How do you add a scan lines effect in DaVinci Resolve to make footage look like a computer monitor?

Add the Scan Lines effect (Resolve FX Stylize) to a dedicated adjustment clip above your footage, then stack a second instance rotated 90° at high frequency and low sharpness — the two crossed passes create a dot-matrix computer-screen appearance instead of flat stripes. Finish with a dust overlay around 8% opacity and subtle grain so the screen texture reads as real.

Here is the workflow, step by step:

1. Put the scan lines on their own adjustment clip. Drop an adjustment clip on the track above your footage and apply the Scan Lines effect from Resolve FX Stylize to that clip — not directly to the footage. Keeping scan lines on a separate clip from your other effects lets you fade them in and out independently, which matters when the "monitor" look should only appear during certain shots.

2. Stack two instances rotated 90° to each other. One pass of horizontal lines reads as stripes, not a screen. Apply the Scan Lines effect twice — the second instance rotated 90° from the first — with high frequency and low sharpness on both. The crossed horizontal and vertical lines simulate the dot-matrix structure of a real computer display rather than a striped filter.

3. Layer texture so the screen doesn't look flat. Add a dust particle overlay at roughly 8% opacity for a subtle cinematic texture, and apply Resolve's Film Grain effect on top. For an older CRT or VHS-era monitor, add the Film Damage Resolve FX for moving lines and specks, plus targeted color grading and small intentional imperfections — that combination recreates the warmth of footage broadcast on 90s-era tube screens.

4. Add a soft glow with Edge Detect. Apply Edge Detect as an adjustment-clip effect, increase edge blur and edge width, and keep brightness low. This creates a subtle glow over the image that makes the screen treatment feel dreamy and emissive rather than a flat overlay — real monitors emit light, and this sells it.

5. For a full computer-screen animation, build it in Fusion. If your source is a static desktop screenshot rather than footage, the Fusion tab handles the whole treatment in one composition: vignette, luma keying, bevels on UI elements, an animated cursor, scan lines, dust overlays, and a slow camera zoom to add life. One creator who documented this exact build reported it took 5–10 minutes. This is also a common finishing pass on AI-generated footage — creators producing clips through the invideo agent composite custom Resolve treatments like this on top to lift the final look — and the same principle applies to any source: don't rely on the raw footage alone; the screen treatment is what sells the effect.

Watch some of these to see what works for you:

that took us like 5 or 10 minutes. It was not complicated at all, and it looks better than 99% of the stuff on YouTube.

— a creator documenting the DaVinci Resolve Fusion computer-screen animation workflow