Simply Scale and Resize a Video Clip or Image in Premiere Pro

This article is on how to simply scale and resize a video clip or image in Premiere Pro. You’ll learn how to scale your clips in a couple easy steps. You will also learn how to keyframe the scale property so you can resize a video clip or image over time in Premiere Pro.

Quickly Scaling a Clip in Premiere

Step 1: Select Clip in Timeline

To begin, select the clip in the timeline that you want to scale or resize.

Step 2: Scale Property in Effect Controls Panel

Next, navigate to the Effect Controls panel. If you cannot find it, go under the Window menu and select Effect Controls. The panel should then pop up.

Now find the Scale property. It’s value is 100 by default. Click the value and drag your mouse to the left or right. Dragging to the left will make the value smaller, thus scaling the clip down. If you drag to the right then the value and the clip will get larger. Instead of click + dragging, you can click the value once and type in a new value and hit the return or enter key to submit the value.

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Yet another way to change the value of the scale property in Premiere Pro is by clicking the “>” next to Scale in the Effect Controls panel. This will open up a slider you can click and drag from 0 to 200. Note: you cannot scale below zero (0) but you can scale above 200. You can scale a clip up to 10,000 in Premiere Pro (I believe) but honestly I can hardly imagine a situation when you’d want to do this.

Step 3: Keyframe Scale Property

If you want to scale the clip over time then you need to keyframe the Scale property. In the Effect Controls panel, click the stopwatch icon next to Scale. Move the time position indicator (the blue bar) to another point in the timeline or Effect Controls panel. Now back in the Effect Controls panel, set a new value for the Scale property.

You can set numerous keyframes if you want a clip to scale up, then down, then up, or whatever the heck you’d want to do.

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Other Important Scale Tips to Know in Premiere Pro

Copy and Paste Scale onto Another Clip or Clips

You can copy and paste the scale property onto other clips. In the Effect Controls panel, right-click the word Motion and click copy.

Now, select the clip or clips that you want to paste the scale property to. Use the keyboard shortcut Command+V if you’re on a Mac or Control+V if you’re on a Windows computer. All the selected clips now have the scale property that you just copied, including any keyframes!

Note: You are copying and pasting all other Motion properties when you do this. So if you copied a clip that you scaled and rotated, you’ll be pasting the altered rotation property onto the new clips as well.

Set to Frame Size vs. Scale to Frame Size

If you right-click on any clip in the timeline you’ll find the Set to Frame Size and Scale to Frame Size options that appear in the menu.

Selecting Set to Frame Size will scale your clip up or down to match the sequence. An example would be a 1920×1080 clip in a 1280×720 sequence. This clip would be scaled down to a value of 66.7.

Scale to Frame Size will not actually scale the clip. It’ll change the clip so that it is now 1280×720 in the sequence. The scale remains at 100.

Set to Frame Size is better to work with in my opinion because you are not losing pixel information. So if you need to scale up for whatever reason, the resulting scale will not leave your video clip or image pixelated.

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– Josh