I created a detailed project in Kdenlive version 23.08.3. I have recently upgrade to version 25.12.2 and notice that the effect titled, ‘Gradfun’ has been deprecated and no longer works in my project. I really liked this effect. I was using it to soften a video clip of an up-close person singing. I tried using the effects titled, ‘Gaussian Blur’ and ‘Soft Glow’ but they don’t provide the same results. I was looking for more of a misty/dreamy soft blur effect that ‘Gradfun’ provided. Can anyone recommend an alternative to ‘Gradfun’ or how to get ‘Gradfun’ to work in the newer versions of Kdenlive? Thank you for helping me.
Hmm, even though it has been put into the Deprecated effect category it should still work for your project. That’s exactly why we don’t remove effects but put them into that category.
For Gradfun the explanation is that
It is designed for playback only. Do not use it prior to lossy compression, because compression tends to lose the dither and bring back the bands.
Appreciate the speedy reply berndmj. In the Gradfun explanation it said, “It is designed for playback only”. That is the only reason why I would use it (for playback on the timeline). Is there another reason?
Thank you for further providing the definition of ‘Deprecated’. Still trying to get it to work. I loaded the original version I started the project with and Gradfun still works but not in the newest version. I use the ‘stand alone’ version and not the installable. I’m running windows 10
Ok, so if you just use it for playback in the timeline and project monitor, fine. But are you taking the effect off the clip before you render the video? Because if you don’t and use h264 or h265 or any other lossy codec, the effect may lead to banding. And if you do take it off before rendering your project I don’t see the point of using it.
Gradfun is a filter/effect provided by ffmpeg (avfilter). You can read the documentation here. If it worked in previous versions of Kdenlive, then something must have changed in ffmpeg (avfilter) since then because Kdenlive just takes the latest version of ffmpeg and incorporates that during compiling. We are not doing anything with or to the filters/effects.
No berndmj, I am not removing the effect from the clip before rendering. I have already render a few test videos (prior to upgrading to the newest Kdenlive version) and the Gradfun effect worked fine in the rendred videos. Perhaps I didn’t explain clearly. I keep the final effects (I am happy with) on all clips prior to rendering. Still trying to get Gradfun to work in Kdenlive ver. 25.12.2 Initially I thought the issue could be how I have the effects ordered (stacked) but I disabled all effects in a particular clip except ‘Gradfun’ and it still wouldn’t work. Again, thanks for the lightning reply time.
Ok, that’s what I expected but then again if you render with a lossy codec you may introduce banding. Perhaps this is not happening for you with your specific sources. Everybody’s mileage varies.
Let’s move on to why it doesn’t work for you in 25.12.2. Can you share screenshots of the timeline and effect stack for the different versions, i.e. when it worked and when it doesn’t. Perhaps something else changed.
Thanks again for your continued support and interest with my issue.
As an experiment, I also opened the latest version I have been working with (as a standalone (ver. 25.12.2) using win10 and loaded an older project version from 01-15-20206 and Gradfun still did not work.
As you requested, attached (below) are four different screenshots of the same project using four different versions of Kdenlive I have been working with (as I upgraded over time). Versions used are 23.08.3, 24.05.1, 25.04.3 and 25.12.2.
I also opened the latest project date using the the latest Kdenlive version I have been working with (standalone ver. 25.12.2) and deleted ALL effects on that particular clip (of me singing), clicked “save project’ and restarted Kdenlive. When I loaded the project, ‘Grafdfun’ effect still did not work. You can see in the screenshot below that I had the parameters on ‘Gradfun’ set fairly high which would have blurred out the image of me if it was working (please see screenshot below).
Hope you discover what I am doing wrong to cause the ‘Gradfun’ effect to not work in the latest versions of Kdenlive (ver. 25.04.3 and 25.12.2 I did noticed that once the ‘Gradfun’ effect was labeled ‘deprecated’ (in the effects search results) it no longer worked.
Thank you very much berndmj or anyone else who can help.
Thanks for providing the screenshots. That helped figuring out what changed.
It appears that you used the effect when there was no XML file for it and Kdenlive used the raw effect as it was provided by ffmpeg (avfilter). The XML file set the parameters to be keyframeable which doesn’t seem to work. I checked with the parameters to be set to constant and could create the effect from your first screenshot.
I’m still not sure about the caveat about it being designed for playback only and whether we should keep it in the category Deprecated. I am tending towards bringing it back to Image Adjustment, leaving the warning in the effect description, and then leaving it up to the user what to do with it. Opinions?
If you can’t wait for the next maintenance release, DM me and I can send you the updated XML file.
