Crop a Video in QuickTime on Mac (With Pictures)
Looking to crop a video in QuickTime on your Mac computer?
While it isn’t possible to crop a video using the basic version (the one that comes pre-installed on your Mac OS), the pro version of QuickTime player allows you to crop videos.
In this article, we’ll show you how to crop a video using QuickTime Pro with step-by-step instructions and pictures.
As a bonus, we’ll also show you how you can use Animaker to crop a video online using Safari or Chrome on your Mac computer.
Note that this article covers how to crop a video, which is about selecting the area of the video you want to use or highlight.
If you want to trim a video to your desired length, you can take a look at our article that provides step-by-step instructions on how to cut a video.
How to Crop a Video with QuickTime Pro
Like we said before, the QuickTime player that comes pre-installed cannot be used to crop a video. You’re going to have to upgrade it to pro for $30 in order to be able to crop a video. If you have QuickTime 7 installed on your Mac, you can go ahead and upgrade it to QuickTime Pro.
Also, you’re going to need Photoshop to create a mask file. Depending on how familiar you’re with Photoshop, creating a mask file in it could take several minutes. Once you have Photoshop installed on your Mac computer, follow the below steps to crop a video using QuickTime Pro:
Step 1: Capture a Frame of Your Video Clip
You’re going to need a mask file to instruct QuickTime on how it should crop your video. To create this mask file, you’ll first need a snapshot of a particular frame of the video. To copy the image of a frame using QuickTime Pro, open the video and go to Edit > Copy.
Step 2: Create a Mask using Photoshop
Open Photoshop and create a new project by going to File > New. Then, paste the image you’d previously copied. Now use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the area you want to use, and fill the selected area with black color. Now fill the space outside the black box with white color. Finally, save the file in GIF or TIFF format.
Step 3: Apply the Mask
Open QuickTime pro, go to Windows > Show Movie Properties > Visual Settings. Then click on the Choose button to import the mask file.
Step 4: Save the Cropped Video
Once the mask is applied to your video, only the selected area shows up. Go to File > Export to save the cropped video to your desired location.
How to Crop a Video The Easy Way On Your Mac Computer
Using QuickTime Pro to crop videos is a hassle. It involves several steps and creating a mask file.
A much easier way would be to use Animaker’s Video Cropping Tool to crop your video. It’s a lightweight online tool that lets you crop videos in 3 simple steps and doesn’t require you to create a mask to crop a video. Follow the instructions below to crop a video using Animaker.
Step 1: First, Login or create a free account. From the dashboard, pick the dimensions or choose a platform you want to crop your video for. You can choose the Horizontal (16:9), Square (1:1), or Vertical (9:16) preset from the Create a video section. Or, you can use the Custom Size button to crop your video to the custom dimensions.
Step 2: Upload the video you want to crop. Navigate to the Upload tab in the main navigation bar and click on the Upload button at the bottom of the tab window.
Once the video’s been uploaded, click on the video to set it onto the canvas.
Now crop or resize the video to select the area you want to use. Click on the Crop button in the top right corner of the canvas to start cropping your video. Now hold and drag one of the Crop handles around the corners to scale or shrink it; then reposition it to make it fit the dimensions properly. Once you’re done, click on the Apply button.
Step 3: You can download the cropped video to your local computer by clicking on the Publish button and then selecting Download Video from the resulting dropdown. Or, you can share it directly to various social media platforms from inside the app.
On top of letting you crop videos, Animaker’s online video editor gives you the ability to:
And more! With Animaker’s all-in-one video editing software, you get all the tools you need to edit your videos for your social media channels and the web. No video editing experience is required to use our video editing suite.
Got any questions on cropping a video on your Mac computer? Any tips or tools to crop a video on Mac that you find interesting? Please let us know about them in the comment section below.
Facebook Cover Video: Size, Specs, How to Create and Add One in 2023
Your Facebook cover video is the most important piece of real estate on your Facebook business page.
It’s not only the first thing that grabs the attention of your visitors, it sets the tone for your entire page and largely determines what the visitors associate with your brand.
