How to Create CRT and VHS Looks in After Effects

Tips & Tricks

How to Create CRT and VHS Looks in After Effects

Tuts+Photography

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial, we'll learn how to create a CRT and VHS look in Adobe After Effects from scratch using things like shape layers.

So the first thing we want to do in the whole process is to create the actual CRT screen effect. CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube and basically if you look close enough to a CRT screen, you'll see that it's made up of tiny little pixels in the digital version. But in the CRT version it's made up of these tiny little things called phosphor dots.

So let's create a new composition and let's call this new composition 'Pixels' and use the following settings:

Width: 42px
Height: 30px

Zoom into the comp and the first thing we need to do is select the Rounded Rectangle Tool and change the color to red and then create a little jelly bean shape which is about a third of the width of the canvas.

Make sure that the resolution is set to full and then rename the shapes layer to 'RED'.

Duplicate the shape layer two times and move them into position whilst changing the colors to Green and Blue. Use the alignment tools to align them correctly within the composition.

Drag the Pixel comp down to the 'Create New Comp' button.

Go into the composition settings and rename it 'Pixel Grid' and change the following dimensions:

Width: 7680px
Height: 4320px

Go to the Effects & Presets panel and search for CC RepeTile and apply it to the Pixels layer. Then in the Effect Controls, increase the value for expand settings until the whole screen is filled with the pixels we created.

Create a new composition using the dimensions below and call it 'Footage'.

Width: 3840px
Height: 2160px

Place the footage that you want to use in this composition. For this tutorial we'll be using stock footage found on Envato Elements.

Let's leave the 'Footage' comp for now and create yet another new composition. This time call it 'CRT Effect' and use the dimensions below:

Width: 1920px
Height: 1080px

Now drag the 'Footage' comp into the new 'CRT Effect' comp and scale it down by 50% so that it fits to the screen.

Drag the 'Pixel Grid' comp into the new 'CRT Effect' comp as well and place it above the 'Footage' comp.

Now the 'Pixel Grid' layer is a bit much at the moment so let's turn it off for now whilst we work on the rest of the effect.

Go to the Effects & Presets panel and apply the Shift Channels and Set Matte effects to the 'Footage' layer. You will see that they are applied when you go into the Effect Controls panel. From here what we want to do is separate out the RGB channels on our 'Footage' layer and make them just come out through the pixels that we have created.

So, only red will come through the red pixel, only green will come through the green pixel and only blue will come through the blue pixel. When you zoom out far enough it will create the entire color array.

Rename the 'Footage' layer 'RED Footage' and then in the Effect Controls panel set the following for the Shift Channels:

Take Red From: Red
Take Green From: Full Off
Take Blue From: Full Off

On the Set Matte controls, set the following:

Take Matte From Layer: Pixel Grid
Use For Matte: Red Channel

Now we're going to do the same thing for the Green and Blue colors. Duplicate the 'RED Footage' layer and rename it 'GREEN Footage' and in the Effect Controls panel set the following for the Shift Channels:

Take Red From: Full Off
Take Green From: Green
Take Blue From: Full Off

On the Set Matte controls, set the following:

Take Matte From Layer: Pixel Grid
Use For Matte: Green Channel

Duplicate the 'GREEN Footage' layer and rename it 'BLUE Footage' and in the Effect Controls panel set the following for the Shift Channels:

Take Red From: Full Off
Take Green From: Full Off
Take Blue From: Blue

On the Set Matte controls, set the following:

Take Matte From Layer: Pixel Grid
Use For Matte: Blue Channel

And now when you switch all the color layers back on again, you'll see that our effect is starting to take shape!

Click on the 'For Comp Layer' button for the 'Pixels' layer and then scale it to 25% and that's going to give us the full amount of resolution and more pixels that we got from our 8k pixel grid layout. Which is then sitting on top of the 4k footage in our 1080p comp.

Conclusion

So that's how you can create a a CRT and VHS look in Adobe After Effects from scratch using things like shape layers! Now that you have a good understanding on how to make this effect, why not experiment with your own footage! I hope you found this tutorial helpful and that you've learned some new tips and tricks that you can use for your own projects. See you next time!