17

I have a project in iMovie and I want to crop part of one of the included clips to a rectangle that isn't 16x9 or 4x3 or any standard aspect ratio. As far as I can see, iMovie will only let me crop in the shape of the current ratio.

How can I get iMovie to let me crop part of a clip to a nonstandard aspect ratio and letterbox the result?

Mithical
  • 239
  • 1
  • 3
  • 13
Nathan Greenstein
  • 28,124
  • 24
  • 102
  • 135

7 Answers7

24

Leaving this for future reference: now you can crop a video from the imported media section before adding it to the movie.

iMovie will add black bars automatically to fit the video, which you can control using the cropping tool on the clip after adding it to the movie.

Lorenzo Boccaccia
  • 341
  • 2
  • 2
9

There is not any reference to custom aspect ratio on iMovie's manual, neither any setting in the project's or crop tool's properties.

If custom aspect ratios would supported from iMovie, I believe that Apple would make them easy to find..

After all, iMovie is a consumer product, and they have excluded such "advanced" features in order to get more customers to the Final Cut Suite.

The only solution to your problem, would be to crop your footage prior importing to iMovie.

You may use free apps such as MPEG Streamclip or VideoMonkey (which is the open-source version of VisualHub).

Although I haven't used any of them for cropping, they do support custom aspect ratios!

I hope this helps!

nuc
  • 4,814
  • 3
  • 26
  • 38
  • I agree iMovie will probably be unable to do it. – cregox Apr 04 '11 at 12:11
  • I'll award the bounty to this one, assuming no one posts last minute with a magic solution. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 08 '11 at 00:00
  • Surprised this one got the bounty considering saying iMovie not supporting custom aspect ratios isn't actually true as I outlined how to do it below, nor do you need the extra software since you can set that when exporting via the advanced settings, again as I outlined below. I also explained how to do exactly what you want--having only part of the video with a custom aspect ratio. Again, scratching my head here that this was the one you awarded, even after my replies. – Mark A. Donohoe Apr 08 '11 at 18:26
  • @Marque Your method doesn't do what I need. See my comment. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 08 '11 at 18:54
  • What doesn't my answerdo? I thought you said you wanted part of your video to have a different aspect ratio than the rest, and for that part to have black bars to compensate for the difference. That's exactly what I told you how to achieve. Granted, it's not elegant as it requires multiple steps, but that's the limitation of the tool. – Mark A. Donohoe Apr 08 '11 at 22:04
  • Again, to be clear... you take the video that you want to have with a unique aspect ratio and load that *part* into iMovie. You then export the video in the aspect ratio you need. You'll now have a video with aa custom aspect ratio. You now import THAT video into the MAIN project in iMovie, and in there, you specify the cropping for that specific section and iMovie will add the black bars as needed to match the rest of the main video (and whatever resolution/aspect you choose when exporting it.) – Mark A. Donohoe Apr 08 '11 at 22:06
  • 3
    This is the wrong answer, see lorenzo's answer below! – Pykler Jul 16 '16 at 04:06
7

I came across this page because I had a similar situation and think I have found a solution that worked for me will work for others in the same situation. I was doing a screen capture video and my screen res is 1440x900 (imac). In the video I was making I was doing a tutorial on photoshop and when I opened it up in imovie it only offered 16:9, 4:3, and 3:2. All those aspect ratios would not work for me as it would crop certain tools out of the frame and the viewer would not know what I was clicking on. I chose 16:9 and once I placed the video in the project field I clicked on the small settings box at the beginning of the clip and chose "Cropping and Rotation". Over in the viewing window to the left I chose "Fit" and it changed the aspect ratio to 1440x900 eliminating the unwanted crop. Hope this is helpful to someone.

Brian
  • 71
  • 1
  • 1
3

Yes! I figured out how to do this. The trick is that you must crop the clip BEFORE you drag it into the timeline. If you try to crop after the clip is dragged into the timeline at the bottom, you can only used a pre-formatted rectangle size.
Hope this helps somebody!

Dan C
  • 31
  • 1
1

Actually, you set the aspect ratio, or more accurately the video resolution which determines the aspect ratio, when you export your finalized movie. For instance, I created a video for my Kickstarter.com project (you can see it here: http://kck.st/h0aufg) and I was switching between aspect ratios on export between 4:3 and 16:9. What you see in iMovie is just the source footage. It's the export that matters. You just have to play with the advanced settings for the exported type.

Mark A. Donohoe
  • 401
  • 3
  • 8
  • 1
    @Marque But the point is that I need to crop to something that isn't a standard aspect ratio. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 07 '11 at 03:41
  • As I said, you choose the resolution when you do the export. You can make it whatever you want, which means you can make it whatever aspect ratio you want. For instance, if you wanted a square aspect ratio, you'd just make the width and height the same. If you wanted a 2:1 aspect ratio, you'd just make the width twice as much as the height. Whatever aspect ratio you want, just set the resolution to match. It's simple math. – Mark A. Donohoe Apr 07 '11 at 06:44
  • @Marque Yes, I know. The point is that I want the aspect ratio to be different than the rest of the project. So, setting a global ratio when I export won't help. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 07 '11 at 13:45
  • Aaah... you didn't say only a PART of the video. In that case, you have to create the part that you want as a different aspect ratio as a second project, then export it as its own video... then import that as a section of your current video. Since it will have a different aspect ratio than your current video, you can play with the cropping features there. That's just playing with the cropping of that particular section and you can/will get the black bars that you want. – Mark A. Donohoe Apr 07 '11 at 15:13
  • @Marque Haha, good point. Updated. My bad for not being clear. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 07 '11 at 18:45
  • @Marque This still doesn't do what I want. It will just squish or letterbox, not *crop*. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 08 '11 at 18:54
  • @Marque this doesn't work. Any new project in iMovie has to be either 4:3, 2:3, or 16:9. So, even if I export something at a custom aspect ratio, I can't import it at that ratio. Try it yourself. – Nathan Greenstein Apr 10 '11 at 21:01
  • @Nathan, not really sure what you want at this point. At first I thought you wanted a custom aspect ratio so I explained that. Then I thought you wanted a custom aspect ratio as part of a normal aspect-ratio movie, hence it needed bars or something to 'fill in' the rest (or cropping which you can do with the effects) and now you're saying you don't want that either. So at this point, I'm really not clear as to what you're trying to do. Can you try again to re-clarify what your goal is? – Mark A. Donohoe May 02 '11 at 04:26
  • Perhaps sketch a quick illustration on paper, snap it with your cellie... upload it somewhere and link here in your question so we can see. – Mark A. Donohoe May 02 '11 at 04:28
  • @Marque The second thing you said is mostly correct: I want to crop one clip of a project to an aspect ratio that is not standard and letterbox it. This is what my question says. You answer, unfortunately, didn't work when I tested it. – Nathan Greenstein May 02 '11 at 13:50
1

The newest iMovie 10.1.9 has a fix. Select the clip. Above the viewing window click the crop icon. Select "Fit". Your clip will revert to the original format.

user291106
  • 11
  • 1
1

You can crop to any size you like (custom aspect ratio) if you select the video in the 'browser' (the My Media section on the top left panel of iMovie) before importing it to the project (the wide panel at the bottom of iMovie). From there you can zoom in using the chosen aspect ratio

Andy Pandy
  • 11
  • 1