That’s why it’s important to keep it optimized. A video is sometimes much more engaging than a static image.
When done right, a cover video on your Facebook page can be an effective promotional tool in your marketing arsenal.
If you’ve been using a Facebook cover photo and are looking to create and set an engaging cover video, this guide is for you. Ready? Let’s jump right in!
Note that the cover video functionality is available only for your Facebook business page, not for your personal profile.
Facebook Cover Video Specs
Below are the latest Facebook cover video specs to make your cover video look its best in 2023.
Size
Facebook hasn’t specified an ideal size for the cover video. However, the maximum file size limit is 1.75 GB for any video you upload to Facebook. We’d recommend you to pick a size that isn’t too large to make sure that people with a slow internet connection can watch your video.
Dimensions
A Facebook cover video should be at least 820 x 312 pixels (820 pixels wide and 312 pixels tall). The recommended dimensions for best results are 820 x 462 pixels. On a mobile device or app, your cover video will be cropped to 640 x 360 px.
Length
The length of your Facebook cover video should be between 20 and 90 seconds.
Format (file type) and Resolution
Facebook recommends you to upload your cover video in MP4 or MOV format. And the maximum resolution of your cover video should be 1080p.
How to Make a Facebook Cover Video using Animaker
Whether you’re looking to create a cover video with live footage or an animated banner video from scratch, Animaker’s Facebook cover video maker lets you easily create one by yourself.
You don’t need any video making experience to create videos using Animaker. Follow the steps below to create an engaging cover video using Animaker:
1. Sign Up for a Free Animaker Account or Log In If You Already Have an Account
2. Start From Scratch or Use a Readymade Template
If you want to start from scratch, click on the “Custom Size” button, then enter the ideal width and height (800*462) of a Facebook cover video, and hit “Create Video”.
You can also pick the Horizontal (16:9) aspect ratio from the Create a video section as it’ll fit the ideal dimensions of a Facebook cover video.
If you’ve never created a video before, we’d encourage you to use a template as a starting place to create your Facebook cover video.
Where to find the Facebook cover video templates? Simply search for “Facebook cover” using the search bar on your dashboard.
Now hover on top of one of the templates to reveal the Preview or Use buttons. Click the Preview button to preview the video template or the Use button to start editing the template.
3. Add media
Now you can start adding media to your cover video. You can either use your own pre-recorded footage and pictures or use premium-quality stock videos and photos from Animaker’s built-in library.
To upload a video or image, head to the Upload tab in the main navigation bar, click on the Upload button at the bottom of the tab window, then select the videos and images you want to upload by using your file browser.
To find and use stock videos or images, click on the Images or Videos tab.
You can also add shapes, stickers, GIFs, and more from Animaker’s library.
4. Combine Multiple Clips
To combine multiple video clips together, perhaps to create a collage or slideshow, you can add a scene for each clip. To add a scene, click on the plus button at the bottom of a scene.
To ensure that the video flows smoothly, you can add transitions in between these scenes. Animaker provides you with 60+ beautiful, readymade transitions. To add a transition between any two scenes, click on the small square button between those scenes in the scenes section.
5. Fine-Tune Your Footage
You can now fine-tune the footage that you’ve added. You can:
Use our video trimming tool to select the part you want to use in your video. Click on the Trim icon to start trimming your video.
Use the video cropping tool to crop and reposition the video. Click on the Resize icon to start resizing the video.
Add filters to the video to enhance its appearance. Click on the Filters icon to start adding filters.
Adjust the video’s brightness, contrast, etc. Click on the Filters icon and then click on the Adjust button at the bottom of the Filters side panel to start adjusting your video.
6. Add Text
To add text to your video, head to the Text tab and click on one of the text sizes at the top or the premade text animations below.
You can animate text yourself using 60+ readymade animation effects that Animaker provides you with.
Simply add text, then click on the text box, this will bring up the font Settings side panel, now click on the Enter Effect button and Exit Effect button to add animation effects that would make the text enter and exit a scene in style.
