Event Pan/Crop for an image is not intuitive

John-Callahan wrote on 12/29/2025, 8:31 AM

Using a simple project of a video tack and a image (.jpg):

I have a project with a 4K track in it (3840x2160). I add a image (jpg), which is also 4K (3840x2160) in another track. What I want to do is size the image down and move on top of the clip. These are the steps I perform and the non-intuitive Pan/Crop I have to deal with.

Image is on track 1
Video is on track 2
Let's say I want the image to appear half size (1920x1080) and to be off to the left side of the video track.
On the Image I right click on '...' and select Event pan/crop
- At the moment the image covers the clip fully as it is the same size (3840x2160).
- Intuitively I would expect to use the handle at the upper left corner and drag towards bottom right to shrink it. However, it makes it bigger.
- The only way to shrink it relative to video track is to drag the hook the opposite direction
- Then to move the now reduced image to left side I have the drag the hook to the right.
It appears that the pan/crop canvas is NOT the image at all, but the background. So, to make a image smaller I need to make the background canvas larger. This make no sense to me. Surly, there must be a way to size a image and move it more intuitively.

Comments

Gid wrote on 12/29/2025, 8:35 AM

@John-Callahan It sounds like you understand what is going on but you might find it easier to use Picture in Picture.

PS. I think of Pan/Crop a bit like a camera perspective, pull back (increase the dotted box in Pan/Crop) & the image gets smaller/further away. Move closer to the image with the camera (shrink the dotted box in Pan/Crop) & the image gets bigger/cropped

jetdv wrote on 12/29/2025, 9:23 AM

Perhaps you should try Track Motion instead which will work the way you are expecting. Two different tools that work two different ways (and on two different sources.)

LdM_Edit wrote on 12/29/2025, 9:36 AM

The video effects "Picture in picture" and "Crop" can do a similar job to pan - crop, which yes, it's not intuitive to use.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 12/29/2025, 9:41 AM

@John-Callahan Use Picture In Picture, Pan/crop is not entirely suited for what you are trying to achieve.

jetdv wrote on 12/29/2025, 9:41 AM

Actually Pan/Crop is VERY intuitive - for the JOB it's DESIGNED to do - cropping (where you make the box smaller) and panning (where you use keyframes to move the box across the image.) It's designed for zooming IN on the image so the operation makes perfect sense.