FX engine guide

Three looks

Each picture below was made in FX engine from the picture it opens with. The table under each one is the whole recipe; everything not listed stays as the page opens.

The Halftone row names a pill in the effect section, which takes the effect's name.

Printed in three inks

Coloured circles printed as coarse magenta, cyan and yellow dot grids on white paper — Halftone in CMYK mode, with 14-pixel dots on a darker, more colourful picture.

Cyan, magenta and yellow dots are laid in three grids, each turned to its own angle. Where they overlap they mix, the way a CMYK press prints.

Lowering Brightness and raising Saturation first makes the inks heavier; without them the print comes out pale.

Setting	Value
Halftone	CMYK
Dot size	14
Brightness	-0.30
Saturation	2.00

Try Diamond under Shape, or move Angle to turn all three grids.

Pen and ink

Coloured circles and the word AIKIZI drawn as black crossed pen lines on white paper — Crosshatch with close lines and three layers.

Black lines on white. The darker a spot, the more line directions cross there: the dark ground gets a full mesh, the brightest parts of the circles a single set of diagonals.

Raising Contrast first pushes the circles lighter, so they stand out from the mesh.

Setting	Value
Effects	Crosshatch
Frequency	8
Layers	3
Contrast	1.40

Pick White under Color for white lines on black.

Worn tape

Coloured circles and the word AIKIZI with red and blue fringes, speckle and a bent band, like worn video tape — VHS with strong colour split, bleed and tracking, and more vignette.

Red and blue slide apart, rows shake sideways, speckle flickers and a rolling band bends the picture. VHS moves all the time, so every frame differs.

A stronger vignette darkens the corners, like an old screen.

Setting	Value
Effects	VHS
Chroma	0.90
Color bleed	0.70
Tracking	0.80
Vignette	0.60

Save the frame you like; the next one will differ.