Do you like the grunge look of interference on old VHS tapes? There are many ways to recreate these effects on images and you can even recreate the animation from a static image using the Animated VHS Creation Kit tool.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to recreate the effect of VHS interference on your images using only standard Photoshop tools.
So let’s get started!
The final result:
1. Create a New Document
Step 1
Create a new working document (Ctrl + N) with the following dimensions: 1500 x 1000 px; 300 dpi resolution.
Step 2
Next, go File – Post (File> Place) and in the window that appears, select the source image to add to the working document.
Note: You can download the image from the link at the beginning of the lesson or use any source image of your choice.
Step 3
Apply scaling to the image to the size of the working document, and then press the ‘Enter’ key.
Step 4
Press the ‘T’ key to add text to the upper right corner of the image.
Step 5
Press ‘U’, select tool Polygon 
(Polygon Tool), in the control panel of this tool, set the number of sides: 3 to draw a triangle shape. Position the triangle shape as shown in the screenshot below:
Step 6
Hold down the ‘Shift’ key, select all the layers in the layers palette, then right-click on the selected layers and select the option in the menu that appears Merge layers (Merge Layers).
Step 7
Now, right-click on the merged layer and select the option in the menu that appears. Convert to smart object (Convert to Smart Object).
Step 8
Create four duplicate layers, to do this, right-click on the layer with the smart object and select the option in the menu that appears. Duplicate layer (Duplicate).
2. Create Effects
Step 1
Turn off the visibility of all layers except the first two. Next, double-click on the second layer and in the window that appears, remove the check marks in the boxes Green (Green) and Blue (Blue) feeds.
Step 2
Press the ‘V‘ key while holding the ‘Shift’ key, move the second layer 30 px to the right.
Step 3
Turn on the visibility of the third layer, in the same way as in the previous step, turn off the channels Red (Red) and Green (Green). Next, hold down the ‘Shift’ key and move this layer 20 px to the left.
Step 4
Turn on the visibility of the fourth layer, and then go Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Hue / Saturation (Layer> New Adjustments Layer> Hue / Saturation).
Step 5
Double click on the adjustment layer to change the value Saturation (Saturation) to +100.
As you can see, the effect of saturation has been applied to the entire image, and we need to apply saturation only on some parts of the image.
Step 6
Right-click on the adjustment layer. Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation) and in the window that appears select the option Create clipping mask (Create Clipping Mask), therefore, the correction of the correction layer will be applicable only to the lower layer.
Step 7
Now add a layer mask to the fourth layer.
Step 8
Hold the ‘Alt’ key and click on the layer mask thumbnail to open it. Fill the mask with black.
Step 9
Press the ‘M’ key, and then create rectangular selections where you would like to apply the effect. Fill the created rectangles with white.
Thus, we applied the effect of saturation only on certain parts of the image:
Step 10
Add a layer mask to the fifth layer, fill the mask with black. Next, create a large white rectangle just above the center of the image.
Step 11
Hold down the ‘Shift’ key and move this layer down by 600 px.
Step 12
Let’s go Filter – Blur – Motion Blur (Filter> Blur> Motion Blur). Set the following settings: Angle (Angle): 15 °; Bias (Distance): 15.
Step 13
Let’s add a slight distortion to the image. Let’s go Filter – Distortion – Twisting (Filter> Distortion> Twirl). Set the following settings: Angle (Angle): 50 °.
Step 14
Right-click on the adjustment layer. Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation) and in the window that appears select the option Duplicate layer (Duplicate). Next, move the duplicate of the adjustment layer to the top, placing it on top of the fifth layer, and then convert the duplicate of the adjustment layer into a clipping mask.
The result after all the manipulations should be as in the screenshot below:
3. Create a VHS Texture
Step 1
Create a new layer (Shift + Control + N), fill it with white.
Step 2
Next, go Filter – Filter Gallery – Sketch (Filter> Filter Gallery> Sketch). Select thumbnail type Halftone pattern (Halftone Pattern). Set the following settings: The size (Size): 2; Contrast (Contrast): 2.
Step 3
Double click on the layer to apply the following settings in the window Overlay options (Blending Mode): blending mode Overlap (Overlay); Opacity (Opacity): 25%. Disable channels Red (Red) and Blue (Blue).
