Add Effects

Add visual effects to your videos without After Effects. Add rain, fire, lighting changes, weather effects, and more. Supports character swapping with reference images.

Instead of generating a brand-new clip from scratch, Add Effects sends your source video into Kling O3 VFX, a video-to-video model that edits the existing motion and composition. The goal is to keep the shot recognizable while changing the layer of reality on top of it.

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What This Tool Is For

Add Effects is best for broad visual transformations that affect a whole shot or a clearly described part of a shot.

Use it for	Example
Weather	Add rain, snow, fog, mist, dust, wind, sparks, or storm atmosphere.
Lighting	Turn day into night, add golden hour, create neon street light, or make a scene moodier.
Atmosphere	Add smoke, haze, filmic glow, wet streets, magical particles, or cinematic grit.
Style transfer	Push the shot toward cyberpunk, noir, vintage film, dream sequence, horror, or commercial polish.
Character or object swap	Use reference images or saved Elements to replace a person, creature, prop, or visual motif.

Add Effects is not a full compositing replacement. It is strongest when you want a believable transformation over a short section of footage, not frame-perfect manual control over every particle, mask, or layer.

Think of Add Effects as AI art direction for existing footage. You are not rebuilding the shot from nothing. You are telling the model how the current shot should feel, what should change, and what must remain stable.

When To Use It

Use Add Effects when you want to:

• Test a VFX idea before committing to a heavier edit.

• Give ordinary footage a more cinematic lighting or weather treatment.

• Create a social clip that needs a visual hook in a few seconds.

• Match a shot to a mood board, reference image, or generated still.

• Replace a character or object with an attached reference.

• Build several creative variations from the same clip and choose the best one in context.

Choose a different Studio tool when the task is more specific:

Goal	Better workflow
Change lighting direction or mood on an image or short video	Relight Scene
Remove a person or object from a short clip	Erase Objects
Replace or modify a specific section of a shot	Reshoot
Remove the background and isolate the subject	Rotoscope
Increase resolution after generation	Upscale
Create a new shot from a still image	Motion Director

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Studio Path

The fastest route is through Studio.

1. Open Studio.

2. Choose Add Effects from the Post-Production department.

3. Load a video from your computer, Recents, or your Premiere timeline.

4. Add an edit prompt that describes the effect or transformation.

5. Optional: add up to four reference images or Elements.

6. Choose Pro or Standard quality.

7. Generate the effect.

8. Use the before/after view to compare the result, then send it back to your chat or library.

Studio automatically opens the video editor in the correct Kling VFX mode, so you do not need to manually pick the model unless you intentionally switch tools.

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Classic/Editor Path

You can also reach the same tool from the classic video editor flow.

1. Import or generate a video in Chat Video Pro.

2. Click Edit on the video thumbnail.

3. Open the model selector.

4. Choose Kling VFX.

5. Write your effect prompt and add references if needed.

6. Generate and compare the result.

This path is still useful when you are already working from a chat result or an older library item. For new post-production work, Studio is the cleaner starting point because it loads the right tool immediately.

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Controls And Constraints

Control	What it does
Edit Prompt	Describes the effect, style change, character swap, or visual transformation.
Quality	Pro uses Kling O3 Pro VFX for higher-quality results. Standard is the faster/lighter option.
Reference Images	Adds up to four images that can guide style, characters, props, or objects.
Elements	Lets you pull saved character/object Elements into the reference slots.
@Image1, @Image2 tags	Tells the model which attached reference image to use.
Before/After	Compares the generated result against the original source clip.

Current constraints:

Constraint	Detail
Video duration	Source clips must be at least 3 seconds. Clips longer than about 10 seconds can be trimmed to a selected segment inside the editor.
Recommended duration	5-8 seconds is usually the sweet spot for quality and consistency.
Reference images	Up to 4 images. Use one strong reference when possible; use multiple only when each one has a clear job.
Prompt length	Keep the prompt focused. The model responds better to clear direction than long lists of unrelated effects.
Audio	Add Effects keeps the original audio automatically.
Resolution	Very large or non-compliant videos may be converted before generation so Kling can process them reliably.

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Two Ways To Prompt

Video Only

Use this when the effect is simple enough to describe in words.

Good for:

• Rain, snow, fog, smoke, sparks, fire, dust, or atmosphere.

• Day-to-night or golden-hour transformations.

• Broad style changes like noir, horror, vintage, or cyberpunk.

• Quick experiments where you do not need an exact visual target.

Example:

Add heavy rain throughout the scene, wet pavement reflections, water droplets on the lens, and a moody cinematic night atmosphere. Keep the original camera movement and subject motion.

Video + Reference Image

Use this when you care about the exact look. The reference image gives Kling a visual target instead of making it infer everything from text.

Good for:

• Matching a generated still from Cinematic Lab.

• Turning a frame into a specific lighting or weather design first, then applying that look to the video.

• Character or costume swaps.

• Complex style transformations that are hard to describe.

Example:

Transform the video to match the lighting and atmosphere of @Image1. Keep the same composition and camera movement, but apply the neon night look, wet street reflections, and cool blue-magenta color contrast from the reference.

