In this tutorial we’ll be learning how to use Auto Reframe in Premiere Pro. This is especially useful for designers and content creators who are looking to export their videos for multiple different aspect ratios.
You’ll need to export a new video for each platform, such as LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Using Auto Reframe in Premiere Pro will allow you to do this automatically, saving you a lot of time in the process!
What You’ll Need
To demonstrate the auto reframe functionality in Premiere Pro, I’ve gone ahead and created an example project of a promo video for a fictional mobile phone brand called Edge Mobile. This was created using some stock footage and assets from Envato Elements, which you can download using the links below.
How to Auto Reframe
Now the project has been created as a standard 16:9 aspect ratio. This is common for creating videos for platforms like YouTube for example.
So to make this video suitable for Instagram, we need to make this into two videos. The first will be a 9:16 video.
And the second will be a 1:1 aspect ratio video.
Now if we were to do this manually, it would mean that we would have to edit and change most, if not all of our footage to make sure that everything fits into the new size. In some cases this would take a lot of effort.
So instead let’s look at the auto reframing functionality that is now in Premiere Pro. It is very easy to use and saves you a lot of time, so let’s jump straight into it.
In the project panel, right click on your sequence and then select Auto Reframe Sequence.
A new window will appear with some options for you to select and choose from. It also automatically renames your sequence for you, but feel free to change it if you want to. Then use the following options:
- Target Aspect Ratio: Vertical 9:16 (or whatever size you need)
- Motion Tracking: Default
Decide whether or not you need to nest clips. This will depend on if you’ve got a lot of motion adjustments on your timeline already. If that is the case, you can go ahead and choose nest clips.
Once you hit the Create button you’ll see that a new vertical 9:16 sequence has been created!
How to Adjust the Size of Your Graphics
Now let’s go to the Edit panel to see more details of our video sequence. Now depending on your project, you might still need to do a bit of editing (such as the text graphics shown below). However you’ll notice that it has reframed all of our footage to be centered.
Back in the Effect Controls panel, you’ll notice that the Motion options which is where you would usually be able to change all of your motion effects have been greyed out.
Instead, you’ve got Auto Reframe options to play around with. So let’s start by changing the size and the position of the text graphics layer so that it fits better.
Start by clicking on the Overwrite generated path box. This will allow you to change some things that have been done automatically.
You can see that it has tried to make the text graphic scroll across the screen, but we want to change the size so that it fits. So first we need to delete all the keyframes apart from the first.
Now just play about with the Reframe Offset and Reframe Scale values to make the graphic element fit to the frame! If there are extra keyframes generated for these effects, you can just delete them all apart from the first one (just like we did with the adjust position keyframes above).
How to Adjust the Footage
You might also find that some sequences have some slight movement to them as the auto reframe has tried to keep things centered to the middle. This is easily removed by clicking on Overwrite Generated Path again and going to the Adjust Position keyframes and deleting all but the first keyframe.
Go through the rest of your footage and see if you need to do some manual adjustments. Then just repeat the steps above:
- Click on Overwrite generated path
- Remove any unwanted Adjust Position keyframes
- Use Reframe Offset and Reframe Scale to adjust the position of the footage to your liking.
Now although you still need to do some manual adjustments, using auto reframe is still a lot faster than doing things manually. It’s done all of that groundwork for us automatically and all we’re doing is just tweaking it to make it look good.
Once you’re done with your sequence, you will be able to find it in the Auto Reframed Sequences folder.
So it’s as easy as that, how to use the Auto Reframe functionality in Premiere Pro to very quickly and very easily reframe your content for social media. I hope you found this tutorial helpful and that you’ve learned some new tips and tricks that you can use for your own projects. See you next time!
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