Welcome to another video tutorial produced by Bizvid Communications, one of San Diego’s leading video production companies. This tutorial is designed to teach you how to use the “Corner Pin” effect in Premiere Pro. My version is 5.5, but what you will learn is applicable to other versions as well. The “Corner Pin” effect is a nice little tool that lets you put a video or still photo into a space that is not perfectly rectangle or square. So let’s begin.
Today, I’m using a virtual set video clip. What you see is not real. Virtual sets are used to create the impression that a person is in a real environment. You can see an example of what I am talking about in our blog post titled, “Strengthen Success with Search Engine Optimization.” Go check it out if you have time. As you can see, the screen in this scene has nothing in it. So, to make things look more real, I need to put something in there.
I’ve chosen the clip I’d like to use so I’m going to click and drag it onto video track two…just above the virtual set clip. Next, I’ll go to Effects Controls and click on “motion” then try to scale it the clip down to see if I can get it to fit within the borders of the screen. That doesn’t work. So, let me go back to Effects Controls and uncheck uniform scale to see if I can do it that way. As you can see, no matter how I try to do it, it’s not going to fit because it’s out of perspective. So I’m going to re-set my clip back to its full size.
Thankfully, Adobe created the “Corner Pin” effect which can be found in the Effects Panel. Don’t worry, if you don’t know exactly where it is simply position your mouse in the search dialog box and type “Corner” and before you get too far, the “Corner Pin” effect will appear. And as you can see, it is in the “Distort” folder. Next, I’ll click and drag the effect onto video track two where my screen capture video is. Another way is to select the clip, then double click the effect and it will be applied. Once the effect is on the clip, the controls for it will be found in the “Effects Controls” panel.
There are a couple of ways to manipulate the effect. One way is to click and drag these numbers around until you get what you want…the easier way is to do it…first let me re-set the clip…..now, notice this icon here. Simply click inside that and, in the program monitor, you’ll get access to the same points…as you can see, there are four targets that I can click and drag around and into the proper place.
Okay, if I’m not sure I have every corner in its proper place, I can zoom in by clicking this button that says, “Fit” and go in 100%. Then I’ve got scroll bars to scroll around to see how I did. If my work is sloppy, I can refine. Doing this gives me a better look at the fit. When done, click “Fit” and I’m back to full view.
So that’s how you make things fit into odd shaped areas without distorting the image. The “Corner Pin” is a great tool and I hope you have occasion to use it many times. Thanks for watching this tutorial. Be sure to check out some of our other tutorials and please subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest and greatest as they are released. Also, check out our website, BizVidCommunications.com.