7. Increase the Duration
If your video is shorter than 20 seconds, you can repeat it until it’s at least 20 seconds long. Let’s say you have a video that’s only 10 seconds long, you can duplicate the scene that has the video in it to repeat that scene in your video and increase its length.
To duplicate a scene, go to that scene in the Scenes side panel, and click on the Duplicate scene icon at the bottom center.
8. Add Music
With Animaker, you can: upload your own audio files, record a voiceover using a microphone, and convert text into human-like natural sounding voices.
Also, Animaker’s music library offers thousands of high-quality background music tracks and sound effects. To add background music to your video, navigate to the Music tab in the main navigation bar.
To record a voiceover or convert text to speech, click on the Video Timeline icon, then click on the Voiceover icon in the bottom left corner of the app screen, now pick an option from the dropdown menu.
9. Preview and Download
You can now preview the video using the Preview button in the top right corner beside the publish button. Animaker exports your videos in MP4 format, the format recommended by Facebook for a business page’s cover video.
To download the video, hit the Publish button in the top right corner, select Download Video from the resulting dropdown, then pick the video’s resolution and hit Download.
You can also create an animation from scratch using Animaker. Create animated scenes in a snap by dragging and dropping background illustrations, characters, and text, and animate them with the touch of a button.
Navigate to the Backgrounds or Characters tab in the main navigation bar to find and use background illustrations and characters.
How to Upload a Facebook Cover Video
Follow the steps below to add a cover video to your Facebook page:
- On your Facebook page, click on the “Add a Cover” or “Change Cover” button in the top right corner of your cover image.
- Then select “Upload Photo/Video” from the resulting drop-down menu.
- Once it’s been uploaded, click and drag the video to reposition it, then click “Next”.
- Now pick a thumbnail for your video. Click on one of the thumbnails that Facebook has auto-generated for you to set it as your thumbnail image.
- Finally, click “Publish” to publish your cover video.
8 Facebook Cover Video Tips and Tricks
1. Focus on Your Ideal Audience
Your cover video should be about your ideal audience.
What do they care about the most? What are their pain points?
What’s the benefit they’d derive from your product?
What could you say or show to your ideal audience that would make them understand your brand better?
Say stuff that appeals to your ideal customer segment.
Life is not about pleasing everyone; talk to the ones that “get” your brand (personal or professional) or find it the most useful.
These are the people that are likely to become your customers or advocates of your brand.
Moreover, by keeping the message and video targeted toward a particular audience, you’d repel the ones that aren’t ideal for your brand
2. Keep it Short, Clear, and Simple
The Facebook cover video can be 90 seconds long.
But this doesn’t mean you should keep it that long.
Avoid cramming in too much information.
Try to get the key points across with as few words as possible.
Or deliver your message with as few scenes as you possibly can.
By keeping it short, you make your video much easier to understand for your audience.
3. Keep it Updated
Update it once in a while to announce new products or features.
or perhaps update it from time to time to help support your seasonal marketing campaigns.
4. Add a Call-to-action
At the end of your cover video, ask your viewers to take any action that benefits your viewer and your brand.
You can ask them to sign up for your product or try out your service or visit your website.
Just make sure that it’s relevant to your cover video or your brand.
5. Make it Cropping-ready
You’ll have to reposition your cover video a little-bit to make it fit properly.
Also, Facebook will automatically crop the cover video in different dimensions for different devices
For these reasons, place the text, icons, and images at the center of your video.
6. Keep it Unique But Stay True to Your Brand
Introduce your brand in a creative way, but don’t go off-brand.
Have fun and make it unique, but keep it professional.
Let your cover video reflect your brand’s values and personality.
7. Make it Form a Natural Loop
Your Facebook cover video will be set to autoplay by default.
This means, it’ll loop or play over and over again.
So to ensure a smooth transition from the ending to the beginning of your video, blend both the beginning and ending together.
Or at the very least, make sure there aren’t any disturbances or differences that make it seem hard to watch when looped.
8. Add Subtitles
Your Facebook cover video will be muted by default.
The viewer will have to unmute it to watch it with sound.
Add subtitles if you’ve added voiceover or if it has someone talking.
