29 Stabilizing Your Image in Premiere Pro


#29 Stabilizing Your Image in Premiere Pro

While you should always shoot with a tripod, sometimes you can't. Fortunately, Premiere Pro provides an effective, extraordinary image stabilization effect called SteadyMove from 2d3 Ltd (www.2d3.com).

Don't Count on Image Stabilization

Image stabilization should be considered a last resort, not a leg to stand on. Sometimes, it works well, and other times it doesn't. It's impossible to tell when and why. So keep using that tripod or steadycam when you can, and don't count on fixing shaky video "in post."


It's a third-party plug-in, which means that (even though it comes free with Production Studio) you have to install it manually from the suite's main installation menu. Once installed, it lives in its own 2d3 folder in the main Video Effects folder. To apply it in your project, drag it to your handheld clip and open the Effect Controls window to see the controls in Figure 29.

Figure 29. SteadyMove is as close to a "get out of jail card" for shaky video as I've ever seen.


In my experience, this effect is binary. Sometimes, it works with the default settings enabled, both stabilizing the image and zooming in to hide the adjustments, with no additional configuration from the user. The rest of the time, it doesn't work at all, and it's off to After Effects' image stabilization tool, which is discussed in #30.

Why Is My Video Larger?

All digital image stabilization techniques work by shifting the frame around to stabilize the video. Shifting a frame, say, to the right, leaves a black stripe on the left where the frame used to be. To cover these stripes, most stabilization techniques zoom into the video sufficiently to eliminate the stripes. As we'll see in #30, however, After Effects lets you zoom manually, providing a bit more control.





Adobe Digital Video How-Tos. 100 Essential Techniques with Adobe Production Studio
Adobe Digital Video How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques with Adobe Production Studio
ISBN: 0321473817
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 148
Authors: Jan Ozer

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