The CRT look
The CRT look puts footage back inside a cathode‑ray‑tube television: soft horizontal scanlines, a gentle phosphor bloom on highlights, faintly rounded geometry and warm, low‑contrast colour. Lost Media Emulator builds it from a real tube model of mask, beam and bloom, so the picture glows like curved glass on macOS or in Premiere Pro.
What a CRT does to the image
A cathode‑ray tube paints the picture as glowing horizontal lines through a shadow mask, so highlights bloom and fine detail softens. The screen’s curve and the beam’s warmth give old footage its unmistakable living‑room glow.
- Scanlines, visible horizontal lines from the electron beam’s passes
- Phosphor bloom, bright areas glow and spread into their surroundings
- Shadow / slot mask, the fine RGB triad texture of the tube
- Rounded geometry and slight edge vignetting from the curved glass
- Warm, lower‑contrast colour with a soft highlight roll‑off


How to get the CRT look
Apply the CRT preset and choose how strong the tube reads, subtle scanlines for a hint of glass, heavy mask and bloom for a full retro display. Drive it on whole clips, game capture or stills, and keep it editable until you export.
- Mac app: load any clip or still, pick CRT, set scanline strength and bloom, export ProRes or H.264 on macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple Silicon.
- Premiere Pro / After Effects: drop the panel on a clip and keyframe the mask and glow over time on Premiere Pro / After Effects 2023 or later.
- Pair it with VHS for a tape‑played‑on‑a-tube chain, or keep it clean for a sharp reference‑monitor feel.
Consumer CRT vs PVM reference monitor
Not every tube looks the same. A living‑room CRT is soft and warm with a coarse shadow mask; a broadcast PVM/BVM is tight, bright and accurate with a fine aperture grille. Lost Media Emulator ships both so you can match the screen, not just ‘a CRT’.
- Part of a 91‑look library with 97 controls
- Real‑time GPU preview on Apple Silicon
- Non‑destructive, the original is untouched until export
CRT, answered.
- Can I add CRT scanlines in Premiere Pro?
- Yes. The Premiere Pro / After Effects extension applies the CRT look, scanlines, mask and bloom, non‑destructively on your timeline, with every parameter keyframeable.
- Are the scanlines a real tube model or an overlay?
- A model. The mask, beam bloom and geometry are generated for your footage, so highlights bloom and the lines react to the picture instead of a static line texture laid on top.
- Is the CRT look good for retro game capture?
- Yes, it’s a common use. Feed in gameplay capture and the shadow mask and bloom give it an authentic tube‑display feel rather than crisp flat pixels.
- How much does it cost?
- The CRT look ships inside the full 91‑look library, a one‑time purchase from $39, no subscription.
