Every Effect in Mosh-Pro

All 67 of them — what each effect does, what its controls change, and which ones need video rather than a still. Every image is the same frame with the same color grade, so the only thing changing is the effect.

How Effects Work

Effects stack. Each one you add sits in a list, and the list runs top to bottom — the first pass runs first and everything below it works on the result. That order matters as much as the values.

Everything runs in real time on the GPU up to 4K, so the fastest way to understand any of these is to drag one slider end to end and watch. Any parameter here can also be animated with modulators — keyframed, driven by an LFO, or made audio-reactive.

Reframing the Picture

Moving, scaling and rotating the frame itself.

Transform

Move, scale and rotate the frame itself. Nothing else here changes geometry, so this is how you reframe a shot, punch in on a detail, or set up a tile that repeats.

Position X / Y	where the frame sits
Scale X / Y	size, independently per axis
Angle	rotation
Repeat	tiles the frame instead of leaving empty edges

Transform 3D

The same idea in three dimensions — rotate the frame in space rather than flat on the screen. Mouse Controls lets you push it around live.

Position X / Y	where the plane sits
Rotation X / Y / Z	tilt in each axis
Scale X / Y	size per axis
Mouse Controls	drag the preview to rotate

Time-Based Effects

These build their result from several frames, so they need video. On a still there is no motion or history to work with and most will do nothing.

Data Mosh

Prefers video in Animated

The effect the app is named after. It throws away the frames that would redraw the picture and keeps the motion data, so movement smears the previous image forward instead of refreshing it. Needs video — on a still there is no motion to carry.

Amount	effect strength
Blockiness	size of the smeared blocks
Flow	how hard motion drags pixels

Decimate

Prefers video in Animated

Holds and repeats frames instead of showing every one, so motion arrives in steps. The digital equivalent of shooting on twos — useful for making smooth footage feel handmade.

Amount	effect strength
Colorize	tints the held frames
Speed	how often it updates
Scale	size of the held blocks

Optical Flow

Prefers video in Animated

Measures which way each part of the frame is moving and drags the picture along those vectors, so the image flows like liquid. Motion-reactive: the more movement in the shot, the more it does.

Amount	effect strength
Distortion	how far pixels travel
Speed	how quickly flow builds and decays

Feedback

Prefers video in Animated

Feeds the previous frame back into this one, slightly transformed each time — the video equivalent of pointing a camera at its own monitor. Produces trails, tunnels and spirals depending on how you transform each pass.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	zoom per iteration, which makes tunnels
Rotate	spin per iteration, which makes spirals
Warp	bends the feedback
Hue Shift	color cycles as it recurses

Watercolor

Prefers video in

Averages neighboring pixels into flat pools of color with soft edges, like paint bleeding on wet paper. Detail dissolves; shape and color survive.

Amount	effect strength
Flow	how strongly it runs
Direction	which way it runs

Slit Scan

Coming soon Prefers video in Animated

Builds the output from a moving slice of time rather than a single instant, so different parts of the frame come from different moments. Movement stretches into long smears; a static camera produces almost nothing.

Amount	effect strength
Slices	how many time-slices the frame is built from
Angle	direction the slices run

Displacement and Glitch

Pushing pixels around — from a gentle wobble to a torn transmission.

Luma Mesh

Prefers video in Animated

Turns brightness into height: light areas rise, dark areas sink, and the frame becomes a 3D landscape you are looking across. Strongest on footage with clear light and shade.

Mesh Opacity	visibility of the solid surface
Grid Opacity	wireframe over the surface
Luma Height	how far bright areas rise
Luma Invert	flip which tones rise
Bands Height	stepped terracing in the height
Warp Height	extra distortion of the surface
Tilt Amount	the drifting viewing angle
Tilt Speed	how fast the viewing angle drifts
Grid Color	color of the wireframe
Mouse Controls	drag the preview to change the angle

Bulge

Pushes the image outward from the center like a fisheye lens. One control, and it covers everything from a subtle lift to a full distortion.

Amount	effect strength

Slices

Animated

Cuts the frame into horizontal bands and slides them out of alignment — the classic torn-transmission look.

Amount	effect strength
Count	how many bands
Angle	rotates the cut direction
Vert Speed	vertical travel of the bands
Horiz Speed	how fast bands travel

Stretch

Animated

Grabs a region and pulls it across the frame, smearing whatever it passes over. Good for hiding something, or for making one feature dominate.

Amount	effect strength
Center	where the pull starts
Angle	direction
Wave	adds irregularity to the edge
Jaggies	adds irregularity to the edge

Jitter

Animated

Small, fast random displacement — the picture never quite settles. Subtle amounts read as an unstable signal rather than an effect.

