Reframing a shot towards the top half of the frame and not the middle

Aaron Cooper

Newbie Joined: May 11, 2019 12:20 Messages: 5 Offline

Solved by

Jul 27, 2019 06:43

I have 4K footage of a person that was shot mostly in wide shots showing their full body.

I want to output in 1080p so I know I can reframe a few shots to turn them from long shots into medium shots without sacrificing overall picture quality.

Using Tools - Power Tools - Crop/Zoom/Pan I can reframe the shots. Annoyingly I can only go into the centre of the frame. This is no use. I want to keep the top half of the frame and cut out some of the bottom half.

Using the various tricks that already exist, can someone explain how I would do this using a workaround? I’m sure there is a way to trick the software into doing this.

FYI the 4K outputted version will not have any reframed shots.

Note to CyberLink for the next version of the editor: You should allow us to reposition the frame elsewhere and not just towards the centre of the screen. This would be a really useful feature.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Jul 27, 2019 10:53

Sure. All of the Power Tools are essentially "hands-off" editing tools, meaning that they're designed to handle most of the details while only needing minimal input from you. They're nowhere near as flexible as using the standard editing tools, but in many cases, they'll get the job done quickly and easily.

In your case, however, you'll want to use the PiP Designer and simply use the Scale and Position controls, or manually drag the selection handles (the 8 white white dots along the frame) to adjust the scale, and drag the video down to show the top area. That's all there is to it!

If your shots are mostly static as far as the person's position in the frame, you may only have to set these parameters once. If there is occasional movment, you'll want to use keyframes to keep the person where you want them in the frame. There are many basic editing tutorials that cover these topics, and you can find them by searching on the forum, or on YouTube, or at the Cyberlink Learning Center

Also, the people at Cyberlink who make product development and marketing decisions don't monitor these posts, so no "Note to Cyberlink" comments will reach them. If you do want to send them feedback or requests, your best option is to use Rate Us & Provide Suggestions under PD's File menu.

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Aaron Cooper

Newbie Joined: May 11, 2019 12:20 Messages: 5 Offline

Jul 27, 2019 15:27

Quote Sure. All of the Power Tools are essentially "hands-off" editing tools, meaning that they're designed to handle most of the details while only needing minimal input from you. They're nowhere near as flexible as using the standard editing tools, but in many cases, they'll get the job done quickly and easily.

In your case, however, you'll want to use the PiP Designer and simply use the Scale and Position controls, or manually drag the selection handles (the 8 white white dots along the frame) to adjust the scale, and drag the video down to show the top area. That's all there is to it!

If your shots are mostly static as far as the person's position in the frame, you may only have to set these parameters once. If there is occasional movment, you'll want to use keyframes to keep the person where you want them in the frame. There are many basic editing tutorials that cover these topics, and you can find them by searching on the forum, or on YouTube, or at the Cyberlink Learning Center

Also, the people at Cyberlink who make product development and marketing decisions don't monitor these posts, so no "Note to Cyberlink" comments will reach them. If you do want to send them feedback or requests, your best option is to use Rate Us & Provide Suggestions under PD's File menu.

It worked. So easy when you know how! That problem defeated me for ages. Thank you for the help.

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Jul 27, 2019 16:24

Glad you got it resolved with optodata's suggestion, Aaron.

I agree there's a bit more flexibility & control using PiP Designer for that purpose, but I can't see how you couldn't achieve much the same thing using Crop & Zoom.

Take this example I did some time back, using Crop & Zoom... you could do that same thing in PiP Designer (but with more keyframes & more options, like Ease in/out).

Cheers - Tony
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