Video Resolution Cropping Using Shotcut

I encountered a problem while writing a blog post: how to crop a large video file into a smaller animated GIF? I didn’t have any ready-made tools available, but I later found that I could use Shotcut to do it. Here are the steps I followed:

Before reading

I have two articles on cropping video size, which I recommend to readers with different types:

• Cropping using Shotcut (this article) for users who are comfortable with graphical user interfaces
• Cropping using ffmpeg for users who are comfortable with the command line

Tools

• Shotcut 22.03.30

Open the source video file

1. Click Open File
2. Select the source video file
3. Click Open

Adjust the frame size

1. Click Settings > Video Mode > Custom > Add to specify the video size:

2. Set the output size to the desired size:

Add a filter

1. Click Filters
2. Click + to add a filter:

3. Under Video, locate Crop: Source:

4. Use the sliders to crop to the desired size:

Export

Now we can export the video to the desired format:

We can click Advanced to confirm the output size again:

If everything is OK, click Export File to generate the cropped result.

Conclusion

Although using Shotcut to crop a video file is a bit of an overkill, it’s not too complicated. If you don’t have any other tools available, you can give it a try.

PS

I noticed that many people have read this article, so a video was also made, hoping to make it easier.