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Effects.

The Effects tab is Grapple's library: grades, blurs, glows, finishing touches and more. Drop one on a layer, key its values like any other property, and confine it to the part of the picture it's meant for.

Add an effect

  1. Open the Effects tab, beside the Inspector. Select an item to read what it does. Search filters the list (Ctrl+F), and Recently used keeps what you reach for at the top.
  2. Drag the effect onto a layer. Or select the layer, then double-click the effect or press Enter. With no layer selected, it applies to the whole composition.
  3. Its section appears under the layer's Effects in the Inspector. Key any of its values with the diamond.

The effect stack

Effects apply in their processing order, top to bottom. Each effect's menu has:

Move earlier, Move later
Change where it sits in the order. You can also drag an effect up or down.
Bypass
Switches it off without removing it, so you can compare. Turn it back on the same way.
Reset
Puts every value back to where it started.
Remove
Takes it off the layer. Undo brings it back.

Confine an effect

Every effect has Limit to: the Whole image, one of the footage's masks, or a Matte, with Invert to apply it outside instead of inside. Grade a person and leave the background as it was, or blur the background and keep the person sharp. Masks come from the footage's Masks section; see Masks and roto.

Save presets

Set an effect up the way you like, then choose Save as in its menu and name it. It's listed under Project presets in the Effects tab, ready to add like any effect. Manage saved presets renames or deletes them. Presets belong to the project they're saved in.

Adjustment layers

Choose Edit, Add to composition, New Adjustment Layer. Effects on an adjustment layer apply to everything below it, so one grade or one blur covers a run of shots.

Finishing

Grade
Wheels, curves and LUTs in one effect. See Colour and Scopes.
Grain
Film grain for elements you add, so they sit with footage that has its own. Amount, Size, Softness, Mono, a Response to brightness, and a Seed: another seed gives the same character in a different pattern.
Light wrap
Lets the background's light spill around an element's edges, so it sits in the shot. Width and Intensity.
Vignette
Darkens toward the edges. Amount, Centre, Radius and Feather.
Glow
Adds a glow around bright areas. Threshold, Radius, Intensity and Color.

Effects Ape builds

Ape uses the same effects you do, in the same stack. For a look the library doesn't have, describe the result and the values you want to change, such as "a chromatic split on the cut at 0:12, strong for four frames, with a control for its strength". Ape can write it as a GLSL shader or a Python program, with its values as controls you can key.

Write your own

GLSL shaders
A function that returns a colour for each pixel, on your graphics card.
Python programs
Filters on NumPy frames, shape generators and controllers.
Property expressions
A rule on one value.