In this video, I'm going to show you how to create the VHS or camcorder glitch effect
in Photoshop.
Hi, welcome back to the Photoshop training channel, I'm Jesus Ramirez.
In this video, I'm going to show you how to recreate the VHS VCR effect in Photoshop.
This is going to be a nondestructive technique, which means that we can always come back and
edit it if we need to, and it will also allow us to use this PSV file as a template, so
that we can apply this effect to any photo.
In fact, I'll link to this PVS right below on the description, so that you can download
it and use it yourself.
But, I do recommend following the tutorial, so that you can learn how to create this effect.
Even if you have no desire of creating this specific effect for your projects, the steps
that I'm going to use, should help you understand better Smart Objects, adjustment layers and
filters, and you can apply those techniques to any one of your projects.
Okay, let's get started.
We're going to work with this document here that contains this portrait and this text layer.
I'm not going to spend too much time with the text, but I am going to use text on this image.
If you are interested in downloading this font, I'm going to paste the link to it right
there on of the description so you can download it,
it's called VCR OSD Mono.
So, I already have that text here,
I'm going to disable it for now and we'll focus on working with the effect.
And actually write before I disable it, I just want to ask you to do one thing, I want
to see who can guess why I use this particular date on this text layer.
So, if you know, let me know in the comments.
But anyway, we're going to work with this portrait, and the first thing that we're going
to do is, rename this layer, original.
Then I'm going to right click and convert it into a Smart Object.
What I'm going to do now is apply a blur to this image, because no matter how you shot
your photo, it will probably be too sharp to pass for a VHS footage.
So, with this layer select, I'm going to go into Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur, and I'm
just going to blur it just a bit.
I'm just making sure that the image is not very sharp.
So maybe about one pixel or maybe even more, we'll play it safe at 1.5, so you can see
here how we are losing all the detail in the image.
Then Press OK.
What I'm going to do now is, collapse that adjustment, so we have more real estate to
work with in the layers panel, and I'm going to press Ctrl J, Command J in the Mac, to
duplicate that Smart Object four times.
So, now I have four copies of that Smart Object.
And also, in case you don't know, a Smart Object is sort of a container that can contain
one or multiple layers, and you can apply filters, adjustments and distortions non destructively.
Which means that you can always come back and edit the adjustments, and even edit the
contents of that Smart Object.
And in this case, we have five different layers, but they're all linked.
If I double click on one of the Smart Object thumbnails, it opens up a new tab, and in
that tab I can replace the image.
So, I'm just going to open up my libraries panel and drag a photo in there, the photo
really doesn't matter, I'll just use this one, I'll scale it up, and I'm going to press
Ctrl S, Command S on the Mac to save, and go back into my VHS retro file, and notice
how all the layers are updated with this new image.
And Photoshop will also apply the blur to this photo.
But this is not the photo that we're going to use, but now you understand that all those
Smart Objects are linked with each other.
So I'm going to close the tab press, yes to save, and we get our original photo back.
What I'm going to do now is, rename these layers so, this one at the bottom will be
original, this one here will be red, and I'm going to right click on the layer and select
the red label so that it's easier to see.
This next one will be green, I'll do the same, I'll select the green label.
This next one will be blue, and you guessed it, I'm going to select the blue label for
that one, and the one on top, I'll call this torsion,
and I'll use orange for that.
I'm going to disable the Distortion layer,
and I'm going to work with the blue, green and red layers first.
I'm going to select the blue layer, then go in to filter, distort, sheer.
Sheer allows us to use this line to distort an image as you can see in the preview here,
you can click and drag these points out to delete them, or you can click on the line
to create new points.
You have two options; wraparound, which means that when you make an extreme distortion,
the pixels will wrap around to the other side.
So what that means is that, in this case half of her face is going off frame, but it's coming
in on the other side on the left hand side.
If I click repeat edge pixels, that won't happen, all Photoshop is doing is repeating
the pixels that are on the edge, that's why you get that line there in the center.
In this case I think I like to use wrap around edges better, and I don't need an extreme
distortion, I just need a slight distortion, maybe something like this.
Then I'll press OK, and I get that distortion there.
You can see the difference between the original and the distorted layer.
If I double click to the side of a layer to bring up the layers style window in the advanced
blending options, I have check boxes.
Red, green and blue.
Currently, the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel are enabled.
But I can click on one of these check boxes to disable that particular channel.
And notice that once I do that, I get this effect that you see here.
I could also disable the green channel and only leave the blue channel enabled.
So, that's why I call this layer blue because, this layer only has the blue channel enabled,
and that helps us create this illusion of a distortion glitchy effect.
I'm going to Press OK.
I'm going to collapse the adjustment so that we have more room to work with, then I'm going
to select the green layer and do the same thing.
I'm going to go in to filter, and the first filter on top should be the last one that
we use which is the sheer filter.
If I select that, it will bring it back up and I'll make a different adjustment.
It will also be a subtle adjustment, but it has to be different, it can't be exactly the
same one as before, and then Press OK.
Then I'm going to double-click to the side of the layer and I'm going to disable the
red channel and the blue channel, and only leave the green channel enabled, which is
why we named it green.
And then Press OK.
For now I'm not going to make any changes to the red layer,
but you can if you want to.
Then I'm going to enable that distortion layer, and what I'm going to do is, apply the sheer
filter once again, but this time I'm going to make an extreme adjustment like so, and
Press OK.
