Multiple effects conflict or do not combine correctly

Symptoms

If one or more of these match what you are seeing, you are on the right page.

• •Adding a second effect appears to remove the first
• •The same two effects look different in another project
• •Effects look correct individually and wrong together
• •Performance collapses once several effects are stacked

Causes and fixes

Ordered from most to least likely. Work down the list — each cause is paired with what to do about it.

1. 1

   The filters are in the wrong order.

   Drag the grab handle on a filter row to reorder. Color grading before halftone renders the halftone in the graded colors; after it, the grade adjusts the already-halftoned result.

2. 2

   A later filter is obscuring an earlier one.

   Blur, pixelate and posterize destroy fine detail that earlier filters created. Move detail-creating filters after the destructive ones, or reduce the destructive filter’s opacity.

3. 3

   Filter opacity is being treated as on/off.

   Each filter has its own opacity from 0 to 100%. Below 100% the effect blends with the unfiltered result beneath it, which is how you get a softened version of any filter rather than an all-or-nothing application.

4. 4

   Too many effects require offscreen buffers at once.

   Non-Normal blend modes, blur, some distortions, isolated groups and alpha masks each need an intermediate buffer. Enough of them together cause slowdowns and, in extreme cases, quality reduction. Use Profile Element to see the count.

5. 5

   A filter is disabled rather than absent.

   The eye toggle on a filter row disables it without removing it. Check for a disabled filter before adding a duplicate.

Related pages