Effect catalog
183 effect types, 177 of them GPU shaders. Every numeric parameter on every one of them is keyframeable, and the folders below are the folders in the Effects browser — searching by name is usually faster, but the grouping is what to scan when you do not yet know what you are looking for.
This count is derived, not written. scripts/featureCounts.cjs in the editor
repository reads EffectType — the union the renderer dispatches on — and a
test fails the build when the documented number disagrees with it. If this
page says 183 and the app shows more, the page is behind.
Since 0.7, effects render on the GPU. 177 of the 183 are shaders on the
same render graph the export uses, so footage with effects or motion tracks
plays at full speed instead of dropping to a per-frame CPU bake. Six still
bake: Vegas, Numbers, Timecode, Audio Spectrum, Audio Waveform and
Lightning. The viewport HUD lists whichever of them are on the current
frame under cpu fx. Noise- and particle-based effects keep their controls
and density but land in a different random arrangement than before 0.7.
Blur & Sharpen (15)
blur · sharpen · directional-blur · gaussian-blur · fast-box-blur ·
radial-blur · compound-blur · channel-blur · unsharp-mask ·
bilateral-blur · smart-blur · camera-lens-blur · vector-blur ·
radial-fast-blur · cross-blur
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| blur | Radius |
| directional-blur | Angle, distance |
| sharpen | Amount |
compound-blur takes a second layer as its blur map, so the amount of blur varies per pixel — that is the one to reach for when a uniform blur looks flat. bilateral-blur and smart-blur preserve edges while smoothing everything between them, which is what makes them the skin and noise tools rather than the defocus ones.
Color Correction (33)
exposure · vibrance · colorama · lumetri · selective-color ·
shadow-highlight · apply-color-lut · brightness · contrast ·
saturate · grayscale · sepia · hue-rotate · hue-saturation ·
invert · levels · curves · posterize · tint · channel-mixer ·
color-balance · gamma-pedestal-gain · photo-filter · black-and-white ·
tritone · equalize · auto-levels · auto-contrast · auto-color ·
change-color · change-to-color · leave-color · toner
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| levels | Input black/white, gamma, output black/white |
| curves | A full tone curve — see the curve editor |
| hue-saturation | Hue, saturation, lightness |
| channel-mixer | The full 12-coefficient matrix, plus a monochrome switch |
| tint | Map black and white to two colours |
apply-color-lut runs on the GPU as a strip texture, so a .cube grade costs
about what a colour matrix costs. leave-color and change-to-color are
the selective ones: they read all three channels per output channel, which is
why they cannot be reduced to a lookup table the way the rest of this folder
can.
The four auto effects — Equalize, Auto Levels, Auto Contrast and Auto Color — read the frame’s histogram, so their result depends on the image and not only on their settings. That is also why they are recomputed rather than cached as a lookup.
Stylize (35)
mosaic · find-edges · roughen-edges · turbulent-noise · add-grain ·
median · glow · drop-shadow · inner-shadow · inner-glow · satin ·
bevel · noise · threshold · emboss · scatter · radial-shadow ·
cartoon · brush-strokes · strobe-light · color-emboss · halftone ·
kaleidoscope · vignette · burn-film · dust-scratches · noise-alpha ·
glass · texturize · threads · chromatic-aberration · hex-tile ·
cc-repetile · cc-scatterize · plastic
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| glow | Radius, colour, intensity |
| inner-glow | Radius, colour, intensity — inside the alpha edge |
| drop-shadow | Distance, angle, softness, colour, opacity |
| inner-shadow | Same, cast inward |
| bevel | Depth, angle, softness |
| satin | Distance, size, colour |
The inner variants plus bevel and satin are the Photoshop-style
layer-effect family — reach for them on type and logos, where an outer shadow
would separate the mark from its background. The same nine are also available as
layer styles, which is usually the
better route when you want one of each.
strobe-light is the only effect here that differs per frame by design; everything else time-varying in this folder takes a keyframed phase instead, so it stays cacheable.
Generate (26)
lens-flare · numbers · timecode · audio-spectrum · checkerboard ·
grid · cell-pattern · vegas · fill · stroke · beam ·
four-color-gradient · gradient-ramp · fractal-noise · circle ·
ellipse · radio-waves · lightning · light-rays · light-sweep ·
audio-waveform · star-burst · snowfall · rainfall · write-on ·
light-burst
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| gradient-ramp | Start and end points and colours, ramp shape |
| four-color-gradient | Four positioned colour points |
| fractal-noise | Scale, complexity, evolution |
| fill | A flat colour |
| stroke | Draws along a path |
| beam | Direction, length, width, colour |
fractal-noise with an animated evolution is the standard base for organic backgrounds, smoke and energy. Pair it with displacement-map to push other layers around with it. vegas runs lights along the layer’s own alpha contour, so it traces artwork you already have rather than a path you draw.
