--- title: "How to add a cyberpunk look with Claude (tested prompt and script)" description: "The pale holographic backdrop breaks into glowing magenta and cyan streaks while the purple bottle sinks to near-black navy, like a product shot under neon signs at night. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the Python script we tested yourself." url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/cyberpunk-look --- # How to add a cyberpunk look with Claude The pale holographic backdrop breaks into glowing magenta and cyan streaks while the purple bottle sinks to near-black navy, like a product shot under neon signs at night. Made by the script on this page, from our own test clip. ## Get this effect 1. ### Switch to Code in your [Claude Desktop App](https://claude.com/download) 2. ### Install the skill (once) ``` Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills ``` 3. ### Ask for the effect ``` Add a cyberpunk look to input.mp4 The deep blue the darkest areas sink to: (8, 10, 40) The color warm highlights glow: (255, 50, 200) ``` ## Several videos, several effects, one ask Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them. Add a cyberpunk look to **@clip1.mp4**, put a sale badge on **@clip2.mp4**, give **@clip3.mp4** a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades. ## Settings you can change Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the script. | Setting | Default | What it does | | ------------- | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `SHADOW` | `(8, 10, 40)` | The deep blue the darkest areas sink to. | | `MAGENTA` | `(255, 50, 200)` | The color warm highlights glow. | | `CYAN` | `(30, 220, 255)` | The color cool highlights glow. | | `BLACK_POINT` | `150` | Brightness (0-255) at and below which a pixel is all shadow. Raise it for a darker night. | | `WHITE_POINT` | `230` | Brightness at which a pixel takes its full highlight color. | | `CURVE` | `2.2` | Above 1 keeps more of the frame in shadow, for a night feel; 1 is a straight ramp. | | `SOFTNESS` | `4` | How gently a pixel moves from cyan to magenta as red overtakes green. Lower gives harder neon edges. | | `GLOW` | `0.6` | Strength of the soft neon bloom added around bright areas. 0 turns it off. | | `GLOW_RADIUS` | `14` | Blur radius of that bloom, in pixels. | ## Without the skill Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the script itself. ``` Give all of input.mp4 a cyberpunk grade, on every frame from start to end. For each pixel (RGB, 0-255): take its brightness Y = 0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B; work out a tone t = (clip((Y - 150) / (230 - 150), 0, 1)) ^ 2.2 so everything at or below 150 is pure shadow; work out how warm it is as w = 1 / (1 + e^(-(R - G) / 4)); the highlight color is cyan (30, 220, 255) blended toward magenta (255, 50, 200) by w; the graded pixel is the shadow blue (8, 10, 40) blended toward that highlight color by t. Then add a neon bloom: multiply the graded frame by t, blur it with a Gaussian blur of radius 14 pixels (Pillow's GaussianBlur), and add 0.6 times that blur back onto the graded frame, clipping to 0-255. The purple bottle should end up near-black navy around RGB (8, 10, 40), the backdrop a mix of cyan around (30, 110, 150) and magenta around (150, 55, 160) streaks, and the whole frame about 40% as bright as the original. Do it in Python with numpy and Pillow, piping raw frames from and back to ffmpeg. Add no text (any text you do add should be drawn with Pillow, not ffmpeg's drawtext). Keep the size, 30fps frame rate, 6 second length and audio the same, encode H.264 yuv420p and save it as output.mp4. ``` ## Run it without Claude This is the exact script we tested. Save it as `cyberpunk-look.py` and run: ``` python3 cyberpunk-look.py input.mp4 output.mp4 ``` ``` """Cyberpunk look: shadows sink to deep night blue, warm highlights glow hot magenta and cool ones neon cyan. Usage: python3 cyberpunk-look.py input.mp4 output.mp4 Needs Python 3 with numpy and Pillow, and ffmpeg. """ import subprocess import sys import numpy as np from PIL import Image, ImageFilter SHADOW = (8, 10, 40) # the deep blue the darkest areas sink to MAGENTA = (255, 50, 200) # the color warm highlights glow CYAN = (30, 220, 255) # the color cool highlights glow BLACK_POINT = 150 # brightness (0-255) at and below which a pixel is all shadow WHITE_POINT = 230 # brightness at which a pixel takes its full highlight color CURVE = 2.2 # above 1 keeps more of the frame in shadow, for a night feel SOFTNESS = 4 # how gently a pixel moves from cyan to magenta as red overtakes green GLOW = 0.6 # strength of the soft neon bloom added around bright areas GLOW_RADIUS = 14 # blur radius of that bloom, in pixels src, dst = sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2] w, h = map(int, subprocess.check_output( ["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-select_streams", "v:0", "-show_entries", "stream=width,height", "-of", "csv=p=0", src], text=True).strip().split(",")) LUMA = np.array([0.299, 0.587, 0.114], np.float32) shadow, magenta, cyan = (np.array(c, np.float32) for c in (SHADOW, MAGENTA, CYAN)) def grade(rgb): y = (rgb @ LUMA)[..., None] # 0 = shadow, 1 = full highlight tone = np.clip((y - BLACK_POINT) / (WHITE_POINT - BLACK_POINT), 0, 1) ** CURVE # 0 = cool (cyan), 1 = warm (magenta), by how far red is above green warm = 1 / (1 + np.exp(-(rgb[..., :1] - rgb[..., 1:2]) / SOFTNESS)) highlight = cyan + (magenta - cyan) * warm out = shadow + (highlight - shadow) * tone glow = Image.fromarray(np.clip(out * tone, 0, 255).astype(np.uint8)).filter(ImageFilter.GaussianBlur(GLOW_RADIUS)) out += GLOW * np.asarray(glow, np.float32) return np.clip(out, 0, 255).astype(np.uint8) reader = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-v", "error", "-i", src, "-vf", "fps=30", "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE) writer = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-y", "-v", "error", "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-s", f"{w}x{h}", "-r", "30", "-i", "-", "-i", src, "-map", "0:v", "-map", "1:a?", "-c:v", "libx264", "-crf", "18", "-pix_fmt", "yuv420p", "-c:a", "copy", "-shortest", dst], stdin=subprocess.PIPE) size = w * h * 3 while True: buf = reader.stdout.read(size) if len(buf) < size: break frame = np.frombuffer(buf, np.uint8).reshape(h, w, 3).astype(np.float32) writer.stdin.write(grade(frame).tobytes()) writer.stdin.close() sys.exit(reader.wait() or writer.wait()) ``` ## More color looks - [Apply a LUT **Apply a LUT**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/apply-a-lut) - [Black and white **Black and white**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/black-and-white) - [Bleach bypass **Bleach bypass**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/bleach-bypass) - [Cinematic color grade **Cinematic color grade**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/cinematic-color-grade) - [Color match **Color match**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/color-match) ## Find 3x _winning ads_ Recharm cuts your ad footage into tagged, searchable clips: hooks, testimonials, product shots. Find the shots that win, add the effect with Claude, and ship 3x more ad edits. [Start 14-day free trial](https://www.recharm.com/get-started)