Skip to content
V

The CRT and scanline look

An old tube screen bulges, has dark scanlines, shows red, green and blue stripes and fades at the edges. The CRT effect does all four; add colour fringing, glow and a vignette for the full broadcast look.

Beginner2 min readUpdated 27 September 2026Effects · CRT, Scanlines, RGB Shift

Loading the example…

Build the full look in the Editor

  1. Open the image. Add Filter, Distort, RGB Shift with a small amount (5 to 15) for colour fringing on edges.
  2. Add Filter, Enhance, Bloom: a high Brightness cutoff so only the highlights glow.
  3. Add Filter, Distort, CRT on top. Barrel distortion 20 to 50, Scanline gap to taste: denser for a small TV, wider for a big one.
  4. Optional: Filter, Enhance, Vignette for a deeper tube edge, and a slight Film Grain for signal noise.
  5. For text on the screen, put the text layer below the CRT filter so it bends and gets scanlines too.

Related looks

LookEffects
Arcade screenCRT with high barrel distortion, Bloom, saturated colours
Security cameraBlack and white adjustment, Scanlines, Noise, a timestamp in a monospace font
VHS tapeRGB Shift, Glitch at low offset, Film Grain, a slightly washed-out Curves
Flat LCD scanlinesScanlines only, Darkness low, Line spacing small

How do I get scanlines without the curve?

Use the Scanlines effect (in Enhance) instead of CRT, or set CRT's Barrel distortion to 0, which keeps the stripes and the dark edges but flattens the picture.

Why are the scanlines finer in my download?

Filter layers re-render at the export size and scale their pixel settings, so the lines keep their look but are drawn with more pixels. Check at 100 per cent at the output size.

Open Effects

Was this guide useful?

Also useful

Enhance and texture effects and their settingsAll 11 effects in the Enhance tab: Blur, Sharpen, Vignette, Noise, Film Grain, Scanlines, Bloom, Freeze, Dot Matrix, Lens Flare and Film Burn.Beginner4 min readUse filters as editable layersAdd any of the 58 Void filters from the filter gallery as a live layer, then stack, mask and fade it. Also explains why exports look slightly sharper than the preview.Beginner4 min read