Amount	effect strength
Speed	how fast it moves
Angle	direction of travel

Melt

Animated

Drags the image downward in irregular runs, as though the picture were sliding off the screen.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	width of the runs
Speed	how fast it flows

Wobble

Animated

A smooth rolling distortion across the whole frame — a lens made of water rather than glass.

Amount	effect strength
Size	wavelength
Speed	how fast it rolls

Wave

A single clean sine wave through the picture. More controlled than Wobble: you choose where it sits and which way it runs.

Amount	effect strength
Size	wavelength
Position	where it crosses the frame
Angle	direction

Shake

Animated

Displaces the whole frame frame-by-frame, like a camera being knocked. Small values add energy; large ones are an impact.

Amount	effect strength
Speed	how frequently

Bad TV

Animated

Analog transport warble — the picture bending as though the tracking is off. Two distortion scales, plus how fast the band travels.

Thick Distort	large horizontal displacement
Fine Distort	high-frequency jitter on top
Roll Speed	vertical travel; 0 freezes it

Soft Glitch

Animated

Gradient chromatic tearing — color pulls apart in soft bands rather than hard blocks. The gentler of the two glitches.

Amount	effect strength
Speed	how fast it changes

Hard Glitch

Animated

Chunky, hard-edged displacement at several scales at once, with color splitting. This is the aggressive one.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	size of the blocks
Color Split	how far channels separate
Speed	rate of change

Smear

Animated

Drags pixels in one direction and holds them, leaving long painted streaks behind moving areas.

Amount	effect strength
Speed	how quickly they build

Strobe

Animated

Cuts frames in and out on a beat. Set speed against your track and it becomes a rhythmic device rather than a filter.

Amount	effect strength
Speed	flashes per second
Random	irregular rather than metronomic

Light Streak

Animated

Stretches highlights into anamorphic streaks. Needs something bright in frame to catch — it works on the light, not the whole picture.

Amount	effect strength
Angle	direction
Shift	color separation along the streak

Pixel Sort

Animated

Sorts pixels by brightness within each row or column, so the image melts into ordered bands of color. A signature glitch-art look, and it runs in real time on video here.

Amount	effect strength
Threshold	which brightnesses get sorted
Vertical	sort down instead of across
Reset	clears the accumulated sort and starts again

Repetition and Symmetry

Reflecting and repeating the frame into patterns.

Mirror

Reflects one half of the frame onto the other. Instant symmetry, and where the mirror line falls changes the result completely.

Amount	effect strength
Side	which half is kept
Position	where the mirror line sits

Tile

Animated

Repeats the frame in a grid. Small sizes turn a face into a pattern; large ones just double it.

Amount	effect strength
Size	how many repeats
Offset	shifts alternate rows
Speed	animates the offset
Angle	rotates the grid

Kaleido

Mirrors the frame around a center point into wedges — the VJ staple. Almost any input becomes a symmetrical figure.

Amount	effect strength
Sides	number of wedges
Angle	rotates the pattern

Splitter

Slices the frame into strips and offsets them, with control over scale and angle. More architectural than Slices — the strips stay ordered.

Count	number of strips
Shift	how far they offset
Offset	stagger between them
Scale	size of each strip
Angle	direction of the cut

Tone and Contrast

Changing how light and dark are distributed.

Posterize

Reduces the number of tonal steps, so smooth gradients become flat bands. A screen-print look, and useful before edge-based effects.

Amount	effect strength
Levels	how many tonal steps remain

Solarize

Inverts the brightest tones while leaving the rest, the darkroom accident that became a look. Highlights go strange while shadows stay normal.

Amount	effect strength
Brightness	lifts the image before inverting
Power	how sharply the inversion kicks in
Colorize	tints the inverted range

Edges

Finds where brightness changes sharply and draws only those, turning the picture into a line drawing.

Amount	effect strength
Passthru	blends the original back behind the lines
Thickness	line weight
Edge Color	color of the lines

Bleach

Crushes contrast toward white the way over-developed film does. Highlights blow out, mid-tones lift.

Amount	effect strength

Sharpen

Increases local contrast at edges so detail reads harder. Push it and you get the crunchy over-processed look deliberately.

Amount	effect strength
Spread	how wide the sharpening reaches

Dots and Pixels

Rebuilding the picture from a limited set of marks.

Pixelate

Averages the image into rectangular blocks. The oldest digital effect there is, and still the fastest way to abstract a face.

Amount	effect strength
Horiz / Vert Pixels	block count across and down

Dot Matrix

Rebuilds the picture from a grid of dots sized by brightness — a printed halftone or a stadium display.

