Transform and keyframes

Every video, image or piece of text sits somewhere in the frame, at some size. That bundle of “where and how big” settings is the transform. You can change it two ways: with the sliders in the properties panel on the right, or by dragging the layer directly in the preview.

Then comes the fun part: those values can change over time. An image slowly grows, a title slides in from the edge, a video gently rotates. The thing that makes this happen is called a keyframe — we'll explain it below.

Transform: place and size in the frame

Select a clip on the timeline and its settings open in the panel on the right. The transform section has four main sliders.

Dragging right in the preview

Sliders are good for exact numbers, but working by eye is faster. Select the layer (click it in the preview — the topmost one gets picked) and handles appear. The handles only show while paused: during playback they would cover the picture.

• Move — grab the middle of the layer and drag. Hold Shift to lock an axis: it then moves only horizontally or only vertically.
• Rotate — swing the rotation handle. Shift snaps the angle to 15° steps (0°, 15°, 30°…), and double-clicking the handle resets the angle to 0.
• Stretch — the edge and corner handles. This is a non-proportional stretch: the image gets squeezed wider or taller, deliberately breaking its aspect ratio (in the panel these are “Stretch → Width (X) / Height (Y)”).

Crop and fit

Drop a vertical video into a landscape project and it fits inside the frame, leaving empty bars at the sides. Two settings deal with that.

Clip speed

A video or audio clip can run anywhere from 0.25× to 4× (the “Speed” control in the properties panel). 0.5× is half speed — good for a sports move or a reaction; 2× is double speed, handy for compressing a long process.

Speed doesn't change which part of the source the clip uses — only how much room that part takes up on the timeline. So at 2× the clip becomes twice as SHORT, at 0.5× twice as long, and it's on you to make sure it doesn't collide with the clips after it.

Keyframes — change over time

A keyframe is a value pinned to one exact moment in time. You say “at 2 seconds the scale is 1” and “at 6 seconds the scale is 1.3” — and the editor fills in everything in between. What's the scale at 4 seconds? It works that out itself. That's where animation comes from: you only mark the KEY moments.

1. 1

   Put the playhead at the first moment

   Pick where the animation should START — the very beginning of the clip, say. A keyframe always lands wherever the playhead is standing.

2. 2

   Click the diamond button

   In the Animation section of the properties panel there's a diamond (♦) button. Click it and a keyframe is added at that moment; if one is already there, it's removed. One button, both jobs.

3. 3

   Move the playhead, then change the value

   Jump to the second moment and drag a slider. A new keyframe appears by itself — this is called auto-keyframing. Once the first keyframe exists, every slider move you make is written into a keyframe at that moment.

4. 4

   Play it back

   Press Space. The value glides smoothly between the two keyframes. Before the first and after the last one it simply holds that keyframe's value.

On the selected clip the keyframes show up as little diamonds on the timeline. You can drag them to retime the animation — the quickest way to make it faster or start it later. The arrow buttons in the panel jump to the previous/next keyframe.

Easing — the character of the motion

Between two keyframes, how does the value travel — at a constant pace, or speeding up gradually? That's easing. Each keyframe sets the pace of the stretch that FOLLOWS it. There are four options.

Worked example: a slow zoom on a photo (Ken Burns)

A still photo just sitting on the timeline looks dead. Give it a slow push in and the shot starts to breathe — a classic move, used in every documentary. Here it is in under a minute.

1. 1

   Place the image and select it

   Drop the image onto the timeline and drag its edge until it's 5–6 seconds long. Click the clip.

2. 2

   First keyframe at the start

   Put the playhead at the very start of the clip. Leave the scale at 1.0 and click the diamond — your first keyframe. Set its easing to “Smooth”.

3. 3

   Second keyframe at the end

   Move the playhead to the end of the clip and raise the scale to 1.15. You don't even need the diamond — moving the slider creates the keyframe for you.

4. 4

   Play it

   Home, then Space. The photo grows slowly, almost imperceptibly. That's the trick: the viewer never notices the zoom, but the shot feels alive.

Common questions