CCD Filter
Recreate the glowing, cool-toned look of early CCD-sensor cameras — right in your browser.
No photo? Try a sample
Available Presets
iPhone 4
Soft edges, gentle grain, slightly warm 2010s smartphone vibe.
Warm Digicam
Golden-hour point-and-shoot warmth with punchy colors.
Cool CCD
Cleaner, slightly cool vintage sensor feel (subtle green/cyan lean).
Flash Pop
Harsh highlights + glow like a built-in flash at night.
Soft Nostalgia
Dreamy, faded, warm — heavy softness + bloom for a nostalgic vibe.
Frequently Asked Questions
It recreates the look of cameras built around CCD image sensors, most compact digicams before roughly 2010. The signature traits are glowing highlights, slightly cooler and punchier color, and a fine, even noise instead of the smeared smoothing modern phones apply.
CCD sensors tend to bloom in bright areas and hold a cooler, more saturated color, while modern phone shots are cleaner, flatter, and heavily processed. This filter leans into the bloom and color instead of smoothing them away.
Start with the Cool CCD preset, keep saturation moderate, add a little bloom and a touch of chromatic aberration, and keep grain fine rather than heavy. The glow in the highlights is what sells it.
That bloom is the defining CCD trait. Bright areas bleed outward a little. If it is too strong, lower the Bloom slider; to push the effect, raise it.
Yes. A clean phone photo going in and a CCD vibe coming out is exactly the point.
Ease off grain, lift the shadows slightly, and keep bloom gentle so skin stays smooth while the highlights still glow.
No. Everything is processed locally in your browser; your files are never uploaded.
About This Tool
The CCD look is having a real moment. Before phones took over, most compact "digicams" used CCD image sensors, and they rendered the world a little differently than the camera in your pocket does today: highlights bloomed instead of clipping flat, colors leaned cool and punchy, and shadows carried a fine, even grain rather than waxy smoothing.
This page recreates that signature CCD vibe. Load a photo and the Cool CCD preset is applied automatically. Then you can fine-tune. The two sliders that matter most are Bloom (how much the bright areas glow) and Aberration (a faint color fringe that reads as old-sensor optics).
For a convincing result, keep saturation moderate, let the highlights glow a touch, and keep the grain fine rather than heavy. On portraits, lift the shadows slightly and ease off grain so skin stays clean while the highlights still bloom. On street and daylight shots you can lean into the cool color a little more.
Everything runs locally in your browser, so your photo is never uploaded, and it works on phone photos, including HEIC files straight off an iPhone. It is free, with no sign-up and no watermark on your exports.
See the difference
How to get the CCD look in three steps
- 1
Upload your photo
Drop in any photo. A modern phone shot works perfectly. Nothing is uploaded; it loads straight into the editor on your device.
- 2
Start from Cool CCD
The Cool CCD preset is applied automatically. It sets the cooler color cast and a little highlight bloom so you are already most of the way there.
- 3
Tune bloom, then export
Nudge Bloom until the bright areas glow the way you remember, add a touch of Aberration for that old-sensor fringe, and download in full quality.
A CCD recipe that works
If you want to dial it in by hand, this is a reliable starting point. Adjust to taste. Bloom and a cool cast do most of the work.
CCD vs the other retro looks
The CCD look leans cool and glowing, where the disposable-camera look leans hot and flashed, and the 2000s look leans warm and faded. If your photo feels too cool, try the warmer 2000s preset instead.
How to get the CCD camera look (without buying a CCD camera)
A deeper walkthrough of what makes CCD photos glow, with side-by-side examples.