The Picture tab

The Picture tab is where you place a clip in the frame and style what it draws. It’s one sub-tab of the inspector’s Clip tab, and the sections it shows depend on what you’ve selected.

Where: Clip tab ▸ Picture
Agent tools: set_video

The Clip tab with a video clip selected and its Picture sub-tab chosen beside Color, Sound and Clip. The Transform section is open, with rows for Scale, Position X, Position Y, Rotation, Opacity, Blend and Motion Blur, then the Fit to Canvas and Fill Canvas buttons. Behind Subject and Layout sit below it.

Open the Picture tab

Select a clip, open the inspector’s Clip tab and choose Picture. A video or image clip opens on it, while a text clip opens on Text, a shape on Shape and a graphic on Graphic.

The sub-tabs you get depend on the clip:

Selected	Sub-tabs
Video clip, image clip or freeze frame	Picture, Color, Clip
Text clip	Text, Picture, Clip
Shape clip	Shape, Picture, Clip
Graphic clip	Graphic, Picture, Clip
Nest clip	Picture, Clip
Adjustment clip	Color, Clip
Clip of an audio-only file	Sound, Clip

Sound joins the list, before Clip, on any clip with live audio, such as a video clip with its sound on or a nest with sound inside.

A selection with an adjustment clip in it has no Picture sub-tab, because an adjustment clip draws nothing of its own.

Sections in order

The sections run top to bottom in this order. Blend and Motion Blur are rows inside Transform.

Section	What it’s for	Shown for
Transform	Scale, position, rotation, opacity, blend and motion blur	Every clip that draws
Behind Subject	Drawing a clip behind the person in the shot	Every clip that draws except adjustment and nest clips, and only while no nest is open
Layout	How a camera and a screen recording share the frame	One selected clip of a video file with a known picture size
Hide While Silent	Fading a camera out while nobody’s talking	Every clip that draws except nests
Crop	Trimming the picture’s edges	Video clips, image clips and freeze frames
Corner Radius	Rounding the picture’s corners	Video clips, image clips and freeze frames
Chroma Key	Keying out a green screen	Video clips, image clips and freeze frames
Background	Removing the background behind a person or subject	Clips of a video file, freeze frames of one, and image clips
Cursor	Styling a recorded pointer	Clips of a video file with a cursor file its picture doesn’t already show
Shadow	A drop shadow	Every clip that draws
Filters	A stack of up to four filters	Every clip that draws
Reflection	A mirrored copy under the clip	Every clip that draws
Spotlight	Dimming the clip outside one area	Every clip that draws
Obscure	Blurring or pixelating regions of the picture	Every clip that draws

Every clip that draws includes text, shapes, graphics and nests. A section that doesn’t apply isn’t there at all, rather than greyed out. With several clips selected, a section shows only when it applies to all of them.

A graphic clip can be moved, scaled, faded and blended here. It has no Crop, Corner Radius or Chroma Key, and no Color sub-tab.

How sections behave

Fold a section. Click its header to open or close it. Transform starts open and the rest start closed, and Frame Job remembers what you open and close. A closed section still shows a short summary of its settings.

Reset a section. Reset appears in a section’s header only while the section differs from its default. It puts the whole section back. To put back a single row, right-click its label and choose Reset to default.

Edit several clips at once. With several clips selected, a field shows the first clip’s value, with a mixed badge when the others differ. An edit applies to every selected clip.

Pick a colour. A colour swatch opens the macOS Colors panel, with opacity.

Edit inside an action. With an action selected, the rows that can animate read and write the action’s end state, and the sections it animates open by themselves. In a section with such rows, Reset is hidden, and Clear appears once the action changes something there. Clear takes that section out of the action. See Set what an action animates to.

Inspector fields covers typing, sliders and the quick picks in a field’s menu.

Good to know

A nest clip has no picture of its own, so most of this tab doesn’t reach it. Position, scale, rotation and opacity apply to the clips inside. Blend and Motion Blur are greyed, and Shadow, Filters, Reflection, Spotlight and Obscure show but have no effect on the nest clip. Set those on the clips inside the nest. A nest’s opacity fades each clip inside separately, rather than the group as one picture.

With an agent

set_video changes the placement and look of as many clips as you name. You send only the settings to change, at any depth, and everything you leave out keeps its value. An optional group such as shadow clears when you set it to null, and the filters and obscure lists are replaced whole.

An unknown key or a bad value gets an error naming it, and nothing is dropped or pulled back into its range. Animating a property takes an action, and reaching a clip inside a nest takes scope. See Tools: picture and grade.