I have 2019 Movie Edit Pro. I want to place a long photo 5382 x 1080 in my video. Then I want a 1 minute scene in which the image section moves/pans from the left side of the image to the right side. How can I do this?
Short method - assumes your project setting is 1920 x 1080 and you know how to set keyframes -
add image to timeline and position the cursor at the start of the image
Use Size & Position effect set height to 1080 and press Enter
Set Left to 0 and Top to 0 press Enter
Add a keyframe - this will lock the starting position.
move the cursor to the end of the object
set the Left position to -3462 (1920 - 5382) a keyframe will be added automatically.
If your project is not 1920 x 1080, set item 2 height to the project height, this will give you a new value for Width, set item 6 left to Width - project width.
17/09 - Added for clarification:
in step 2 this will set a new width for the image in the example I gave this was 5382px.
in step 3 the Top setting was omitted
In step 6 the subtraction was inverted - now correct.
Thanks for your help. I did this, and what I got was that the starting section of the first 1920 of the image, moved from the beginning to the end. So the section moved correctly, but it was a still of the first part of the image, not panning the image. Dose that make sense? I can set the 2 key frames, but some how it dosen't know that as it is panning right, that the image in the section should be changing as it moves. It just simply moves the initial section of the image.
In case John EB doesn't answer today, did you move the playback marker to the end of the clip in the keyframe area and then type in 3462 as the left position (in Size/Position) and then press Enter?
For those not used to using keyboard shortcuts. I didn't have a proper panorama to hand but I did have a reasonable high resolution wide angle shot to try out.
Alternative method using a mouse. Refine to taste.
@Dave-Eric Use Camera/Zoom Shot. Place the selection box where you want the pan to start. Then put the cursor at the end of the image, set the selection box where you want the pan to end and that's it.
Gday Ray, just watched your tute above. Good job. Regarding setting the play marker to the end of the clip, if you drag the keyframe (top) play marker to the extreme right edge, the main play marker won't fall off the end; it will stop 1 frame short on the main timeline. 👍
The beauty of Camera/Zoom Shot is you can section as well as pan.
No, Camera/Zoom does not actually use Section. It just uses a rectangle with the same proportions (say 16:9) as the project, and resizing the rectangle is actually using the zoom slider under Size/Position, and moving the rectangle is actually using the position values (X/Y) under Size/Position, you just don't see it happening. Magix calls it a Section just to confuse the issue.
The Section feature is quite different. It's actually cropping and you can crop to any rectilinear proportion with free form. Then, you use the cropped image or video and resize it to what you want using Size/Position. A Section done this way cannot be keyframed - meaning that you cannot create, say a square section and then further along the timeline create a rectangular section on the same object, and have the object change form in between. You cannot have a Section (crop) of part of the image at one point and then another Section (crop) at another location on the same object further along the timeline. You can only have one Section (crop) created for the object. You can, of course, keyframe the size, position and rotation of that single cropped image. You can even use Camera/Zoom on that cropped image.
So, don't confuse a Section under Camera/Zoom with the Section effect. They are not the same.
Ha! Not so much a tutorial as a quick demo of how I do things the lazy way in real time. Notice the hesitations in selections and movement of the mouse because I'm aware of recording my movements. Similar to how people often have to think when they don't have a script when recording their voice.
I'm just not a keyboard shortcut type of person. Probably because it feels more like doing art by doing something physical than typing and being a secretary. (Please, no offence to anyone that prefers the latter choice.)
It can have its downsides, such as being more difficult to keep the same height during tracking where adding a position by numbers is easier but I think positioning wise to see what looks a better framing is quicker by dragging the image around. I would do the same if I were deciding a crop of a still image for sizing which I often do. Yes the key frames can be added to,moved or erased as needed. I just happened that with the timeline at that resolution, MEP decided not to stop at the end of the clip but ravel further. I could have gone back and moved the marker after. Lazy again 🙃.
John, all I said was you can section using Camera/Zoom, which is correct. And I am not suggesting that they are the same, nor that Section should or could be used in the scenario.
I maintain that for general use, Camera/Zoom is easier to visualise and set up a pan/zoom/crop because you can actually see the selection box. For example in the scenario above, what if the user wanted the pan to stop short of the right edge? The actual pixel count method now becomes clumsy, with trial and error. With Camera/Zoom, you simply drag the selection box exactly where you want it to end and that's that.
... I did this, and what I got was that the starting section of the first 1920 of the image, moved from the beginning to the end. So the section moved correctly, but it was a still of the first part of the image, not panning the image.
Same here. Is there a step missing there @johnebaker?
I'm really struggling here. I cannot see how one can get Size and Position to pan across an object (unless you use Ray's method, which doesn't work well with long images). By definition, "Size and Position" means resizing and positioning an object, not leaving the object in-place. If you change the position coordinates of the object, you'll move the object, not pan across it. That's exactly what's happening here: the object is simply being moved from hard-left to hard-right.
Dave, My method above requires dragging the selection box to fit. That is not actually needed.
Click on the image, then on Effects > Camera Zoom.
Place the Play marker at the start of the image, then click the right arrow in the Direction of Movement section. Done. You'll see the bounding box jump to the start and reshape to 16:9 (or your movie setting), and as you drag the play marker along, it'll pan over the image.
If you want to pan over only parts of your image (to say follow a person moving in a video) you can manually set the bounding box.
