Pan/Crop for sizing, Track Motion for moving.

That isn't it, pan/crop is limited to 8x the image size from further research. The max width of 1264 is 8x that of 158 which is the images height.

I did kind of figure out the Track Motion positioning... I had some math to get an image to fit exactly in the corner, but it wasn't working for the width. Took me a minute to realise the width isn't the width of the image, but basically a 16:9 canvas containing the image in the middle. Once I figured out what width the image really is when scale down, I was able to get the math correct. It's awkward, definitely less intuitive than Pan/Crop but I needed to break that 8x limitation.

Will appreciate positioning tips, or a way to break that 8x limitation in pan/crop.

Picture in picture?

Was the PIP video FX in VP15? From memory it's a fairly recent addition.

Yes it was.

Two words:

1. Nest
2. Photoshop

As @Tencryn discovered, the pan crop tool isn't the right tool to achieve a PictureInPucture PIP fx. The pan crop tool acts like an camera you can position nearer or farther away from the object. This distance is limited.

For more flexible resizing and repositioning an image as a PIP, you better use Trackmotion or the PIPfx.

The wonderful feature of VegasPro is its ability to do stuff in many, many creative ways. It’s valuable to experiment just what we can do with this Swiss Army Knife of an NLE. But over and above all this, is its ability to allow other software to inter-mingle with 3rd Party Software, Scripting, and drive us to expand what exciting new avenues to explore, and there’re many.

@Tencryn - You’re being offered, by my colleagues here, several avenues to consider, all of which will get you what you want - for sure! My spin on all of this is what I’ve learnt with VP over two decades, firstly I need to classify what it is I’m doing? I’d classify that this procedure is Graphics, ArtWork, Photos, it’s not necessarily Video, moving pictures. So, somewhere along this line:

Video<……>Graphics

I’d be needing to decide what approach, and then, what tool to pickup outta the VP Toolbox. On your project, if I found I wanted more functionality from a Graphics Package, for me that’s PaintShopPro, there’s a very easy way to produce the Graphic and have posted back directly into VP as a Take so I could test and make sure it is what I want for my Narrative. So back in VP I can Tap “T”, for Take and I can immediately see if this is what I want!

VegasPro keeps on allowing me to flex my creativity and deliver, I hope, engaging, “watchable” Videos.

If Pan/Crop followed by the PIP Video FX doesn't take the image down small enough you can add another PIP FX in the FX chain and end up with just a dot on the screen.

Actually it's probably easier to use two PIP FX and not touch Pan/Crop. As 3POINT mentioned Pan/Crop isn't the right tool for this. In VMS17 two PIP FX can take me down to 1/100th of the original size. I assume VP's FX works the same. Also positioning is easier with PIP FX.

The smallest PIP the PIPfx can create is 1% of the project resolution. For smaller PIPs you can use Trackmotion. Trackmotion can start at 0%.

Advantage PIPfx, you can directly resize and reposition the PIP in the preview window and can be used as an event fx. Disadvantage PIPfx, resizing and repositioning is not accurate, it cannot snap to a predefined grid. This possibility has Trackmotion. Disadvantage Trackmotion, resizing and repositioning cannot be done directly in the preview and without separate keyframes the setting is valid for the whole track.

Disadvantage Trackmotion, resizing and repositioning cannot be done directly in the preview and without separate keyframes the setting is valid for the whole track.

But as another esteemed member of the forum has pointed out a number of times over the years, tracks are cheap in Vegas Pro. I have no hesitation in devoting an entire track to one image to enable desired framing (but with no keyframing needed - but can still be done with using both pan/crop on the event as well as track motion) I find it helpful to name the track header with the name of the image and why track motion was being used for that image.

I'm flabbergasted by the sheer number of helpful replies in a relatively short space of time.

I checked out PIPfx it seems acceptable for this task. The resulting size does not need to be precise and being able to scale down to as low as 0.001 is plentiful. As for repositioning, ideally I'd like grid snapping but creating a grid image and eyeballing the position gets it fairly precise. As a mathless option, this is great.

Though of course, If I needed more precision then Track Motion would be the better option.

Thank you, all.

I'm flabbergasted by the sheer number of helpful replies in a relatively short space of time.

@Tencryn - And this is the “other” resource people get when part of the VegasPro Family 😁.

But as another esteemed member of the forum has pointed out a number of times over the years, tracks are cheap in Vegas Pro. I have no hesitation in devoting an entire track to one image to enable desired framing (but with no keyframing needed - but can still be done with using both pan/crop on the event as well as track motion) I find it helpful to name the track header with the name of the image and why track motion was being used for that image.

Ofcourse tracks are free, but a lot of them can make a project unnecessary complicated (when not using the track grouping feature or nesting timeline feature of Vegas). Since my monitor is much wider than high, I always prefer to generate as less tracks as possible.

Pan/Crop is designed to pick the part of the image you want to keep. It's not for resizing or anything else. It's for cropping the image to only the part you want to use. It will also allow you to "Pan" the clip as well.

Track Motion is designed to resize and position the cropped clip. So use Track Motion to do the resizing and positioning.

These two work together very well. But you need to use the proper tool for the proper job. Pan/Crop's job is not resizing and positioning and Track Motion's job is not cropping.

Of course, there's now the PIP effect which will let you resizing and position and doesn't adjust the entire track (yes Track Motion can be keyframed so it only uses part of a track...)

Pan Crop is far better than track motion for resizing despite its limitations, because it treats the image at its native resolution. Track motion treats at project resolution. I do all my zoom/pans on stills with Pan Crop, never track motion.

I do all my zoom/pans on stills with Pan Crop, never track motion.

That's OK for zooming in, but for zooming out (PIP) pan crop is limited and is Trackmotion the better tool.

If your goal is to have an image not zooming but resized, then I would concede that the Track Motion works around the size limitation of Pan/Crop so might be the better choice. But if you are actually ZOOMING (moving) and if you can work around the size limitation Pan/Crop is better. Here is a sample I created. The first is Track Motion Zoom and the second is Pan/Crop (and I repeat the pan/crop over black). If you fix your eyes on a detailed part of the image you will notice that track motion is blurred while moving and is not as smooth as Pan/Crop appears. Both moves are linear and the same length (5 seconds) (better if watched on youtube)


Also, unless I am misunderstanding the OP is trying to enlarge an image, but the Pan/Crop has a limitation that way as well.