Visual Effects

Busted

• AnaglyphRed and cyan offset views combined into one image, creating retro 3D fringing that matching colored glasses can separate.
• Anamorphic lens flareA long horizontal, often blue streak extending from a bright light, associated with widescreen anamorphic lenses.
• ASCII effectAn image rebuilt from typed characters, with dense symbols for dark areas and lighter marks or spaces for bright ones.
• Backdrop blurBlurring whatever sits behind a panel instead of the panel itself, so it reads as frosted glass laid over the page.
• Barrel distortion / fisheyeAn image bulged outward through a wide lens, with straight lines bowing toward the edges and the center pushed toward you.
• Bevel & embossA light edge on one side and a shadow on the other, faking that a flat shape is raised off the surface or stamped into it.
• Bleach bypassA desaturated, high-contrast film look with dense blacks and extra grain, modeled on leaving silver in the developed film.
• Blend modeThe math that decides how a layer mixes with what's under it: multiply darkens, screen lightens, overlay boosts contrast.
• BloomBright areas spilling soft light onto everything near them, the way a real lens smears a highlight.
• Chromatic aberrationColor channels drifting apart at the edges of a frame, leaving red and cyan fringes like a cheap lens.
• Color tintA single color washed across an image while its original light, shadow, and detail still show through.
• CrosshatchingShading made from layers of parallel lines crossing at different angles, like an engraving or pen-and-ink drawing.
• CRT emulationFaking an old tube monitor: horizontal scanlines, a slightly bulged screen, glowing phosphor bleed, and color fringing at the edges.
• Displacement mapUsing one image's light and dark values as a map that shoves another image's pixels around. Texture-driven warping.
• Distress / grunge overlayScratches, dust, and eaten-away edges layered over artwork so it looks worn, photocopied, and printed on a bad day.
• DitheringFaking shades and gradients with patterns of tiny dots from a limited palette. The retro 'old computer graphics' look.
• Drop shadowA soft, offset dark copy of a shape sitting behind it, so the element reads as raised above the page instead of glued flat to it.
• Film grainFine noise laid over an image so it reads as shot on film, regenerating every frame once the footage starts moving.
• Gaussian blurThe standard soft blur: each pixel averaged with its neighbors on a bell curve, giving smooth, even fuzziness with no smearing.
• Glitch effectDeliberate digital breakage: torn slices, color channels sliding apart, and blocks of the wrong frame smeared across the picture.
• Glow (outer glow / neon)A soft colored halo spreading outward from an edge, with no offset, so the element looks like it is emitting light. Neon.
• God rays (volumetric light)Visible shafts of light cutting through haze, fog, or dust where objects partly block the source.
• Gooey effectA blur-plus-contrast trick that makes nearby shapes stretch and fuse like drops of thick liquid.
• Gradient mapA color lookup that replaces shadows, midtones, and highlights with matching colors from a chosen gradient.
• Gradient maskFading an element to transparent along a direction, so it dissolves into whatever is behind it instead of stopping at a hard edge.
• GrayscaleRemoving hue and saturation while keeping the image's relative light and dark values as shades of gray.
• HalationA soft reddish halo around intense highlights, caused by light spreading inside film stock.