Then I'm going to create a layer mask, and in this layer mask, I'm going to select a
rectangular marquee tool, and I'm going to create a rectangle across the entire canvas
like so, and fill with black.
Black is my background color so I can press Ctrl Backspace,
that's Command Delete on the Mac, to fill with black.
I'm going to hold alt option on the Mac and click on the layer thumbnail
so that we can see this layer mask.
So, I'm basically going to do the same thing over and over again, and I'm going to create
lines of different heights, and sizes.
I'm going to pause the video so that you don't see me do this repetitive task over and over
again, but this is exactly what I'm doing and I'll show you what it looks like at the end.
So I'll be right back in just a second.
Okay, and this is my layer mask.
And just to remind you, with a layer mas, anything that's in black will be hidden, and
the white areas will show through.
I'm going to hold all tabs on the Mac and click on the layer thumbnail again, so that
we can see the effect that I've created.
At this point I think that I might have gone too far with the distortion so I can always
edit that, so I'm gonna double click on this sheer label in the Smart Object to open up
the filter, and I'm just going to reduce that distortion so that it's not too strong, and
I think that looks much, much better.
So, again, just to reiterate, that's one of the advantages of working with Smart Objects,
you can always come back and make changes if you need to.
What I'm going to do now is, create a levels adjustment layer and I'm simply going to clip
it to the layer below by clicking on this icon.
So, now this adjustment layer will only affect the layer below, which is a distortion layer.
So, I can click and drag in the center, point and drag it to the right just to make it a little bit darker.
So this layer is a little bit darker than the layer below.
Also on this distortion layer, I'm going to add a little bit of noise so I'm going to
go into filter, noise, add noise and just add a tiny bit of noise, and Press OK.
Now I'm going to create some scan lines and that's really easy to do.
I'm going to click on the levels adjustment layer, and right above that, I'm going to
create a pattern fill layer, and I'm going to click on this drop down here.
click on the gear icon, and reset my pattern so that I have the default patterns, and the
second one on the default list, will be the one that I'm going to use.
I'm going to change the scale to 150, then Press OK.
I'm going to change the blending mode to multiply, and change the opacity to 25.
So, that's before and after, and we have very realistic scan lines.
If I double click on the zoom tool, you'll see the 100 view.
So this is what this image is looking like so far.
I'm going to right click and select fit on screen, I have the zoom tool selected, then
I'm going to create a selective color adjustment layer, and this selective color is only going
to adjust the color, and I'm going to apply a color tone, so I'll call this layer color
tone, and I'm going to change the blending mode to color so that I affect only the color and not the luminosity.
Then I'm going to select the blacks and I'm going to add
10 of cyan and reduce the yellow to negative 10.
Reducing yellow gives us blue because the opposite of yellow is blue, the opposite of
magenta is green, the opposite of cyan is red.
If you can't remember that, simply create a color balance adjustment layer, and you
can see that relationship here.
Unfortunately, the selective color adjustment layer is not labeled as nicely as the color
balance adjustment layer.
And by the way, if you're interested in finding out more about how the selective color adjustment
layer works, then check out my video on color toning.
I use it exclusively in that video, and I go into more detail on how it works.
So I recommend checking it out.
I'll post a link right below on the description.
But anyway, now I'm going to create a levels adjustment layer, and this adjustment layer
will only control the luminosity, so I'm gonna call this layer luminosity.
And I'm going to click on this black point and drag to the right.
So now, no pixel on this image will be darker than this shade of gray,
and I'm gonna click and drag the white point to the left,
so that no pixel in this image will be brighter than the shade of gray.
So again, we're trying to create that low quality VHS VCR retro effect.
Finally, I'm going to add one layer, and I'll call it noise.
Then I can fill with whatever color, so I'm gonna fill with black.
Black is my foreground color so, alt and backspace to fill with the foreground color.
Then I'm going to go into filter, noise, add noise.
I'm going to make sure that monochromatic is unchecked, and I'm just going increase
the noise all the way to 400% and Press OK.
Then, I'm going to change the blending mode to soft light, and the opacity to 30%, and
you see the effect we have here.
And it looks like I missed one step, I apologize for that, I'm going to go back and double
click on this layer, and disable the green and blue channel and only stay with the red
channel to create that effect you see there.
I'm going to Press OK, and the image is looking much, much better.
Now I'm going to select the noise layer, then I'm going to hold shift and click on the red layer.
That way, it selects all the layers in between, then press control g, commend g on the Mac,
and I can call this VHS/VCR effect, and that controls all the effects.
If you would like to apply this effect to another photo, simply double click on the
layer thumbnail to open the Smart Object, then simply place any photo over the original.
This case we'll use this guy once again.
I'll place him into position, press Ctrl S, Command s on the Mac to save, go back into
my working document, and now, I have that same effect on this photo.
So this is a great way of creating templates in Photoshop.
But that's not all, I'm going to go back and just delete this layer and continue working
with the image that we have been using.
If I enable the text layer, then you'll have the complete effect.
Once again, you can download this font for free, I'll post a link right below in the description.
In fact, you can download this PSD file so you can use it as a template.
And I'm going to tweak it a little bit more and improve on it, so that the version that
you download will be a little bit better than this one.
Let me know in the comments of you enjoyed this technique and what you learned.
And also, if you decide to create this effect, share your results on Instagram with the hash
tag PTC bits, I would love to see wat you come up with.
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Thank you so much for watching, I will talk to you again in the next tutorial.