This is Grain Fonda. This is a PowerGrade for DaVinci Resolve Studio (paired with a LUT and a big pack of overlays/textures) that I've built to emulate VHS, authentically.
I've basically spent 4 years making this. I had 2 goals:
1. Build a color grading workflow that would make my videos (or at least portions of them) authentically feel like you put in an edutainment VHS tape instead of clicking on a YouTube video.
2. Not be too harsh as to turn off viewers entirely. Having people who don't "get it" with my style is acceptable, having the entire video just be too distracting/obnoxious is not.
This was quite difficult. I spent the first couple years trying to just print my videos to VHS tapes with different methods, then capture them back and try to massage the original and the tape version with scaling and blending, but I felt like it always ventured "too far."
The second half of the time was spent trying to emulate the colors and some of the artifacts, without being too distracting.
This meant meticulously analyzing both clean and damaged VHS tapes' artifacts, experimenting with effects to recreate them in Resolve - which originally required a combination of plugins that meant I could not distribute the look and it would take FOREVER to render, processing at around 1-1.5FPS on both my Mac Studio (M2 Ultra) and my Threadripper Pro + 4090 PC.
Finally, I found some recipes from past films that emulated VHS looks in VFX software and combined that with my work printing color charts and LUT generators to VHS and capturing them back, and produced the PowerGrade you see today.
LOG/RAW footage works best for this, but you can absolutely use it with normal Rec709 footage too - just be sure to set the Rec709/2.4 Gamma in that first CST node (tutorial included in the download).
As always, remember: Effects like this work best when you shoot with the style in mind. Slapping a VHS look on completely flat, modern-looking footage will only go so far. Style is heavily carried by decisions made before you copy footage from your SD card.
This can also work with gameplay footage. Again, would work best with native HDR captures for the dynamic range - but normal gameplay footage could work, too. Just keep in mind that HUD elements and UI will get funky! Also you may need to play with the exposure compensation nodes, as normal gameplay will trend a little dark - but I think it still looks great!
Judy was meant to be seen on VHS.
I also included a pretty massive pack of overlays and textures that you can use with your footage when you REALLY wanna sell the messy VHS look, but for the subtle approach, I think the Grade stands on its own.
Ultimately, this is a tool I built for me. I was tired of the "cheese" of plugins and built-in effects for achieving a realistic VHS look and wanted one that was convincing. But, since it's widely accepted that plugin effects for VHS looks aren't realistic enough, I figured I'd share it on the shop, too! Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy!