If you are looking for stunning new effects to add some excitement to your editing process, then check out our list of downloadable Final Cut Pro Filters. Everything you need from Light Leaks and LUTs to Glitch and Light Ray effects.
Summary
Part 1: 15 Premium Final Cut Pro Filters to Start Using Today
1. 100 Instagram Filters
Unsurprisingly, the 100 Instagram Filters pack contains 100 Instagram-type color grades for your video projects. The pack of LUTs can be easily installed, giving you 100 cool effects to drag and drop directly to your clips or adjustment layers. (Link to adjustment layer article?)
Download 100 Instagram Filters Now
2. Shaker Filter
The Shake Filter pack contains 10 speedy shaky effects, including RGB, strobe, and blinking. These effects are perfect for use in action-filled videos, music, and events films, and showreels. Use them to add a cool effect to your sequence, or keyframe the effect to create funky transitions.
3. VHS Effects
If you want to create retro video-style effects, this is the pack for you. Containing 10 fully customizable effects, the VHS pack is uniquely and dynamically animated to give a huge range of stylistic options. Add to your videos to create a realistic vintage feel, or for a fun and exciting composition.
4. Smooth Camera Shake
Footage shot on a tripod can look a little dull, so why not give your film a handheld camera feel with this pack of 10 smooth camera shake effects. The beautiful and dynamic motion effects range from subtle drifting movement to a more dramatic look. These effects can also be built up, giving you hundreds of possible options.
Download Smooth Camera Shake Now
5. Retro Effects
Infuse your videos with a cool layer of old-school effects to create amazing stories and capture your audience’s attention. This pack comes with 10 varied colorful retro effects for FCPX that you can easily customize for your next trendy video promo or product launch.
6. Camera Focus
If you want to create dream sequences or flashbacks with a floaty camera focus feel, the Camera Focus pack is just what you need. Containing 15 stunning focus-based effects, this pack is perfect for any footage you want to give an other-worldly feel.
7. Color Grading
The Color Grading pack is perfect for boosting your Final Cut Pro grading capabilities with just a few clicks. Containing over 50 unique color grades, this LUT set is perfect for music and events videos, presentations, commercials, promotional films, and creative pieces.
8. Flicker Effects
Create cool and stylish videos with these amazing glitchy and fast flickering effects. This pack comes with 15 effects that you can combine and mix to achieve a different look that matches your style. Be original and get creative!
9. Light Leaks
Light Leaks contains 10 beautifully animated color light effects, perfect for giving your film and fantasy or dream-like quality. The bold colors and lens flare make this set of leaks stand out, and are sure to grab your audience’s attention.
10. Color LUTs
This set of striking LUT Color Effects offers a variety of tone-based looks for your compositions. Perfect for use in promotional films, trailers, and business presentations, these grading effects can not only help you grade your footage, but you can tint your films to match your brand.
11. 3D Face
If you are creating videos using a lot of images, this awesome effect could be convenient. The 3D Face generator maps the faces in images, and adds a 3D effect to the image, allowing you to move around a face rather than across it.
12. Custom Lens Flare
Creating realistic Lens Flare in Final Cut Pro can be tricky and time-consuming. With this handy effect, you can fully customize and keyframe your lens flare to get the color and look you want.
Download Custom Lens Flare Now
13. VHS Styles
This set of bold and stylized VHS style effects are brilliant for both adding a unique look to your clips, and creating cool transitional effects. The pack of 10 VHS effects is striking and is sure to impress your viewers and clients.
14. Light Studio
If you are looking for a different lighting effect that you can apply to clips, titles, or photos, look no further than the Light Studio. Make your media pop full of color and add the perfect light setting with flair to your everyday shots. Perfect for music videos or event announcements!
15. 1970’s Sparkle Effect
Create amazing disco style shimmer and sparkle for your next energetic and dynamic videos. Use these authentic-looking effects as an overlay on any footage, featuring glitter that tracks to your footage.
Download 1970’s Sparkle Effect Now
Bonus: 5 Free Final Cut Pro Filters for Editors
1. Free Glitch Effects Pack
This Free Glitch Effects pack for FCP contains 11 unique glitchy video distortion effects, perfect for horror and thriller films, music videos, and trailers. These effects are super easy to use and can be installed in minutes.
Free Glitch Effects Pack Download
2. Free XEffect Glow Darks
When you add a Glow effect to your clip, the luminance is adjusted to the highlights of your clip, adding more light to the lighter areas. By isolating low luminance, the Glow Darks effect does the same thing, but the darker areas of your clip.
Free XEffect Glow Darks Download
3. Free XEffects Color Rays
Color Rays is an awesome effect that can make your video, images, and graphics stand out and, quite literally, shine. The effect adds rays of light projecting from the luminance in your image toward the camera. You can also control the direction, intensity, and color of the effect.
Free XEffects Color Rays Download
4. Free Blur Focus
Add amazing blur detail to your footage to direct your viewer’s attention with 5 types of blurs you can choose from – Gaussian Blur, Defocus Blur, Zoom Blur, Radial Blur, and Soft Focus. The great thing about this free filter is that you have tint color options and an opacity slider to control the amount of tint, as well as the blur amount.
5. Free Gradient Filter
Andy’s Gradient Filter allows you to add neutral density graduated filters to your clips. In other words, you can easily create gradient color grades for your footage. If you are looking to create a stylized and unique look for your project, this could be very helpful.
Part 2: How to Apply Filters and Effects in Final Cut Pro
Once you have chosen and downloaded your effects, you need to install them. This isn’t difficult to do and should only take a couple of minutes.
- Open up a Finder window, and locate your template folder. Unzip it.
- Open up a second Finder window and go to Movies > Motion Templates > Effects.
- Drag the downloaded folder into the Effects folder.
- Launch Final Cut Pro and search for the effects in the Control Panel.
Pro Tips for Using Filters
Each effect will come with its own set of customizable options so you can make it your own. There are a few key things you might want to consider before you begin throwing effects on your clips.
Effects Come Later
When you have filters to play with, it can be inviting to jump straight in adding them to your video, but you need to remember the editing process. Before you begin adding effect, make sure you do all of your basic color correction, so you can be assured of what the effect will look like.
Don’t Overdo It
It can be easy to get carried away and add ALL the effects, but these types of filters are best used sparingly, and only when they add something to your film. If the filter you are using isn’t helping tell the story, then do you need it?
Build a Library
Final Cut Pro is an excellent piece of software that can do amazing things. When you begin adding plugins and filters like these, you can begin to customize your editing suite, building the tools that suit the work you do.
So there you have it, a total of 20 filters for Final Cut Pro that can give your editing a boost and offer a whole new range of tools to play with. Producing unique and creative content is a lot easier when you begin to look for additional tools outside of Final Cut’s limitations.
If you are looking for additional tools for Final Cut Pro, check out our top lists for text effects, slideshow templates, generators, and openers.