Got any questions about creating a Facebook cover video?
To create your own Facebook Cover video, you can use Animaker on PC or Animaker on iOS.
Any tips or tools we didn’t mention that you think are interesting? Let us know about them in the comment section below.
Crop a Video in VLC on Windows 10 and Mac (With Pictures)
Looking to crop a video in VLC on your Windows 10 or Mac computer?
Whether you are using VLC on your Windows or Mac computer, we got you covered.
In this article, we show you how to crop a video using VLC on both Windows and Mac computers with easy step-by-step instructions and pictures.
As a bonus, we’ll also show you how you can use Animaker’s Crop Video Tool to crop a video online on your Windows PC or Mac computer. If you aren’t aware of Animaker, it’s a free online DIY video making tool that you can use for simple editing tasks like trimming and cropping videos to creating full-blown animated and live-action videos directly from your browser.
How to Crop a Video using VLC on Windows 10 and Mac
If you have VLC installed on your Windows PC or Mac computer, you can use it to crop your video. Here are the steps:
- Open VLC and open the video file you want to crop. To open a video using VLC on Windows 10, go to Media > Open File.
If you’re on Mac, go to File > Open File.
- Once you’ve opened the video, decide on the areas you’d like to cut out so you get the part you can use. Let’s say we want to highlight the part where there’s a picture of the woman. For that, we’ll have to crop the video from the bottom and left side.
- Once you’ve decided on that, go to Tools > Effects and Filters > Video Effects > Crop if you’re on Windows 10.
On Mac, go to Window > Video Effects > Crop
- Now let’s select the part we want to use. Like we said before, we’re going to have to cut out the parts on the left and bottom to get the area we want to highlight. Enter the values in the appropriate fields to crop out the unnecessary parts.
Once you’ve entered a value (in pixels), hit Enter to make the changes reflect. Adjust the values until you get your desired area. Just a few steps later, we’ll need the values you just entered, so write them down somewhere.
Well, we’re not done yet. You can’t go ahead and save the video yet. There are a couple more steps before you can do that.
- Once you’re done entering the values and successfully cropping just the area you want to use, close the popup window and go to Tools > Preferences if you’re on Windows.
On Mac, go to VLC > Preferences.
- Next, on Windows 10, under the Show settings section, click on the All radio button.
If you’re on Mac, click on the Show All button in the bottom left corner.
- Now go to Video > Filters > Croppadd. This step is the same on both Mac and Windows 10.
- Under the Crop section, enter the values you’d entered earlier. This step too is similar on both Mac and Windows 10.
- Once you’ve entered the values, click on the Filters submenu, then tick the Video scaling filter (Video cropping filter on Mac) checkbox, and then click on the Save button in the bottom right corner to apply the changes. Finally, choose a file name for the video and save it in your desired location.
Now let’s see how you can crop your video in a much easier way online on your Windows or Mac computer.
How to Crop Video Clips Online using Animaker
As you can see above, it’s a hassle to crop a video using VLC. You can choose to avoid these unnecessary steps and use a simple tool to crop your video instead.
Animaker’s Crop Video Tool is a lightweight app that works in your browser and lets you crop videos in 4 simple steps. Here are the steps to crop a video using Animaker:
- Sign up or log into the app. Now pick the dimensions you’d like to crop your video to. If you want to crop your video to square dimensions, pick Square under the Create a video section in your dashboard.
- Upload the video you want to crop; navigate to the Upload tab in the main navigation bar, then click on the Upload button at the bottom of the tab window.
Once the video’s uploaded, click on it to set it onto the canvas.
- Now click on the Crop button to start cropping your video. Hold and drag the edges to scale it or shrink it, then adjust the position so it fits the dimensions perfectly. Once you’re done making the adjustments, click on the green button that says Apply to save the changes made.
- To download your cropped video, click on the Publish button, then select Download Video from the dropdown menu.
Apart from letting you crop videos, it lets you trim, rotate, flip, mute, adjust videos, and more. Animaker’s online video editor has all the tools you need to edit your videos for your social media channels and the web. So be sure to check out these tools.
