AMRE CRT — 80s Screen Photoshop Action

Your text or logo on an 80s cathode-ray screen. One click.

Square phosphor pixels lit through the tube's own shadow mask, a beam that does not light evenly, a signal that drags sideways and fringes warm one way and cool the other, analogue static, tape drag, darkened corners and film grain over the whole frame.

Built like a screen, not like a filter. The mask is laid on the light, not over the whole picture — a tube shows its phosphors only where the beam hits, so the black between the letters stays black. That is the difference between a photograph of a screen and a grid drawn on top of one.

Thirteen layers, all yours. Glass, phosphor, core, glow, drag, two fringes, bloom, halo, static, tracking, corners and grain — each with its own opacity slider. Turn any of them off and the rest still works.

Any colour. Every layer is one colour multiplied into one greyscale mask, so changing a colour cannot break the effect. Blue, green, cyan and amber are ready-made in the file.

Non-destructive. The result arrives as a layer group above your layer — your original is only hidden. No texture files to install: every texture is built inside Photoshop as the script runs.

In the download
— The action (.atn) and the Photoshop script behind it
— Read-me and licence: personal and commercial use, including print-on-demand
— Photoshop 2022 or newer, Mac and Windows