Generative AI
I’ve wanted for a long time to recreate the actual processing chain behind degraded video and display imagery. Most retro effects recreate analog degradation with a few familiar tricks: RGB splits, noise, scanlines, and overlay textures. I wanted to go deeper and rebuild the chain that could produce those artifacts in the first place.
Signal Loss is a Photoshop plugin built around a Source → Display → Capture pipeline. You choose where the image came from, what kind of screen it passed through, and how it was captured or transmitted. Each stage affects the image differently, so changing the path changes the character of the result.
Services
Plugin Development
Client
Videos / Visuals / Workflows
Date
2026
Context
• Retro effects are usually built from simple RGB splits, noise, scanlines, distortion, and overlay textures.
• VHS, broadcast video, CRT displays, camera capture, and transmission errors affect an image in different ways.
Problem
• Combining all of these artifacts inside one preset often produces the same generic analog look.
• I wanted the image to react differently depending on the path it went through.
Approach
• Build the effect around a signal path: Source → Display → Capture.
• Treat each part of the path separately, then let the user combine them.
Implementation
• Three Source modes: Clean, Broadcast, and VHS.
• Four Display modes: CRT TV, CRT Monitor, VGA Grid, and Early LCD.
• Three Capture modes: Direct, Camera, and Transmission.
• Signal Health controls the overall level of degradation.
• Overdrive adds glow, saturation, and chroma distortion before the main processing stages.
• Each Apply generates a new random seed, so repeated runs produce slightly different results.
Outcome
• The same image can move through many different combinations of source, display, and capture.
• Each combination produces its own mix of degradation instead of relying on a fixed preset.
• The plugin turns analog degradation into something that can be adjusted and explored directly inside Photoshop.
Reach me at thewaytoxibalba@gmail.com