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Best Practices

Describe The Effect, Not A New Scene

Kling VFX is editing the uploaded video. The best prompts explain what should change in the existing shot.

Good:

Add drifting fog through the background, subtle beams of light from camera left, and a cooler haunted-house atmosphere. Preserve the original actor, camera move, and scene layout.

Less effective:

A person walking through a foggy haunted house.

The second prompt sounds like text-to-video. It does not clearly tell the model what to preserve from your source footage.

Give Each Reference A Job

If you attach references, explain what each image controls.

Use @Image1 as the lighting and color reference. Use @Image2 as the creature design reference. Add the creature emerging from the background shadows while preserving the original camera movement.

If you only say "make it look like the image," the model has to guess whether the image represents color, lighting, subject identity, costume, composition, or all of the above.

Start With A Strong Clip

Add Effects works best when the original video has:

• Clear subject/background separation.

• Stable enough motion for the model to understand the shot.

• A short duration with one main action.

• Enough visual detail for the effect to attach to surfaces, light, and movement.

Shaky, dark, heavily compressed, or visually chaotic footage gives the model less structure to preserve.

Use Cinematic Lab Or Relight Scene As Prep Tools

For complex looks, create a target still first.

1. Capture a frame from the video.

2. Use Cinematic Lab or Relight Scene to design the target look.

3. Bring that image into Add Effects as @Image1.

4. Prompt Kling to match the lighting, atmosphere, color, or effect from the reference.

This workflow is much stronger than trying to describe a highly specific visual style in one sentence.

Preserve What Matters

If the shot has important details, say so directly:

Keep the actor's face, wardrobe, body motion, and camera move unchanged. Add a supernatural blue glow from the doorway and light fog rolling along the floor.

For character swaps:

Replace the person in the video with the character shown in @Image1. Preserve the same pose, timing, walking motion, and camera framing. Keep the background unchanged.

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Examples

Rainy Night Street

Turn the scene into a rainy night street. Add heavy rain, wet pavement reflections, visible droplets in the foreground, darker sky, and cinematic streetlight glow. Keep the original subject motion and camera movement.

Golden Hour Commercial Look

Apply warm golden-hour lighting across the scene, soft sun flare from camera right, gentle haze, polished commercial contrast, and natural skin tones. Preserve the original scene layout and motion.

Horror Atmosphere

Add low drifting fog, colder moonlit shadows, subtle flickering practical lights, and a tense horror atmosphere. Do not change the actor or camera move.

Cyberpunk Transformation With Reference

Use @Image1 as the lighting and color reference. Transform the scene into a neon cyberpunk night environment with blue-magenta reflections, wet surfaces, and glowing signage. Preserve the original subject and camera motion.

Character Swap

Replace the person in the video with the character from @Image1. Match the character's outfit, silhouette, and face as closely as possible while preserving the original movement, timing, and background.

Subtle Product Polish

Improve the shot with subtle cinematic lighting, cleaner contrast, soft atmospheric depth, and a premium product-ad look. Keep the product shape, label, camera framing, and motion unchanged.

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Troubleshooting

The effect barely changed

Make the prompt more specific. Name the effect, where it should appear, and how intense it should be.

Try:

Add dense fog in the background and low rolling mist across the floor, strongest near the doorway, with cool blue backlight and visible atmosphere around the subject.

The result changed too much

Add preservation language:

Preserve the original subject identity, wardrobe, camera movement, composition, and timing. Only change the lighting and atmosphere.

The reference image did not guide the result

Make sure the reference image is attached and mentioned by tag, such as @Image1. Then explain what the image is for:

Use @Image1 only as the lighting and color reference. Do not copy the subject or composition from the image.

The video is too short

Kling VFX needs at least 3 seconds of video. Use a longer section from the timeline or choose another workflow.

The video is too long

The editor can trim longer videos to a selected segment for Kling VFX. Pick the 5-10 seconds where the effect matters most, generate that section, then place the result back into your Premiere edit.

The video needs conversion

Some videos need normalization before Kling can process them. If Chat Video Pro asks to convert the clip, allow the conversion unless you specifically need to preserve the original file format outside the tool. The generated result will still be used as a normal video asset.

The effect works, but the style is inconsistent

Use a target image. Capture a frame, create the desired look in Cinematic Lab or Relight Scene, then use that image as @Image1 in Add Effects.

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Links To Related Studio Pages

• Studio - Learn how Studio workflows are organized.

• Cinematic Lab - Create high-quality reference stills for VFX direction.

• Relight Scene - Design lighting and mood changes before applying them to video.

• Motion Director - Turn a still image into a new moving shot.

• AI Transitions - Morph between two frames with directorial transition prompts.

• Multi-Cam - Generate alternate angles from an image or video.

• Erase Objects - Remove unwanted people or objects from short clips.

• Reshoot - Make more targeted changes with LTX Retake.

• Rotoscope - Isolate subjects and remove backgrounds.

• Upscale - Improve resolution after generating or editing footage.

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Next: If you want a more controlled lighting change instead of a broader VFX transformation, use Relight Scene.