu and no separate stacking control to disagree.

The twelve Depth looks work on a single picture and on a group alike — pick one, then press Recipe to open its settings in place, its categories the look's own stages — 3D, Focus, Rings, Front/back and Lighting. A glow, beams of light, a sun and a haze are not Depth settings: a look that has them holds them in its Light, Flare and Haze categories, where a glow's Far glow and the beams' and the haze's By depth let them read the distance. A Depth look is a layer like any other effect: two of them on one item work in the order they are listed.

  • Haze sinks haze into the distance, thicker the farther back it is: its Haze category is a mist with Spread set to By depth, its Density and Fog start saying how thick and from how far back, Fog height gathering it along the ground, Fog wisps breaking it up and Fog glow letting it glow around the light. Golden adds late-day warmth, with a glow in its Light category, a placeable low sun in Flare and the same far mist in Haze, and Tint colours near and far differently so the background separates from what's in front.
  • Focus keeps your chosen distance sharp and softens everything nearer and farther — the shallow depth of field a fast camera lens gives. Focus falloff sets how gradually the blur arrives, Near blur how much of it what stands in front takes, and Iris blades and Iris angle the shape of a blurred highlight. Tilt-Shift blurs the near and far bands so the scene reads as a tiny model.
  • Relight and Spotlight put a light into the scene that wraps what's in front and falls away behind it. Relight carries three lamps: Lamp, Fill light, which softens what the first leaves dark, and Back light, which rims what faces away, with Shine and Contact beside them. God Rays throws beams past whatever stands closest — its Flare category's rays with Shafts set to By depth, Ray cutoff saying how bright a far part must be to feed a beam and Ray block where something nearer breaks it — and Dreamy blooms the scene into a soft dream, most of all what stands behind, its Light category's glow weighed by Far glow and Glow split. On a single picture both stay on the picture; on a group they light what's around it too.
  • Contours draws contour lines across the scene like a scan. Stereo stands near things out of the screen and sinks far ones into it for red-and-cyan glasses, 3D spread setting how far and 3D plane what sits on the screen. Parallax shifts the picture by its distance, the way a step sideways would, by its Depth shift and Shift angle.

Effects on a video ​

On a video the same cards stand in a clip's, a drawing's, a caption's and a group's Effects strip, each effect a row of its own on the timeline.

  • Adjust — the Recolor card puts a Recolor layer on like any other effect — pick the colour to change straight off the video, then what it becomes — and confines it to part of the frame with its box; a drawing and a group take one too, each a row you can drag, fade and repeat. On a clip the Retouch card asks which face — one the clip already tracks or a new one — and lands a Retouch layer for each face you pick, following that face. Its Recipe holds Protect skin and Smooth skin, whose Smooth size and Keep texture smooth the skin without taking its texture, in Adjust; Even skin with its Target tone and Skin warmth in Color; and in Region the skin it works on and the Face window it follows, whose Remove lets it act on that skin over the whole frame. Brightening, eyes, lips and the rest are the Beauty section's cards. There is nothing to pick a clip with, because picking the clip is how you got here. A Blend is the last layer in the list and has no row on the timeline.
  • Beauty — pick a card and nothing changes until you point at the face; then the look lands on that face and follows it, all as one step Undo takes back, and Cancel leaves nothing. A face the clip already tracks is used again with no second wait, and each look's colour and amount are in its Recipe.
  • Filters — a hand grade's first adjustment creates the layer at the playhead, and its card reads Custom. Tune it back to where it changes nothing and the layer removes itself. Each one you add gets its own row, so a clip can carry several at once and you drag them past each other to change which goes on first.
  • Distort — Flow Blur, on a clip only, smears the clip along its own footage's motion, as a camera's shutter would: it is a Motion Blur whose Direction is Footage rather than Set, with Frames for how much of that motion it spans. With nothing beneath an Empty edge, the exported video shows black there like any other empty part of the frame.
  • Weather — weather goes on a clip or a group, never on a drawing or a caption. It moves on its own layer's clock, so it starts where its clip starts and travels with the clip when you move it, and its Automate list has a Time lane: the lane's curve is the weather's clock, so a flat stretch freezes it, a steeper one speeds it up and one that runs downward plays it backwards. Any look that moves on a clock of its own has that lane — a film look whose grain re-seeds included — and, like a weather, keeps its place in its movement when you move the clip along the timeline. Two weather effects on one clip can run together or take turns, whichever you set: leave both across the whole clip and you get rain through a light leak, or give each its own window and the rain runs the first half and the leak the second, with a crossfade where they meet.
  • Styles — Super 8 and Old Reel add the projector's Gate weave, Flicker, Film breath and Gate edge.

An effect can cover just part of the frame. While an effect's Recipe is open — a look or a Recolor — a box on the video marks where it applies, the whole frame to begin with; drag the box and its corners and sides to confine the effect to one region. The settings for that box sit in the Recipe's Region section rather than on the video: Apply the filter outside the region, a switch that applies the effect outside the box instead of inside it, and Edge blend, how softly the box's edge fades. A look that follows a face is placed by that face, so it has neither: its Region section holds Fix the tracking here and, where the reading fell weak, Fix the weak tracking at that moment. On a clip or a group, any look's Region also holds a Depth range, which keeps the look to a band of distance: Near, Far and Feather, tidied by Depth black, Depth white, Depth soft and Depth grow, and Apply the filter outside the depth range to treat everything but that band.

On a video a look's Recipe ends with Region and Timing, and last, on a look that moves on its own, Video only, whose settings are live there. A setting the look does not use costs nothing, so playback stays exactly as fast as the effects you actually used.

Several entries cover a range rather than one fixed effect, so one entry does what used to take two. RGB Split goes from a flat sideways colour split to a lens fringe that grows toward the edges of the frame. Bulge magnifies the middle or squeezes it, depending on which way you drag Strength. Bloom goes from a tight halo on the brightest highlights to a soft dreamy haze over the whole picture, as you widen its Radius.