---
title: "How to add a saturation boost with Claude (tested prompt and ffmpeg command)"
description: "The pale pastel rainbow in the holographic backdrop deepens into vivid pink, cyan and gold and the serum turns a rich violet, while the shot stays exactly as bright. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the ffmpeg command we tested yourself."
url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/saturation-boost
---

# How to add a saturation boost with Claude

The pale pastel rainbow in the holographic backdrop deepens into vivid pink, cyan and gold and the serum turns a rich violet, while the shot stays exactly as bright.

Made by the command 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 saturation boost to input.mp4
   Color strength: 1.8
   ```

## 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 saturation boost 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 command.

| Setting      | Default | What it does                                                                                                                                                    |
| ------------ | ------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `SATURATION` | `1.8`   | Color strength. 1 keeps the original, 2 doubles it, 0 is black and white. Already-colorful footage usually wants 1.2 to 1.4; pale footage like this takes more. |

## Without the skill

Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the command itself.

```
Boost the saturation of input.mp4 for the whole clip, from the first frame to the last, so every color is richer and more intense. Multiply the color strength by 1.8 while leaving each pixel's brightness unchanged (ffmpeg: eq=saturation=1.8, which scales only the U and V channels). The bottle's soft purple (around RGB 131, 96, 157) should come out a rich violet (around RGB 140, 80, 195), the pale rainbow backdrop should turn vivid, and the overall brightness should stay within 3% of the original. Don't change the hue, crop, zoom or add anything else, and don't add any text (if you ever do, draw it with Pillow, not ffmpeg's drawtext). Keep the 540x960 size, 30fps, the 6 second length and the audio. Use ffmpeg, encode H.264 yuv420p and save it as output.mp4.
```

## Run it without Claude

This is the exact command we tested. Save it as `saturation-boost.sh` and run:

```
sh saturation-boost.sh input.mp4 output.mp4
```

```
#!/bin/sh
# Saturation boost: make every color in the clip richer and more intense while keeping its brightness.
# Usage: sh saturation-boost.sh input.mp4 output.mp4
set -e
IN="$1"; OUT="$2"
SATURATION=1.8   # color strength; 1 keeps the original, 2 doubles it, 0 is black and white

# eq scales only the color part of each pixel (U and V), so the brightness (Y) is left exactly as shot.
ffmpeg -y -i "$IN" -vf "eq=saturation=$SATURATION" \
  -r 30 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy "$OUT"
```

## 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)