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Halftone Video Effect

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Settings are written to the URL as you change them. Nothing differs from the defaults yet.

Render a clip as a printed dot screen. Each frame is resampled onto a grid of dots in one ink color over one paper color, with dot size standing in for tone, the way newspapers and comics print photographs.

Grid spacing and dot scale

Grid Spacing sets the distance between dot centers as a share of the short edge, from a fine screen that reads as texture up to large dots a few dozen across. Dot Scale sets how big the darkest dot gets. Around 90% the dots in the shadows almost touch; above 100% they overlap and the darkest areas fill in solid.

Very fine spacing on a small export can fall below a few pixels per dot, which leaves too little room to draw a round dot. Pick 1080p for fine screens.

Ink and paper

Dot Color and Background Color set the ink and the paper. Black on off-white gives newsprint, cyan on navy a blueprint feel, and a light dot on a dark background suits poster-style visuals. Invert swaps which end of the tone scale gets the large dots.

Colored Dots samples each dot’s color from the source instead of using one ink, which keeps the clip’s color while breaking it into dots.

Dots in motion

The dot grid stays fixed to the frame while the picture moves beneath it. Dots pulse as highlights and shadows pass through their cells, which gives the moving halftone look of music visuals and title sequences. Locked-off shots with slow movement pulse gently; handheld footage shimmers across the whole frame.

Frequently Asked Questions

The frame is divided into a grid, and each cell gets one dot whose area follows how dark the source is there: a black area gets the largest dot, white gets none. Dot Scale sets the size of the largest dot relative to the grid cell, and values above 100% let neighbouring dots merge in the shadows.

Grid Spacing is a share of the frame's short edge, not a pixel count. A higher export resolution gives rounder, smoother dots in the same layout as the preview.

It rotates the dot grid by 45 degrees, the angle printers use for black ink. A rotated grid is less obvious to the eye than rows and columns lined up with the frame edges.

The grid is fixed to the frame while the picture moves under it, so each dot grows and shrinks as brightness passes through its cell. Coarser spacing makes that pulsing visible; finer spacing reads more like continuous tone.

It is copied into the export unchanged when the container can hold its codec, and re-encoded when it cannot. A note under the export button says which happened.

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