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Watch the tutorial
Step 1: Add the Crop effect to your clip
Open the Effects panel (Window > Effects) and type Crop into the search box. You will find it under Video Effects > Transform. Drag Crop onto your video clip in the timeline.
Faster with BetterFX: skip the Effects panel. Press your BetterFX shortcut, type the first letters of Crop and press Enter to apply it to the selected clip. Get BetterFX
Step 2: Open the Crop controls
With the clip still selected, go to the Effect Controls panel and scroll down to the Crop effect. Click the word Crop itself. This reveals blue handles around your clip in the Program Monitor, which is the quickest way to crop by eye.
Underneath you will also see the numeric controls: Left, Top, Right, Bottom, Zoom and Edge Feather. Each value is a percentage of the frame, so you can also type numbers if you want a precise, repeatable crop.
Step 3: Drag the handles to crop
Go to the handles in the Program Monitor and drag them inwards until you are happy with how the video looks. You can move all four handles or only the ones you need, for example just the top and bottom for a widescreen look, or just the sides to remove something at the edge of the shot.
If you prefer to play around with the values instead, adjust Left, Top, Right and Bottom in Effect Controls. Dragging and typing do the same thing, and you can switch between them at any time.
Step 4: Remove the black background by scaling up
Cropping cuts away part of the picture, so the removed area shows up as black. To get rid of it, scale the clip up. Open the Motion section in Effect Controls and raise the Scale value until the cropped picture fills the whole frame again. The video lands at a scale of a little over 200 while keeping the crop in place.
Check the Position value too. If the part of the picture you want to keep sits off centre, change Position to move it into the middle of the frame.
Step 5: Try the Zoom checkbox (and know its limits)
There is also a Zoom checkbox right under the crop values. Turning it on scales the cropped area up to fill the frame automatically. It is quick, but it will likely stretch your video a bit, because the crop area is forced to fit the frame without keeping its proportions. For the best quality, use the Scale method from Step 4 instead.
Tips
- Watch your resolution. Scaling above 100 enlarges the footage, so a heavily cropped 1080p clip can start to look soft. Crop less or start from 4K footage if you need a tight crop.
- Use Edge Feather for soft edges. A small Edge Feather value blurs the border of the cropped area, which is handy when you layer clips on top of each other.
- Copy the crop to other clips. Right click the clip, choose Copy, select the other clips and use Paste Attributes to apply the same crop in one go.
FAQ
Where is the Crop effect in Premiere Pro?
Search for Crop in the Effects panel. It is located in Video Effects > Transform. Drag it onto a clip and the controls appear in Effect Controls.
How do I crop a video to a different aspect ratio?
Use the Top and Bottom values for a wider, cinematic frame, or Left and Right for a narrower one. Then raise Scale so the picture fills the frame. For a sequence with a different shape altogether, change the sequence settings instead.
Why does my cropped video show black bars?
The cropped area is transparent, and with nothing underneath it shows as black. Scale the clip up until the black disappears, or place another clip on a lower track.
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