A cropping question

[Berzelius]

I have VideoStudio X7 Pro running under 64 bit Win 7 Professional SP1. I am new to X7 but have used VS 11 Plus. Some things in X7 are not new to me but many are.

I have a MP4 clip of a school performance taken from the back of the hall and I wish to select the stage area and get rid of all the backs of heads and such like. I proceeded as follows.

1. Placed clip in the timeline.
2. Dragged the Cropping icon from the FX menu onto the clip.
3. Opened up Options and selected Customize Filter.
4. Left the cropping frame at the 50x50% default value and dragged it to cover the area of the stage.
5. Moved to the Key Frame at end of clip, changed the size of the frame to 50x50% and again dragged it to cover the stage.
6. Produced the clip as an MP4 file by selecting "Same as first video clip" in Share.

Now comes the problem. I have a clip showing the stage area but it is surrounded by a blank field. How do I expand the cropped area to fill the whole screen? I could probably live with the reduced quality of the result.

[lata]

Hi

Yep I think the Cropping tool does just that, there are others you can use.

Try using the FX Video Pan and Zoom
The Picture in Picture filter.

But the Customise Motion may be the best.

Place a Clip in the timeline , right click and choose Customise Motion

Tip

Right click the first keyframe for "Paste to all"

[BrianCee]

When you are in the "Customise Filter" window setting up your crop - - UNTICK the small box at the bottom against "fill colour" - your crop will then fill the screen

I have never found any way to 'crop' in the Customise Motion window

[lata]

Hi Brian

Doesn’t zooming into the frame by setting the size do the same as cropping?

[BrianCee]

Not for me - changing size changes the whole image size.

I suppose you could increase the whole image size and then use the position controls to make sure only the part you want is visible in the preview window - a crop of sorts - but not obvious .

[Berzelius]

Many thanks for the replies. At the moment I'm trying out BrianCee's suggestion of unticking the "Fill Color" box as it seems to do what I require. I'll have a look at the other suggestions later - you can never have too many ways to skin a cat.

And Corel deserves some sort of award for obscurity for making untick the "Fill Color" box equal "Make the picture fill the frame"! I'd never have found that out in a month of Sundays without having been told!

And a few supplementary questions.

1) I knew from VS 11 that you needed to be very close to the centre of the frame to get the "hand" to appear but motion of the cropping frame seems very jerky. Is there some sort of grid in action that I could disable to get a smoother motion?

2) The cropping frame doesn't seem to have the normal dragging handles that you might expect for changing its size - having to type in the size is a bit clumsy.

3) What exactly does the eye-dropper cursor do? I can't see any effect.

[BrianCee]

1) - I know of no alternative way to move the cropping area 'box' than getting the hand and sliding

2) - Again the only way is to type in the numbers (or use the up/down arrows) to change the numbers - no dragging to re-size

3) - hovering the eye dropper over a colour and left clicking will set the 'fill' colour - could be useful if you are Chroma keying

[lata]

Hi

There are other options to Pan and Zoom, zooming into the video frame is the same as cropping, at least the results are the same.

Try the FX Video Pan and Zoom
Picture in Picture is also quite useful having templates we can use.
Then again Customise Motion

There is also the option to Distort Clip
That allows us to manually resize/re-position the frame within the preview window, similar to editing in the Overlay tracks where the frame can be re-sized

I am sure you will find they type that you like to use, its just personal preference.

[Berzelius]

Thanks for the further replies. I've solved my immediate problem but no doubt I shall be back with further questions. I must look into Pan and Zoom - that sounds new as far as I am concerned. As for distorting the clip, I recall using this with VS 11, but also finding it very tricky.

[lata]

Hi

Distort clip -- drag the corners to re-size keeps it in proportion, make sure the curser is a double arrow.