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.

DMT3 wrote on 12/29/2025, 1:28 PM

You have to think of Pan/Crop as a camera view, you are not manipulating the image, you are manipulating the view of the image. I used it all of the time with no problems, but I can understand someone's initial confusion.

John-Callahan wrote on 12/29/2025, 1:28 PM

All - I tried Picture-in-Picture at first. In one example I found that it affected my video in the background, in that when the image was showing (scaled image in Picture-in-picture) that the video was not playing. When the length of the image in Picture-in-picture finished, then the background video continued.

I tried Track motion and added key frame points to where I could control the placement and size of the image (more intuitive control) and movement-and/or-size of the image with additional key frame points. This suits my purpose.

The only drawback to this is as follows:

Pan/crop window shows timeline relative to clip being worked on, which is convenient as the key frame marker are relative to that
Track motion window shows timeline relative to 0:00:00 of the project timeline and not, in this case, the single image length. My only option is to enable the Sync cursor option so that I can click on the timeline of the image to set additional key frame points in order to change size or position for effect (linear transition).

Many thanks to all for the quick feedback.

I consider this issue closed 👍

Gid wrote on 12/29/2025, 1:36 PM

All - I tried Picture-in-Picture at first. In one example I found that it affected my video in the background, in that when the image was showing (scaled image in Picture-in-picture) that the video was not playing. When the length of the image in Picture-in-picture finished, then the background video continued.

@John-Callahan Picture in Picture should only affect the event you've applied it to, but there's more than one way to apply fx's such as Picture in Picture, so can you share a screen capture or describe your problem in detail?

Adding video effects

I tried Track motion and added key frame points to where I could control the placement and size of the image (more intuitive control) and movement-and/or-size of the image with additional key frame points. This suits my purpose.

The only drawback to this is as follows:

Pan/crop window shows timeline relative to clip being worked on, which is convenient as the key frame marker are relative to that

Track motion window shows timeline relative to 0:00:00 of the project timeline and not, in this case, the single image length. My only option is to enable the Sync cursor option so that I can click on the timeline of the image to set additional key frame points in order to change size or position for effect (linear transition).

Many thanks to all for the quick feedback.

I consider this issue closed 👍

Track Motion keyframes can be moved directly on the timeline, double click the timeline keyframe to open the Track Motion window to adjust it. If that helps

John-Callahan wrote on 12/29/2025, 3:20 PM

@Gid - Yes, that is a good tip. I see that I can edit the size and location at each of the key frames and once that is done I can tweak there location on the timeline. I am also glad to see that the key frames remain with the image clip so that I can more the clip along the timeline without affecting the key frame positions relative to it.

I also notice that if I drag the length of the image clip (longer or shorter) that the key frames adjust proportionally, which is perfect for me.