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212Final Cut Pro User Guide
3. If you want to change the stabilization method, click the Method pop-up menu and
choose an option:
• Automatic: Allows Final Cut Pro to choose the most appropriate stabilization method
(either InertiaCam or SmoothCam). This is the default setting.
• InertiaCam: Applies stabilization optimized for video footage that has camera moves
such as pans and zooms. Use the Smoothing slider to adjust the amount of the
InertiaCam effect.
Note:
When you choose InertiaCam, Final Cut Pro analyzes your video footage and,
depending on the results of the analysis, provides a Tripod Mode checkbox that
creates the effect of a static camera that is mounted on a tripod.
• SmoothCam: Applies the default stabilization method described above, allowing you
to adjust the translation, rotation, and scale parameters:
• Adjust left, right, up, and down movement of a shot (x and y axes): Drag the
Translation Smooth slider.
• Adjust rotation around the center point of the image: Drag the Rotation Smooth
slider.
• Adjust forward or backward camera or lens movement (z axis): Drag the Scale
Smooth slider.
For example, if you want to remove horizontal, vertical, and rotational shake, set the
Translation Smooth and Rotation Smooth parameters to a value greater than 0. You
may need to experiment to see which values steady your shot the best.
Note: When a clip has too much motion (excessive panning, for example), stabilizing the
clip may result in black bars on the edges of the video.
To avoid the black bars, you can:
• Reduce the values for the Translation Smooth, Rotation Smooth, and Scale Smooth
parameters.
• Cut or trim the clip in the timeline to remove the sections with the most shake. (You can
locate the sections with excessive shake in the Tags pane of the timeline index. Click
the individual Excessive Shake tags to select the corresponding ranges in the timeline.)
• Crop the edges of the stabilized video to remove the black bars.