• HalftoneA photo rebuilt from dots that grow and shrink with brightness, the way newspapers and comic books print gray.
• Holographic effectThe rainbow foil sheen of a hologram sticker or a shiny trading card: prismatic bands that slide as the surface tilts.
• Inner shadow (inset)A shadow painted inside an element's edges instead of behind it, so the surface reads as pressed in, carved, or hollowed out.
• Invert / negativeEvery color channel reversed, turning light to dark and colors toward their opposites like a photographic negative.
• IridescenceColor that changes depending on the angle you view it from, like an oil slick, a soap bubble, or a beetle's shell.
• Lens flareOrbs, streaks, and haze that appear when a bright light hits the camera lens and bounces around inside the glass.
• Light leakA soft warm wash of color bleeding in from one edge of the frame, like daylight sneaking into an old camera and fogging the film.
• Liquid distortion / rippleAn image surface warped by traveling waves, like water disturbed by a drop or a pointer moving across soft glass.
• Long shadowA flat solid shadow that stretches far from an object at one fixed angle, with little or no blur.
• MoiréLarge ripples and bands created when two fine repeating patterns overlap slightly out of angle or scale.
• Motion blurPixels stretched into directional streaks so a still frame looks as if the subject or camera moved during the exposure.
• Noise textureA fine layer of random speckle over flat color or gradients, so a surface feels like a material instead of a screen fill.
• Noisy gradientA gradient with fine noise mixed in to break up color bands and make the fade look smoother.
• Paper / canvas texture overlayA scan of real paper or canvas laid over flat artwork so the colors pick up tooth, fiber, and grain instead of looking screen-perfect.
• Pixel sortingPixels reordered by brightness or color into long horizontal or vertical bands, creating a stretched digital glitch.
• Pixelation / mosaicCrushing an image into big visible squares of flat color, to censor something or to make it look deliberately low-res.
• PosterizationSmooth gradients crushed into a few flat bands of color, like a screen-printed concert poster.
• Radial blurA blur that streaks pixels outward, inward, or in circles around one center, creating a zoom or spin sensation.
• RGB splitThe red, green, and blue layers of a picture nudged apart so every edge grows colored ghost copies, like a 3D-glasses image.
• ScreentoneManga-style dot, line, or texture patterns used in place of gray shading, originally supplied as cut-and-stick sheets.
• SepiaA warm brown monochrome treatment that makes an image resemble an antique photographic print.
• Soft focusFine detail gently diffused while broad shapes stay readable and bright highlights spread into a dreamy glow.
• SolarizationA surreal partial-negative look made by inverting tones on one side of a brightness threshold while leaving the rest positive.
• StipplingShading built from the density of tiny separate dots, with crowded dots in shadows and open space in highlights.
• Threshold (1-bit)Every pixel forced to pure black or pure white by a single brightness cutoff. No grays, just a stencil.
• Turbulence (fractal noise)Layered procedural noise used to make clouds and smoke or to drive organic warps, ripples, and rough textures.
• VignetteDarkening (or lightening) the edges of an image so the frame quietly pushes the eye toward the center.
• Voronoi / cellular textureAn organic field of irregular cells built around scattered points, like cracked earth, soap foam, skin, or stained glass.

