About the shelf

Overlayshelf is a small library of free photo overlays: film grain, dust and scratches, light leaks, halftone screens and paper textures.

How the plates are made

Every plate is generated with code. Grain is filtered random noise, sized to match film speeds and centred on 50% grey. Dust and hair are drawn as random shapes and curves, then softened. Halftone screens are rendered at double size and scaled down for clean dots. Light leaks are soft colour fields with a film-like highlight roll-off. Paper textures layer large and fine noise with drawn fibres.

No AI image models are used and nothing is copied from other sites. The same parameters always produce the same plate, which is why each one has a frame number and a technical data table.

Why

Most free overlay sites hide downloads behind sign-ups, ads that look like download buttons, or low-resolution previews. Here the download button is the download.