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Post effects are composited onto the canvas after ASCII characters are drawn. Each effect adds an analog or CRT-era quality to the output. You can enable any combination of effects independently, and most have an intensity slider to dial in the amount. Because post effects are applied at the canvas level, they are included in any PNG or GIF you export.
Post effects are applied at the canvas level after ASCII characters are drawn, so they are baked into PNG and GIF exports at every scale setting. SVG export re-renders character positions and colors directly from source data and does not include post effects. ANSI and TXT exports also omit post effects since they carry no pixel-level image data.

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Bloom

Enable the Bloom checkbox to add a soft glow around bright characters. Bloom works by blurring a copy of the canvas at 1.1× brightness and compositing it back using the lighter blend mode. The result brightens already-bright areas and creates a halo effect around lit characters. Intensity slider: 0–1.5 (default 0.55 when enabled) Higher intensity values increase the brightness of the halo. At values above 1.0, the glow becomes quite prominent and can wash out fine detail — useful for neon or matrix aesthetics.

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Scanlines

Enable the Scanlines checkbox to draw semi-transparent black lines every 2 pixels across the canvas, mimicking the horizontal scan lines of a CRT monitor. Intensity slider: 0–1 (default 0.35 when enabled) At low intensity the lines are barely visible and add subtle depth. At high intensity (0.7+) they become dark banding that strongly evokes an old monitor.

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Vignette

Enable the Vignette checkbox to apply a radial gradient that darkens the corners of the canvas while leaving the center unaffected. Intensity slider: 0–1 (default 0.8 when enabled) The gradient runs from fully transparent at the center to the intensity value as the alpha of a black overlay at the edges. At 0.8 (the default) the corners are significantly darkened, which draws the eye to the center and increases perceived depth.

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Chromatic aberration

Enable the Chromatic aberration checkbox to shift the red channel 3 pixels to the left and the blue channel 3 pixels to the right. This produces color fringing at edges, similar to a lens with chromatic aberration or an analog CRT whose electron guns are slightly misaligned. There is no intensity slider — the effect is fixed at a 3-pixel offset. Enable or disable it with the checkbox.

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Film grain

Enable the Film grain checkbox to add random per-pixel noise at a fixed strength of 0.1. The noise is applied as an additive offset (±255 × 0.1) to each color channel independently, giving the canvas an analog texture that varies on every render. There is no intensity slider. The grain is regenerated each time the canvas re-renders.

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Combining effects for a CRT look

For the most authentic retro CRT look, apply the CRT Terminal preset (amber color mode, dark background) and then enable all five post effects: bloom, scanlines, vignette, chromatic aberration, and film grain. Bloom and scanlines at their default intensities, vignette at 0.9, and the fixed chromatic aberration together closely reproduce the warmth and wear of a phosphor terminal display.