Guides/Picture
Effects, filters and transitions
The Library pages for looks and effects, and the one thing to know: a single click auditions, a double-click or the plus applies.
Concat ships 170+ effects, filters, transitions and text animations, rendered on the GPU and shown live in the monitor. They live on three Library pages. What a click does differs by page, which is the thing that trips people up.
| Page | Single click | Double-click or the card’s plus | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Filters | Auditions the look over the whole picture, without placing it | Lays the look down as a layer at the playhead | Nothing selected |
| Effects | Adds the effect to the selected clip | Same | One selected video, image or text clip (audio effects: a clip with sound) |
| Transitions | Puts the transition on the cut between two selected clips | Same | Two selected clips that meet on the same track |
Filters
Filters are colour looks: Everyday, Cinematic, Portrait, Food, Scenery, Retro, Film, Black & White, Vibe, Tone, Clean, Color, and an Imported shelf for your own LUTs.
Click a card and the look appears over the picture so you can compare; click it again to take it off. The first time, a toast explains: “Showing the look over the picture. Double-click the card, or its plus, to lay it on the timeline.”
A laid-down filter is a layer clip: it treats everything under it for as long as it runs. Trim it on the timeline to change what it covers; stack two for a combined grade. Select the layer and its Filter tab has a Strength slider and a Ramp in and Ramp out.
Import a LUT (.cube), on the Filters toolbar, reads a .cube table from Resolve or anywhere
else and files it under Imported.
Effects
The Effects page has two headings in its left column: Video Effects (Basic, Blur, Distort, Glitch, Light, Stylize and more) and Audio Effects (Voice, Space, Tone). Select a clip on the timeline first, then click a card. The Inspector jumps to the clip’s Effects tab (or Audio › Sound for an audio effect), where the effect sits in the clip’s chain with its knobs.
The chain runs top to bottom. Reorder with the chevrons, bypass one with its eye, remove it with the cross. Any knob with a diamond can be keyframed; see keyframes. The Effects tab also has an Effect library of its own, with search, a shelf picker and a Favourites star filter: hover a tile in either library and press its star to favourite it.
Chroma key, luma key, colour wheels, curves, contrast, saturation and white balance are effects too; the first three are also built into every clip’s Video tab, under Remove background and Adjust.
Transitions
- Select the two clips that meet, in either order (Shift-click the second).
- Open the Library’s Transitions page and click a card: Dissolve, Wipe, Slide, Zoom, Spin, Glitch, Light, Blur and the rest.
The transition sits on the cut. A small button at the head of the second clip opens it; drag it to change the duration, or select it and use the Duration knob in the Inspector, where Remove also lives. Both clips need at least a frame of handle; the app says so when there is no room.
Your own effects
Effects are packages, and a package of your own goes in Concat’s effects folder. The Effects page gets a Reload custom effects button once one is there, so a package written or dropped in while the app runs shows up without a restart, and one that will not load says why. The community shares packages in the ConcatApp/assets repository.