Vintage VHS LUT — Free Retro Tape Look

Analogue tape did three things at once: it lifted the blacks until they went milky, it dragged a green-cyan cast through the shadows, and it let the reds bleed past their edges. This LUT does all three. It is not a subtle grade — subtle would just look like a faded photo, which is not what anyone means by "VHS".

What it looks like

Blacks lift well off zero and take a green-cyan cast. Contrast drops, highlights bloom early rather than clipping, and reds oversaturate the way tape chroma used to. Overall saturation comes down so the red bleed is the thing you notice.

What it's good for

• Music videos and short-form — the look reads instantly at thumbnail size

• Retro and Y2K aesthetics — pairs with 4:3 crops and a bit of grain

• Flashback and memory sequences — the visual shorthand everyone already understands

• Skate and lifestyle — the format the genre was born on

Push it further

A tape look is more than colour. Add grain, soften the image slightly, and crop to 4:3 if the edit allows it. If you want the bloom heavier, halation does the glow around highlights that tape did naturally.

Dial it back

This one is deliberately strong. If it's too much for your footage, drop the LUT's opacity to 50–70% — the opacity visualiser shows what each level does before you commit.