Amount	effect strength
Count	dots across the frame
Size	how large each dot grows
Blur	softens the dot edges

Polar

Remaps the frame into polar coordinates, wrapping the image around a center point. Straight lines become arcs.

Amount	effect strength
Radius	size of the center hole
Segments	how many repeats around the circle

8-Bit

Quantises color to a period palette and pixelates to match — a specific machine rather than a generic retro look.

Amount	effect strength
Style	which era's palette
Scale	pixel size

Half Tone

The print process: tone reproduced as dots of varying size on angled screens. CMYK mode separates the channels the way four-color printing does.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	dot size
CMYK	four-color separation rather than mono

LinoCut

Reduces the image to carved-looking marks with a directional cut, like a lino or wood print.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	size of the marks
Angle	direction of the cut

Dither

Fakes extra tones with patterned noise instead of smooth gradients — how early machines showed more colors than they had. Several patterns, each with its own texture.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	size of the dither pattern
Colorize	keep color or go mono

ASCII

Replaces the picture with characters chosen by brightness. Text terminals drew images this way decades before graphics cards, and it became the house style of the dial-up BBS scene. Seven built-in character sets, and you can type your own.

Amount	effect strength
Size	cell size — raise it to make characters legible
Colorize	tint each character from the source pixel
Char Set	which glyph ramp; longer ramps hold more tonal steps
Custom Chars	your own ramp when Char Set is Custom — darkest character first

Color

Grading, remapping and palettes.

Color Correction

The plate every other shot on this page starts from. Not a look in itself — it is what you set first so the effects above it have contrast and color to work with.

Brightness	the basics
Contrast	the basics
Saturation	the basics
Hue Offset	rotates every color
Invert	negative

Hue Cycle

Animated

Rotates every color around the wheel, optionally over time. Set Speed above zero and the whole frame cycles.

Amount	effect strength
Hue	how far colors rotate
Speed	animate the rotation

DuoTone

Maps the whole image between two colors you pick — shadows to one, highlights to the other. A fast way to force a coherent palette.

Amount	effect strength
Light Color / Dark Color	the two ends of the ramp

Rainbow

Animated

Maps brightness to a color palette so tone becomes hue. Thermal-camera territory, and it animates.

Amount	effect strength
Offset	where the ramp starts and runs
Angle	where the ramp starts and runs
Speed	animates the cycle
Palette	which color ramp

InstaColor

Preset color grades in the style of phone filters — a quick way to set a mood without building a grade by hand.

Amount	effect strength
Style	which preset

Optics

Lenses and light — what sits between the scene and the sensor.

RGB Shift

Separates the color channels spatially — the chroma misregistration of a badly-aligned tube or a cheap composite cable. A few pixels reads as retro; a lot reads as glitch art.

Amount	effect strength
Angle	axis of separation
Mode	how the split is distributed

Vignette

Darkens the corners. Almost invisible on its own and does a lot of quiet work focusing attention.

Amount	effect strength
Feather	how soft the edge of the darkening is
Roundness	circular through to rectangular
Color	what the corners darken toward

Tilt Shift

Keeps a band of the frame sharp and blurs above and below it, the way a shallow lens does. Reads as miniature.

Amount	effect strength
Position	where the sharp band sits

Barrel Blur

Simulates cheap glass — radial softening and color fringing that increase toward the frame edges.

Amount	effect strength
Invert	blur the center instead
Concave	flips the distortion

Glow

Blooms the bright areas so light spills past its edges, the way an overexposed highlight does on film.

Amount	effect strength
Cut Off	how bright a pixel must be to bloom

Blur

A straight gaussian blur. Useful on its own for depth, and as a stage inside a bigger chain.

Amount	effect strength
Distance	radius

Push Draw

Animated

Displaces the image using a map you paint yourself, so you choose exactly where the picture moves.

Amount	effect strength
RGB	displaces color channels separately
Animate	lets the map drift
Show Map	view the map you painted
Clear	start again

Screen and Film

Formats and displays — the layers that sit between the picture and the viewer, from film stock to tape to the tube it was watched on.

Super8

Animated

Home-movie film: burn marks, dust, gate weave and a frame edge. A whole format rather than a single artefact.

Burn	scorch and flare
Dust	dirt on the print
Frame	visible film gate
Roll	shutter roll between frames

The VHS effect applied to the reference frame

VHS

Animated

Tape artefacts — dropout bars, chroma noise, head-switching smear and the on-screen furniture a VCR stamps over the picture. The most complete of the retro effects.

