#vhs tutorial

So i draw the scene. Use a dark brown for inks. Duplicate that, fill with yellow, blur 5 and 30% opacity underneath. I copy the base layer/character layer, fill with same brown and blur so its a “drop shadow”

I also duplicate the shadows, blur one about 12-18 and set both to half opacity. Same with lighting. Any rim light is the Ink layer duplicated, filled white, overlay or glow it depends on what fits best, and the bits i dont want white erased.

All text is Arial yellow with a black border. My style of drawing varies a lot by i try for a fuzzy 80s fur look- like kosperry or don bluth i guess. thats what the 'cats' layer looks like ^^^.

Okay onto edits. Flatten image and duplicate in case u fuck up. Auto actions are linked above (i have the box ticked/the action closed to speed things up and only adjust the important bits)

Blur - gaussian, start mild and u can build up from there.

Fake vibrance- you can use saturation ig but this (to my knowledge) targets the light and shadow differently. I literally copied how the photoshop vibrance works. I use anywhere from 25-85 strength (mainly 40), it looks less saturated once u click okay so just experiment.

Chromatic abberation - I use this one. Move to liking and merge

Vhs 2 - this is the other auto action i made, it’s basically another blur, motion blur and some image adjustments.

Final additions - 1 is a noise layer (clip studio perlin noise), 2 is a free VHS overlay set to hue (find one with colours u like!), 3 is a new layer filled with a bright colour/colour that fits the vibe you are going for (here i used blue for the blue background + sunny vibes) set to lighten and adjust

and thats it for me!

i tend to use a thin line/ink brush with some texture. i dont know if this works in copying the VHS style directly but i have an intense hatred of ink brushes and think they never look good so i just stick to the one i know (i use the smooth inker, adjusting the pressure a little) i think a pencil brush or realistic inker would look better though

also have references. whether thats film screenshots, or art books (zlib it my friend)

What you’ll need:

Photoshop or something that you can gif with. I’m using pscc 2015

Some background in Timeline and Photoshop in general

free vhs effect (40 minutes of vhs glitching amazing. love it.)

a video

Ok let’s go.

Step One:

Open up your video or clip in Photoshop. I know if you have older versions, it makes you edit it down ahead of time, but PSCC does not, so edit your video to the part you want.

Step Two:

A little optional, but since my video is stretched i take the height down by ten pixels so instead of 720 x 360 it’s 720 x 350, to keep the widescreen look.

A screen will pop up bc it’ll change the video into a smart object. I just convert and move on.

Step Three:

This part is a little complicated since Photoshop does not like it when you copy video layers. You going to have to edit the copied video back to the desired clip and then instead of deleting the extra, just drag it out until u reach the beginning of the clip and repeat once more for three copies of the original.

you should end up with four layers.

Step Four:

Either hit command+m or control+m to pull up the curves adjustments or navigate to the curves adjustment from the image bar.  Usually I use levels to do this, but there wasn’t any levels I could find in Premiere and Curves is a nice substitute.

You’re going to want to leave the RGB curve alone and instead go to each color separately for the first three layers. Then you’re going to bring the top line down so instead of a diagonal, you have a line at the bottom.

Their thumbnails will show them to be bright cyan, magenta, and yellow, and that’s good.

Step Five:

Set the colored layers blend mode to difference and don’t change the opacity at all.

Step Six:

The layer you didn’t change, which I renamed MAIN, goes to the top and then bring the opacity down to around 70%.

Step Seven:

With the move tool (press V or go to the tool with all the arrows: 

) and just move the colored layers from side to side. I use my arrow keys to be precise. I usually don’t move it more than 5 px. You can crop out the sides where the video doesn’t cover, but usually I don’t for videos.

You can stop here if you want, since you’re video has the vhs coloring without the vhs glitching.

Step Eight:

After downloading the VHS glitching, I add it to the timeline. I just pressed the + sign at the side and imported it. Don’t be alarmed if it comes in all black. That’s how the video is supposed to look. Edit the video down to where you like, and then put the blend mode to screen.

If you’re like me, and don’t like real big obstructions, then bring the opacity down depending on where you are in the video.

Step Nine:

Exporting! All you need to know about exporting gifs is Command/Control-Shift-Alt+S and that gifs for tumblr need to be under 2MBS. Since this is a longer gif, I edited it down, and and made some color adjustments, but that’s it.

And there you have it. Finished product again:

let’s start with this simple pic

add any coloring/action you like

duplicate the layers (ctrl + j) until we have four layers

go to the background layer, right click > layer from background

set all the three bottom layers to exclusion

for the first layer, click in levels and use this settings

right click in level layer > merge down

go to the second layer > levels use this settings

again, right click in level layer > merge down

go to the third layer > levels use this settings

one more time, right click in level layer > merge down

by now we should have something like this

go to the top layer and set the opacity to 75

move the layers you set to exclusion to the left or right, as long as you want, the image will look like this:

ok now right click in any layer > flatten image

this part is optional but i like to add a little noise

go to solid color and choose #919191

in the color layer, go to filter > noise > add noise

click ok to rasterize the layer, use this settings

set the layer to overlay, set opacity to 50 or less

it will look like this

final steps amem

using rectangular select tool,

 select a little part(?) of your pic

right click > layer via cut

on the layer we cut, go to filter > distort > shear

use this settings (carefully please)

go to any layer > flatten image

should look like this

now to make the lines, save this little pic (xxx) open the picture, go to edit > define pattern

go back to your edit, click on that little symbol > pattern

click ok

set the pattern layer to overlay, set opacity to 25

flatten image and that’s it!

Open your image 

And duplicate the background layer 3 times

And set the blending mode of all those 3 layers to exclusion

Now go to image > adjustments > levels and change the red output of the top layer to 0

Change the green output of the second copy to 0

And change the blue output of the third copy to 0

Now using the move tool move the copy layers around until you have something you like

Since you can't see Vic's perfect face move the original background to the top of all your layers and set the opacity to about 65%

Now go to layer > flatten image and duplicate the background layer and delete the original so we have something that's unlocked

Now create a new layer and then colour it grey (doesn't really matter how light or dark it is)

Now go to filter > noise > add noise

And set the blending mode of the noise layer to soft light and the opacity to about 15%

Now use the rectangular marquee tool on your background layer and select a portion of your picture

Right click your selection and select layer via cut 

Which will make a new layer of your selection

Now select your new layer and go to filter > distort > shear and you'll get a new window 

Try to match what i did here and click OK

Now use this image or if you want a TV effect this one

Open it and copy and paste it onto your picture until it's covering the entire picture

Set the blending mode of that layer to overlay then go to filter > blur > gaussian blur and blur it to about 1.5 and then set the opacity to like 30% or whatever you want