In this tutorial I’ll not just show you how to create the effect of TV scan lines on your artwork or photographs, I’ll show you how to achieve it in a non-destructive way using layers, patterns and blending modes. Our mission for this project is to take a photograph captured on any camera (below left) and tattoo the interlacing found on many older-style television sets across the world (below right). High definition this isn’t!
Downloading my Image
Firstly you need to open the image you want to apply the effect to. You can either use my image of this year’s BMW European Tour golf event at Wentworth by clicking here, or use your own.
Create a New Document
Now before we become too submerged in adding scan lines to this image we must first create a pattern of the aforementioned lines. Open up a new document (File > New) and name it ‘lines’. Now change the size of the document to one pixel in width and four pixels in height. The ‘resolution’ and ‘colour mode’ can stay set to their default values of 72 pixels per inch and RGB colour respectively, but we’ll need to change the ‘Background Contents’ option to ‘transparency’. The exact settings are illustrated in the graphic below-
Zooming & Painting
The first thing we need to do is zoom in to the document to get a good view of it. Grab the Zoom Tool from the toolbox, or press the letter ‘Z’ on the keyboard, and then either click a zillion times to zoom in or drag around the document with the tool. That’s going to give us an up close and personal view. If you’re having problems with the size of the window that accommodates the image then try dragging the window from the bottom-right to make it larger.
Next we need to paint the top two pixels black, and the best tool to use for this particular job is the Pencil Tool (if you’re having problems locating it then click and hold on the Brush Tool icon). Make sure your pencil is set to a one pixel diameter and that the foreground colour is set to black (press the ‘D’ key on the keyboard if you want to quickly reset the foreground colour to black).
Now divert your attention to the image, it’s one pixel wide and four high of course, and we want to use the Pencil Tool to paint the top two pixels black, so go ahead and give them a click. Perfect.
Creating a Pattern
Now we need to save the current document as a pattern, which we can do by coming up to the Edit menu and selecting the ‘Define Pattern’ option. That should force the display of a very simple dialogue box entitled ‘Name Pattern’ which we will precede in doing with the name ‘Scan Lines 2px’. This will help us remember that the active pattern creates two pixel scan lines horizontally across the image. Click OK and close the document, if you’re prompted to save the image then click ‘no’ – with a bit of luck we’ll never need to see that image again.
Applying the Pattern
Alright, back to our image of this year’s BMW European Tour golf event at Wentworth, we’re ready to apply our scan lines. First create a new layer (CTRL + SHIFT + N on the PC, CMD + SHIFT + N on the Mac), name the layer ‘lines’ or something of that nature. Now go to the Edit menu and select the ‘Fill Layer’ command and in the ‘contents’ section choose ‘pattern’ and click on the pattern swatch to select the custom pattern that we made together just a few moments ago. Next, change the ‘blend mode’ from ‘normal’ to ‘overlay’ and click OK.
Lines too Strong, Black, Small, Large?
You should now have an image complete with old style television scan lines but if the effect is too strong, as in the lines are too black, then go ahead and reduce the opacity of the layer. You can take it back to something like 30-40% to get a more understated result. Likewise if you don’t like the way the lines are interacting with the image; feel free to try a new blend mode. It should already be set to ‘Overlay’, but you’ll get a slightly different look if you switch it to ‘Soft Light’ or return it to ‘Normal’.
Finally, what can you do if the lines are too thin or thick? The best way of working is to go back and create a different pattern, to make the lines smaller you may want to try a two pixel high document with a one pixel ‘line’. If the lines are too thin then try a six pixel document with a three pixel ‘line’.
Whichever way you choose to go, I hope you enjoy the effect and have fun creating your own television scan lines!