Distort (31)
transform · bulge · twirl · spherize · corner-pin · bezier-warp ·
wave-warp · turbulent-displace · curl-noise · displacement-map ·
motion-tile · bend · polar-coordinates · optics-compensation ·
mesh-warp · liquify · mirror · offset · ripple · magnify ·
warp · page-turn · split · slant · smear · rolling-shutter ·
flo-motion · lens · griddler · ball-action · drizzle
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| displacement-map | A layer parameter, plus horizontal and vertical scale |
| wave-warp | Wave type, height, width, speed |
| turbulent-displace | Amount, size, complexity, evolution |
| motion-tile | Tile width/height, output width/height, phase, mirror edges |
| bezier-warp | Four cubic edges, with a Coons-patch interior |
| transform | A second, keyframeable transform applied inside the effect stack — so it composites after the effects above it |
transform is more useful than it sounds: it lets you scale or rotate a layer
after an effect has been applied, rather than before, which is the difference
between scaling a blur and blurring a scale.
mesh-warp and liquify give you a grid and a brush over the same idea — push pixels without moving the layer. optics-compensation inverts real lens distortion rather than approximating it, so adding and removing it round-trips.
Keying (18)
set-matte · simple-choker · linear-color-key · shift-channels ·
keylight · luma-key · minimax · color-key · color-range ·
extract · spill-suppressor · matte-choker · alpha-levels ·
solid-composite · channel-combiner · remove-color-matting · unmult ·
cc-composite
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| keylight | Screen colour, screen balance and gain, clip black/white, despill, choke, matte softness |
| set-matte | A layer parameter, plus use-luminance and invert. GPU-only — the bake path cannot reach a sibling layer, and the interface says so rather than offering a control that does nothing |
| simple-choker | Grows or shrinks the matte edge |
Keying is best done on an adjustment layer or a pre-comp when you also want to grade the result — otherwise the grade fights the key’s edge handling.
Time (4)
echo · posterize-time · wide-time · force-motion-blur
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| echo | Number of echoes, time between, decay — temporal trails |
| posterize-time | Target frame rate — stepped, animated-on-twos motion |
| wide-time | Forward steps and backward steps — echoes in both directions |
| force-motion-blur | Overrides the composition and layer motion-blur switches for this layer, with its own shutter |
These four are not part of the per-layer effect chain: they route through the
renderer’s time plumbing, because each one needs frames other than the one
being drawn. Echo samples earlier frames, so it needs motion to show anything.
posterize-time is how you get a hand-animated cadence out of smooth
interpolation.
Transition (15)
venetian-blinds · gradient-wipe · card-wipe · linear-wipe ·
radial-wipe · block-dissolve · iris-wipe · light-wipe · line-sweep ·
grid-wipe · jaws · pixel-polly · twister · card-dance ·
scale-wipe
| Effect | Key parameters |
|---|---|
| linear-wipe | Angle, completion, feather |
| gradient-wipe | Completion, softness, invert gradient |
| card-wipe | Completion, rows, columns, flip order |
Every one of these is driven by a completion parameter, so a transition is one keyframed property rather than a pair of clips — which is what lets it sit anywhere in the stack, including on an adjustment layer.
gradient-wipe has no “Gradient Layer” picker, deliberately. After Effects lets you nominate another layer as the map; this runs on a bake path that is handed one layer’s buffer and cannot reach a sibling, and a picker that persists, keyframes and does nothing is worse than its absence. The wipe is driven by the layer’s own luminance — which is also what After Effects does when no map is chosen — so put a Ramp or Fractal Noise below it in the stack to get the full effect.
Perspective (5)
bevel-alpha · bevel-edges · spotlight · sphere · cylinder
The pseudo-3D family: they shade a flat layer as though it had a surface, and they do not need the layer’s 3D switch. For real depth — a layer standing in space, lit by real lights — see 3D layers.
Channel (1)
arithmetic
Per-channel maths against a constant. It lives apart from Color Correction deliberately: that folder is about grading, this is about arithmetic.
Plugins
An eleventh folder appears only when an installed plugin contributes effects, and its entries carry the plugin’s name — two plugins may both ship a “Glow”. A plugin effect needs the WebGPU tier; on the WebGL2 fallback it renders its input unchanged rather than rendering something wrong, and the folder says so. See Plugins.
Looks
Twenty-five preset stacks are built on top of these effects and applied like any other preset — Teal & Orange, Bleach Bypass, Faded Film, Night Grade, Cross Process, Anamorphic Bokeh, Comic Book, Newsprint, Chromatic Lens and a set of transitions among them. They are ordinary effect stacks once applied, so open one up and retune it. See Animation presets.
Some effects are GPU-only and are skipped by the Canvas2D preview path used for library and template cards. The card previews geometry and timing accurately, not every filter — the canvas and the export are the truth. See How a frame is rendered.