Comparison view, safe margins and guides in Video by Zaweba
Set a reference frame beside the picture, show safe margins, rulers and guides, and use rotation and anchor handles in the Video by Zaweba preview.
The preview is where you judge everything, and a few aids in the View menu make it far more useful. Video by Zaweba offers a comparison view with a reference frame, safe margins, rulers and guides, rotation and anchor handles on the picture, and anti-flicker. Each one helps with a specific kind of decision.
Comparison view
The comparison view shows a reference frame beside the picture you are working on. It is the tool for matching. Shots from different cameras, or from different times of day, often look slightly different, and matching them by memory is unreliable. With the reference beside the current picture, you can see the difference directly and adjust the grade until they sit together.
It also helps with continuity. Check that an object is in the same place, that a person is wearing the same thing, or that the framing of two shots in a sequence feels consistent.
A good habit is to pick one well graded shot from a scene as the reference, then go through every other shot comparing against it.
Safe margins
Safe margins show the area of the frame where important content should stay. Some screens crop the edges of a picture, and some players lay controls over the bottom. Keeping titles, names and key action inside the safe margins means they are not cut off or covered.
Turn them on whenever you place text. A name in a lower third that looks fine on your monitor might sit too close to the edge for a TV or be hidden under a player's controls. With the margins visible, you can place it confidently.
Rulers and guides
Rulers along the edges of the preview, and guides you can set across it, help you line things up. Use them to place a logo in the same position across several videos, to keep titles at a consistent height, or to align elements in a split screen.
Guides are especially useful for a series. Set guides for where your titles and logo go, and every episode can match.
Rotation and anchor handles
Handles on the picture let you rotate it and move its anchor point directly in the preview, rather than typing numbers. The anchor point is the point a picture rotates and scales around. Where it sits changes the motion. Put the anchor at the corner of a picture and it swings round that corner like a door. Put it at the bottom of a title and it grows up from that line.
Dragging the handles on the picture makes this quick and visual, and it works with keyframes, so you can animate rotation and scale around a point of your choosing.
Anti-flicker sits in the same menu. Fine horizontal lines and very small text are the usual sources of shimmer in moving pictures, so it is worth trying when a title or graphic with thin strokes seems to buzz on screen. Check the result by playing the shot rather than looking at a still, because flicker only shows in motion.
Putting the aids together
A typical session on titles might go like this. Turn on safe margins and guides. Place the title inside the margins and on the guide. Zoom the preview in to check alignment, then zoom out. Use the rotation and anchor handles to set how it will move in, and keyframe it.
For a grade, turn on comparison view with a reference shot, adjust, and step through the scene.
Habits that trip people up
Leaving aids on and then judging the picture with them in the way is easy to do. Turn them off for a clean look before you sign off a shot. Margins, rulers and guides are never part of the export, but they can distract.
Placing text by eye without safe margins is the other common slip. Video by Zaweba makes the margins one click away, so there is no reason to guess.