Text	opacity of the PLAY indicator and timestamp
Static	chroma noise floor
Bars	dropout streaks
Text 1 / 2	replace the timestamp with your own

The CRT effect applied to the reference frame

CRT

A whole display in one pass: phosphor triads, screen curvature and corner vignette. Raise Scale until the triads are visible — the default is finer than most screens can show.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	size of the phosphor mask
Curve	screen bow
Vignette	corner falloff
Brightness	tube brightness

ScanLines

Simulates the raster of an old monitor — the horizontal lines a CRT drew the picture with, one scan at a time. The most recognizable signal that footage came off a screen.

Amount	effect strength
Width	line thickness
Angle	tilts the raster
Blend Mode	how lines combine with the picture

Grain

Animated

Two effects behind one Type control: Digital is pixellated sensor noise, Film is softer and clumps like emulsion. Belongs at the bottom of the chain — grain sits on the print, not inside the image.

Amount	effect strength
RGB	colored or monochrome noise
Blend Mode	how it sits over the picture

Content Layers

These bring their own picture rather than transforming what is below.

Media

Loads a second image or video as its own layer over the base — logos, textures, another clip. It composites rather than transforms, with its own blend mode and opacity.

File	the loaded file
Load	choose an image or video
Opacity	how solid the layer is
Position X / Y	where it lands
Angle	rotation
Blend Mode	how it combines with the picture below
Repeat	tiles it across the frame
Use Aspect Ratio	keeps the source proportions when scaling
Scale X / Y	size per axis

Caption

Draws text over the picture with full control over font, position and outline. Useful for titles, lyrics and lower thirds without leaving the app.

Text	what it says
Position X / Y	placement
Size	typesetting
Line Height	spacing between lines
Font	typesetting
Align	typesetting
Color	legibility over busy footage
Outline	legibility over busy footage
Outline Color	color of the outline
Opacity	how solid the text is
Blend Mode	how the text combines with the picture
Repeat	tiles the text

Color Gradient

Generates a color ramp as its own layer — linear or radial — to tint, vignette or wash the frame using any blend mode.

Amount	effect strength
ColorStops	the colors in the ramp
Radial	circular instead of linear
Angle	how the ramp lies
Position	how the ramp lies
Scale	how the ramp lies
Blend Mode	how it combines

Audio Visualizer

Requires audio in Animated

Draws the audio as bars that react to what is playing, in a bar or radial layout. Because it is a normal pass, everything else in the chain applies to it — the visualizer can be datamoshed, mirrored or run through a CRT like anything else.

Bar Count	resolution of the analysis
Radial	circular instead of a bar row
Mirror	symmetrical layout
Color 1 / 2 / 3	the gradient across the bars
Edge Damp	softens the ends
Opacity	how solid the bars are
Blend Mode	how they combine with the picture

Masking

Modifiers that cut the layer above them, so an effect applies to part of the frame rather than all of it. To mask several effects at once, put them in a group and place the mask directly below the group — it then cuts the whole group as one. See Mask Effects in the docs.

Mask

Cuts the layer above it using an image you load — white keeps, black hides. This is how you apply an effect to part of the frame instead of all of it.

File	the mask image
Load	choose the mask image
Amount	effect strength
Invert	swap what is kept and hidden
Show Mask	view the mask itself

Mask Blocks

Animated

The same idea with a generated block pattern instead of an image, so the layer above shows through in shifting rectangles.

Amount	effect strength
Scale	block size
Speed	how fast the pattern changes
Show Mask	view the mask itself

Mask Draw

A mask you paint by hand directly on the preview, for when the area you want does not match any generated shape.

Amount	effect strength
Invert	swap what is kept and hidden
Show Mask	view what you have drawn
Erase	rub out part of the drawing
Clear	start the drawing again

ChromaKey

Keys out a color — green screen, but any color you pick. Cuts the layer above wherever that color appears.

Chroma	the color to key out
Threshold	how close a pixel must be to that color to be cut
Show Mask	view the cut
Mask From	which source the key is measured from — useful when effects below have wrecked the color

Remove Background

Coming soon

Separates a person from their background automatically, no green screen needed. It is built for people specifically — it will not cut out objects, animals or scenery. Cuts the layer above to the subject.

Amount	effect strength
Expand / Feather	grow and soften the edge
Invert	keep the background instead
Show Mask	view the cut
Mask From	which source the subject is detected in

Putting Them Together

The power of Mosh-Pro is combining effects in new and interesting ways. None of them behave the same twice — each one works on whatever the pass above hands down, so the same effect at the same settings lands differently depending on what it sits under. Reorder the list and the same stack gives you a different picture. Explore, go crazy.

Any of these can be stacked, grouped and masked, and every one is driveable by audio or MIDI with modulators. For a worked example that builds one look out of seven passes, see the retro effects guide.