The territory

30 core terms mapped for this field, ranked by how often builders reach for them. Each one is a future entry. Want to bust one? One entry, one file, one pull request.

• drop shadowoffset shadow making an element look raised above its background"shadow under the box" · "make it pop off the page"
• Gaussian blursmoothly softens detail using a Gaussian-weighted pixel average"just blur it" · "soft out-of-focus blur"
• backdrop blurblurs whatever sits behind an element, like frosted glass"blurry see-through panel" · "that iOS translucent bar thing"
• blend modehow one layer's pixels mathematically mix with layers below"make the layers melt together" · "Photoshop multiply thing"
• glow (outer glow / neon)soft luminous halo emitted outward from edges or text"make it neon" · "glowing outline"
• inner shadow (inset)shadow cast inside an element's bounds, reading as recessed"pressed-in look" · "carved into the surface"
• gradient maskelement fades to transparent along a direction"fade out at the bottom" · "soft feathered edge"
• noise textureprocedural speckle/fractal pattern layered for tactile depth"grainy sandpaper look" · "TV static on top"
• film grainfine animated noise overlaid to make digital look analog"that fuzzy static layer" · "make it look filmed not rendered"
• vignettedarkened or lightened frame edges pulling eye to center"dark corners" · "faded edges around a photo"
• duotoneimage mapped to exactly two colors, shadows one, highlights another"two-color photo" · "Spotify poster look"
• color gradingpreset color transform applied uniformly for a mood"movie color look" · "LUT" · "Instagram filter but pro"
• pixelation / mosaicresolution deliberately crushed into visible blocks"big blocky pixels" · "censor squares"
• halftonecontinuous tone rebuilt from dots of varying size"comic book dots" · "newspaper print dots"
• ditheringlimited palette faked via patterned pixel scatter"old-computer pixel gradient" · "crunchy 1-bit look"
• posterizationtones collapsed into few flat bands"posterize" · "flat poster colors" · "banded not smooth"
• threshold (1-bit)image reduced to pure black and white, no midtones"pure black and white photo" · "stencil look"
• chromatic aberrationcolor channels offset at edges, fringing red/cyan"rainbow edge blur" · "lens color fringe"
• bloombright areas bleed glow into surrounding pixels"lights glowing outward" · "overexposed shine"
• glitch effectintentional corruption: torn slices, datamosh, broken signal artifacts"broken TV look" · "hacked screen effect"
• RGB splitcolor channels deliberately offset into visible ghost copies"red and blue ghost copies" · "channel offset"
• CRT emulationscanlines, curvature, and phosphor bleed imitating a tube monitor"scanlines" · "old monitor stripes" · "retro screen effect"
• paper / canvas texture overlayscanned substrate multiplied over flat artwork"make it look printed on paper" · "textured paper background"
• distress / grunge overlayscratches, dust, and eroded edges added for wear"make it look old and scratched" · "worn beat-up texture"
• light leaksoft colored wash bleeding in from a frame edge"orange haze on the corner" · "old film burn"
• lens flarestreaks and orbs from light hitting the lens"sun glare orbs on screen" · "light spots from the camera"
• bevel & embosslight/shadow pair faking raised or stamped relief"3D pressed edge" · "letterpress feel"
• iridescencecolor that shifts with viewing angle, oil-slick like"oil slick colors" · "soap bubble colors"
• holographic effectrainbow foil sheen suggesting a hologram sticker"hologram sticker shine" · "shiny foil rainbow"
• displacement mapone image's brightness pushes another's pixels around"warp it with a texture" · "melty distortion"

Deeper in the field

• halation warm reddish halo around highlights, from film stock
• gooey effect blur-plus-contrast trick fusing shapes into liquid blobs
• god rays (volumetric light) visible shafts of light through haze
• long shadow flat solid shadow extending far at a fixed angle
• noisy gradient gradient with noise dithered in to kill banding
• anamorphic lens flare horizontal blue streak from a widescreen lens
• gradient map replaces luminance ranges with colors from a chosen gradient
• sepia maps an image into warm brown, antique-looking tones
• grayscale removes hue while keeping the image's relative luminance
• color tint uniform hue wash applied while preserving underlying detail
• invert / negative channel values reversed, producing a photographic-negative appearance
• motion blur pixels streaked directionally to imply movement or exposure
• radial blur blur spreading outward or rotationally around a chosen center
• soft focus fine detail diffused while broad shapes and highlights glow
• pixel sorting pixels rearranged by brightness into stretched glitch bands
• turbulence (fractal noise) SVG/shader noise primitive driving clouds, smoke, warp
• Voronoi / cellular texture organic cracked-cell pattern; skin, foam, stained glass
• moiré interference pattern from overlapping repeating grids
• ASCII effect image rebuilt from typed characters by brightness
• crosshatching shading built from layered etched line strokes
• stippling shading built from dot density rather than lines
• solarization tones above a threshold inverted, surreal pseudo-negative
• bleach bypass desaturated, high-contrast, silver-retained film treatment
• screentone manga-style adhesive dot/line pattern for shading
• barrel distortion / fisheye image bulged outward as through a wide lens
• anaglyph red/cyan offset layers producing retro 3D fringing
• liquid distortion / ripple surface warped in waves, often mouse-reactive