. . . . I cannot see how one can get Size and Position to pan across an object . . . .
Have you tried my method at the top of this topic - it is the most basic method - fill the screen height and pan from left to right, to pan right to left swap the left keyframe settings over ?
In effect that, is what the other methods above are doing using different controls, eg the zoom is altering the width/height and setting the Left and Top positions, the latter can be changed by dragging the image in the preview monitor.
Gday John, I did and I got the same result as Dave, where all that happens is the image itself gets moved to the right (as one would expect with SP), hence my question about whether there is something missing in your procedure.
I've tried it again as per your steps with same result: the image gets dragged to the right as the timeline plays. There is no panning.
Try working backwards and start at the end of the clip and see if that improves things. Also sometimes Key markers are not always automatically placed on the timeline and you have to add them manually. Also are you zooming in before beginning the pan? With a panoramic picture you can go to just full height but with a normal sized image you will have to zoom in an amount cutting away some vertical footage to have enough width to pan with.
Have you tried my method at the top of this topic - it is the most basic method
I can't agree, John. Your steps 2 to 6 I achieved with one click; the right direction arrow.
There is no question in my mind; Size and Position is not the best tool for panning across an image or video. In fact, in this case, with a very wide panorama image, you can't do it because you can't zoom in far enough with the zoom slider.
With Camera/Zoom it is literally one click: the right Direction arrow. Done. Both keyframes (start and end) are automatically set for you.
Gday John, that's better, it works now. But so many steps, compared to Camera/Zoom Shot's 1.
Unsurprisingly, the Size and Position numbers you typed in are exactly the same as those automatically entered by MEP when it sets up the directional pan.
I also notice that the "Edit" view mode is not available when using Size and Position, so you can't see the box to stop it early or otherwise edit it (say set up a zoom-in as it is panning along).
Size and Position is not the best tool for panning across an image or video. In fact, in this case, with a very wide panorama image, you can't do it because you can't zoom in far enough with the zoom slider.
That's actually not accurate. Using the up arrow to the right of the slider can take the zoom level up or down to any size you want to. Or just increasing the picture size using similar arrows.
. . . . Surely the best method is the one that the person feels most comfortable using. . . . .
I think I can say at this point that we agree to disagree on which is the best method. The good thing is that @Dave-Eric has several methods to try, and determine which suits his mode of working.
As Alwyn points out, for most zoom-pan shots, Camera/Zoom shot does an excellent job.
For just a pan shot on a long pan photo as shown below, Camera/Zoom is much easier to use than Size/Position.
In the first image below, in Camera/Zoom, the dashed rectangle is the size of the movie window, in my case 1920x1080.
To make the pan shot from left to right, simply click on the right arrow and the rectangle moves to the full height of the image, with X=0 and Y=0, puts keyframes at the beginning and end. It calculates the X value correctly for the ending keyframe.
If you want to make something special with this, then just move along the timeline, adjust the rectangle. In the image below, I made the rectangle smaller part way along the timeline. A keyframe is placed here. Then the image goes from full screen at the beginning, pans to the right and zooms in to my rectangle size, then zooms back out whilst panning to the right. Neat.
Alwyn, I do have to insist on being careful with the use of the words Section and cropping and the differences between the use of the word Section in the Camera/Zoom effect and the Section effect. It took me more than a year before I understood this. The two are not related.
In the context of Camera/Zoom, it uses the word Section to be the dashed rectangle. Camera/Zoom does not crop, it zooms to whatever is in the rectangle and puts it full-screen. You may consider this cropping, but it is not as the area outside of this is still available.
Section effect actually crops. The area outside of the selected area is no longer available.
In the image below, I'll use Section to crop the image to what is in the rectangle.
And make it full screen:
If I zoom out of this, I see just the cropped image - the full forest is no longer available (PiP):
Compare the above to Camera/Zoom. Below shows the rectangle in approximately the same place at the bottom of some trees.
I clicked on From Section and if I preview this at the beginning, I see the zoomed in area full-screen:
Moving along the timeline zooms out so that I can see the forest, again full-screen because the camera zooms out:
Thus, the image was not cropped or I would not be able to the full forest, it was just zoomed in. Compare this to the Section command where zooming out does not bring the full forest back - because the video was actually cropped, not zoomed in.
Go back to my PiP image. This is very difficult to do using Camera/Zoom because Camera/Zoom always wants to make the image full-screen. I don't want full-screen; I want PiP. This is better done under Size/Position using the zoom slider and/or resizing moving the rectangle on the screen.
It can be done using Camera/Zoom, but you would have to zoom out the Preview Monitor to be able to make the rectangle larger, as shown below. However, you don't see the background image so you are flying blind.
Resulting in this before putting the Preview Window back to 100%:
And with Preview Monitor at 100%:
Thus to make what I show above, Camera/Zoom is not the tool, neither for getting the PiP nor for animating it.
Below I used Size/Position - zooming out and moving the rectangle to get my PiP, and added a keyframe.
Below, I moved along the timeline, moved and resized (zoomed out) the image to make it smaller.
Playing back, my PiP image moves from the first position to the second position and zooms out (gets smaller) at the same time. Zooming in would just make the full inset image larger.
This cannot easily be done using Camera/Zoom, but is easy with Size/Position.
That is why it is important for one to know the differences in the tools and to understand what happens by looking at and using Size/Position.