Step 4
Duplicate the texture. Using the free transform (Ctrl + T), hold down the ‘Shift’ key, rotate the duplicate texture layer by 90 °, and scale to the size of the working document.
Step 5
Double click on the layer to apply the following settings in the window Overlay options (Blending Mode): blending mode Normal (Normal); Opacity (Opacity): 15%. Disable channels Green (Green) and Blue (Blue).
Step 6
Press ‘U’, select tool Rectangle 
(Rectangle Tool). Create a shape with the following dimensions: Width (Width): 1800 px; Height (Height): 120 px.
Step 7
Click on the layer with a rectangle and in the appeared menu select the option Rasterize layer (Rasterize Layer).
Step 8
Next, go Filter – Noise – Add Noise (Filter> Noise> Add Noise). Set the following settings: Effect (Amount): 400%; Distribution (Distribution): Uniform (Uniform); Tick in the box Monochrome (Monochromatic).
Step 9
Next, go Filter – Blur – Motion Blur (Filter> Blur> Motion Blur). Set the following settings: Angle (Angle): 0 °; Bias (Distance): 20 px.
Step 10
Let’s go Image – Correction – Brightness / Contrast (Image> Adjustments> Brightness / Contrast). Set the following settings: Brightness (Brightness): 150; Contrast (Contrast): 100.
Step 11
While on a layer with a rectangle, press the keys (Ctrl + I) to invert the color shades of the texture with noise, and then change the blending mode to Lightening basics (Color Dodge).
Step 12
Duplicate the noise strip several times. Holding down the ‘Shift’ key, move the duplicate layers, placing them in different places of the image.
Step 13
Create a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N), fill this layer with black color.
Step 14
Let’s go Filter – Noise – Add Noise (Filter> Noise> Add Noise). Set the following settings: Effect (Amount): 400%; Distribution (Distribution): Uniform (Uniform); Tick in the box Monochrome (Monochromatic).
Step 15
Now we will add the effect of the Colored tile, for this we go Filter – Filter Gallery – Color Tiles (Filter> Filter Gallery> Patchwork). Set the following settings for this filter: Square size (Square Size): 0; Relief (Relief): 0.
Step 16
Let’s go Image – Correction – Threshold (Image> Adjustments> Threshold). Install Brightness threshold (Threshold Level) 240.
Step 17
Double click on the layer to apply the following settings in the window Overlay options (Blending Mode): blending mode Lightening (Screen); Opacity (Opacity): 100%. Disable channels Red (Red) and Blue (Blue).
Step 18
Now we need to duplicate the layer. To duplicate the layer, turn on the channels Red (Red) and Blue (Blue) and also disable the channel Green (Green).
Step 19
Hold ‘Shift’ and move this new layer 60 px to the right.
Step 20
Create a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N), fill this layer with black color. Reduce value Fillings (Fill) for this layer to 0%.
Step 21
Double-click on this layer and in the appeared window of the blending options, select the layer style. Stroke (Stroke). Set the following settings: The size (Size): 25 px; Position (Position): Inside (Inside); Stroke color (Color): black.
Step 22
Now we need to rasterize the layer style. To do this, right-click on the layer and select the option in the menu that appears. Rasterize Layer Style (Rasterize Layer Style).
Step 23
Next, go Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur (Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur). Install Radius (Radius) blur: 4 px.
Step 24
Holding down the ‘Shift’ key, apply the scaling to the created frame (Ctrl + T) to the borders of the working document.
4. Color Correction
Step 1
Now we need to make a small color correction so that our image is more like “VHS”. Let’s go Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Curves (Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Curves).
Step 2
Duplicate the curve adjustment layer, place the curves on top of the first layer.
Step 3
Double click on the icon of the first adjustment layer Curves (curves). Set the curves as shown in the screenshot below:
Step 4
Now double click on the adjustment layer. Curves (curves) in the layers palette to reduce Opacity (Opacity) curves up to 35%.
Step 5
Double click on the second adjustment layer Curves (curves) and in the curve settings window, select the standard Photoshop preset Strong contrast (Strong Contrast).
Great job! We have completed the lesson!
Using simple steps, we can create the effect of VHS interference on any photo using the standard tools of the Photoshop program.
The final result:
You can also see the animation that was created using the Animated VHS Creation Kit tool using the same image.
Posted by: Ivan Gromov
