Autointerlace for Windows

Don't touch that dial! Do not adjust your antenna, vertical hold, or tuning knob: the image on your screen is supposed to look like that, courtesy of namesuppressed's Autointerlace Free. Interlacing, or scanline graphics, simulates what you see on analog TV screens and other cathode ray tubes, teletype pictures, and other images built up by scanned lines. Graphic designers apply interlacing to digital images to create this effect. This free Photoshop plug-in automatically applies interlacing to any image. It includes a simple photo editor for users who don't have Photoshop or a similar, compatible image editor, but it works best with Photoshop or one of the many other compatible programs. We tried it with Photoshop Elements 8, but we also tried the included editor.

Autointerlace Free's installer includes instructions for installing the program in Photoshop's plug-ins folder. We opened an image in Photoshop and clicked the Filter menu. Autointerlace Free appeared in namesuppressed's entry, at the bottom of the default list alongside our other third-party plug-ins. Clicking the entry opened the plug-in's compact interface, which displayed our image in a preview pane. Autointerlace Free has few controls, just Opacity and Width buttons and another one to control the interlace effect, plus a progress bar. We fiddled with the settings, producing several images worth saving. The interlacing effect closely resembles the appearance of interlaced analog images and displays.

We also tried Autointerlace Free's standalone interface, namesuppressed Photo Editor. It has Zoom, Resize, Rotate, Copy, and Paste functions, and Undo and Redo controls. However, the Filter button is where the action is with this basic tool. From there, we could access Autointerlace Free's functional interface, just as we could with Photoshop. We could add other plug-ins to Photo Editor, too, potentially extending its usefulness. If you don't have Photoshop, don't let that stop you from using Autointerlace Free. If you do have Photoshop, you should have this free plug-in, too.