How to Make a Visual Echo Effect

The video echo effect can help you visualize a trail of movement in a video where it wasn’t originally present. You can think of it as an imitation of the long exposure effect or an unnaturally fast object movement.

Want to know how to make this effect within minutes using VSDC Video Editor? Then check out the tutorial below.

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Step 1. Upload your video to the editor

Launch VSDC on your computer and upload your video using the Import content option on the start screen or by dragging the file directly to the scene.

Step 2. Convert the video into a sprite and activate the Echo filter

In VSDC, the Echo filter is only available under the sprite properties menu, so you’ll need to convert the video into a sprite first. You can either use the Ctrl + P hotkey combination or make a right-button mouse click on the file and select Convert to sprite.

Once ready, go to the Properties window on the right and select the following options:

• Use as container – No
• Show effects – Yes
• Fill background – No
• Use echo filter – True

Activate the video preview to see what the default visual echo filter looks like:

In the next section, we’ll walk you through the filter settings and show how to use them to adjust the effect.

Step 3. Adjust the visual echo effect

To produce the echo effect, the software stacks frames from different times into a single layer and gradually fades the trail as new frames appear. As a creator, you can change the number of remaining visible frames and the way they blend on the screen.

Echo strength

Echo strength affects the speed of trail fading. The higher this value is, the stronger the echo effect appears: for example, at 100, there’s no fading and each frame is visible until the moving object reaches the end of the screen.

Notice that you can expand the Echo strength parameter and set the initial and final values to be different – so the effect increases or decreases over time.

Blending mode

Blending modes define the way the frames are blended, and therefore – the way the effect looks.

Three blending modes are available for the echo filter:

• Overlay – each new frame is overlaid on the previous one; this mode produces the mildest visual effect
• Streak – the values of the current and the previous frames are maximized; this mode produces the strongest visual effect
• Blur – the current and the previous frames are mixed based on the alpha channel; this mode produces a smearing echo effect

Here is how different blending modes work for the same video, at the same echo filter strength:

The first two modes are optimal for video effects and videos with transparent backgrounds. The third mode is optimal for non-transparent videos featuring moving objects.

Pro tip: you can apply the echo filter to any of the VSDC effects that include moving objects. Such effects are Particles, Raindrops, or even the Shadow effect when it’s pinned to a moving object.

However, for the filter to work, the effect must be a part of the sprite, too.

Echo filter is available in VSDC, starting with version 7.2

Visual echo is a simple and beautiful effect that will look great in music videos as well as sci-fi shorts. And the best part? It’s available in the free version of VSDC Video Editor. Download it to your PC and try it for yourself! If you have any questions, feel free to email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or tweet us at @Flashintegro.

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