Here’s How To Make Filters Your Friends While Editing Videos
Ever wonder what went behind the 2020s craze for VSCO filters? Filters not only create a tonality of the time period but can enhance the content of your images or videos depending on which ones you use. If you need time to understand color saturations, here’s a guide on which filter to make your film, oh, so fine!
Ask any 90’s kid and they will agree the maximum options they chose from about 10-20 years ago was only between sepia or black & white. While we are spoilt for options now, how does one really choose the filter that can better spotlight our video? Why do Buzzfeed’s Tasty dishes look so good but ours does not? Choosing the right filter for your video need not be as complicated as choosing to swipe right or left on that Tinder profile. We show you how:
Stick To Negatives Once In A While
Once you log on to illusto’s online video editing platform, cruise the options available in the Filters section. While we love the look of Negative Film, the filter itself is restricted in usage to only emphasizing dramatic scenes, maybe a flashback introduction.
Embrace Summer
Meanwhile, the absolutely gorgeous filter of Summer gives the video a warm, breezy look that is ideal for emotional scenes, maybe a wedding video or a video with nature as the key subject. Winter is well suited for videos that show a lot more movement.
Polish It Up
The Clear and Bright is a standard filter that can polish up your video especially if you did not adjust the camera settings before taking the footage; it also works when you have a dull color tone to your video from the lack of sunlight.
The Green Tea works the reverse way, offering to dilute the lighter parts of the video while bringing down the sharpness of colors in brighter hues. It works best for colorful videos if you have serious messaging, for example, a Public Service Announcement would go great with this filter.
Get ‘Funky’
We love the ‘Funky’ filter because it enhances the hues already present to create a more vibrant look for your edited video. This filter fits well on food and dance videos, especially if your publishing platform of choice is Instagram.
illusto’s Favourite Is…
Our in-house editor’s personal favorite is the SkyBlue filter that gives a light bluesy look to your video, paired best with music videos, musical performances, and travel videos, specifically treks, and beaches. This filter attempts to give a blue lens-covering kind of look to your videos to create an unnatural but soothing effect.
Create Some Intensity!
The FreshWarm filter works almost the same as the sepia tone we used when we were kids. It’s best used when showing timelines or emotional scenes of a short film. It also creates an intensity that grows great with suspenseful videos, for example, if a protagonist is on the search for something in your short film. Pair it well with music!
Add That ‘Quality’
The final filter that you just cannot go wrong with is Quality as the name suggests, goes well with any video if you didn’t know which one to choose from. This filter can also enhance any videos from the past if you have footage that is older than made after the 90s! Bonus tip: The Black&White and DarkGold work well to recreate newer footage to give an older retro look!
LUT Guide:
This common industry acronym, a boon for some, is basically, “Lookup Table”; a table that samples the color gradations available via the filter section for your usage. With over a dozen filters available, you can now play with the colors to see which enhances your video best.
It’s important to experiment with every filter before making a selection. illusto’s filters are pretty easy to use: Simply select the one you want, then drag and drop it down to your footage to check how it looks. You can add multiple filters to the same frame by controlling the time each filter lasts. This helps compare every filter and assess what works best for your edited video. Easy right?
Now get going!