Got any questions on cropping your videos using Animaker? Any interesting tips or tools to crop a video? Please let us know about them in the comment section below.
How to Crop a Video on iMovie (With Pictures)
Looking to crop a video on iMovie?
Whether you are using iMovie on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, we got you covered.
In this article, we show you how to crop a video using iMovie on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac with easy step-by-step instructions and pictures.
As a bonus, we’ll also show you how you can use Animaker to crop a video online using Safari or Chrome on your Mac computer. For those who aren’t aware of Animaker, it is a free online DIY video maker that can be used for anything ranging from simple tasks like trimming and cropping videos to creating full-blown animated videos directly from a web browser.
Please note that this article is about how to crop a video, which is about selecting the area of the clip you want to use or highlight while cutting out the unnecessary parts.
If you’re looking to trim or cut a video to your desired length, you can take a look at our article that covers how to cut a video, or you can use our super-simple trim video tool that doesn’t require you to read or watch a tutorial.
How to Crop a Video in iMovie on iPhone or iPad
Even though the screenshots below demonstrate how to crop a video on an iPhone, the steps are pretty much the same if you were to crop a video using iMovie on your iPad.
Here are the steps to crop a video in iMovie on your iPhone or iPad:
- Open iMovie, tap on the Projects tab at the top, then tap on the button with a plus icon.
- Now select Movie from the popup window.
- Select a video you want to crop from your library and tap Create Movie at the bottom of the app screen.
- In the timeline at the bottom, tap the video; this will bring up a button that says Pinch to zoom video—with a magnifying glass icon on it—on the top right; tap this button to start cropping the video.
Now pinch or spread your two fingers to zoom in or out and reposition the video the way you want. Once you’re done cropping, tap the Done text button in the top left corner of the app screen.
How to Crop a Video in iMovie on Your Mac Computer
If you’re on a Mac computer and want to use iMovie to crop a video, follow the below steps:
- Open iMovie and click on the button with the plus icon that says Create New.
- Now select Movie from the dropdown menu.
- Click on the Import Media button and select the video you want to crop.
- Once the video’s been imported, click on the Cropping button in the toolbar right above the video player. This will reveal a button that says Crop in the top left corner of the player; click on it to start cropping your video.
- Now click and drag one of the handlebars to select the area you want to crop.
- Once you’re done selecting the part you want to use, click on the blue checkmark button in the top right corner to save the changes you made.
How to Crop a Video Online using Animaker
If you’re looking to crop your video using a simple tool that works in your browser, then it would be worth giving Animaker’s Crop Video Tool a shot.
Not only does it let you quickly crop your video online, but it also helps you crop your video in dimensions that are recommended by most social media platforms out there. To crop a video using Animaker, follow these steps:
- Sign up or log into the app. Now pick the dimensions you’d like to crop your video to, like square, vertical, horizontal, etc. Do you want your video to be in square dimensions? Then, from your dashboard, pick Square under the Create a video section. You can also use the Custom Size button to crop your video to custom dimensions.
- Now upload the video you want to crop. To upload your video, go to the Upload tab in the main navigation bar, then click on the Upload button at the bottom of the tab window.
Once it’s been uploaded, click on it to set it onto the square, vertical or horizontal canvas, depending on the size you chose in the previous step.
- Click on the Crop button to select the part you want to use. Hold and drag the edges of the selection to scale or shrink it, and adjust its position so it fits the dimensions the way you want it to. Once done, click on the green button that says Apply to save the changes.
- Now preview the video to see if any adjustments would need to be made. Click on the preview button next to the publish button in the top right corner of the app screen; if everything seems fine, go ahead and click on the Publish button, then select Download Video from the dropdown menu to download your cropped video.
If you’re also looking for other ways to edit your video like trim, rotate, flip, mute, or adjust the video, you can do all that and more using Animaker; just explore the app further. Pretty sure you’d fall in love with its intuitive interface 🙂
Got any questions on cropping your video? Any tips or tools to crop a video that you find interesting and would like to share with us? Please let us know about them in the comment section below.