Crop Effects

While transformations allow you to scale, move, and rotate a clip, you need to switch to a different mode to reframe, or crop, the image. In fact, the cropping mode has three different submodes: Trim, Crop-Fit, and Ken Burns.

Trim Mode

Trim mode works the same way the Crop tool worked in previous versions of Final Cut Pro.

In Trim mode, you drag the edges of the clip, dynamically hiding part of the image from view as you drag. The clip gets smaller because you’ve cropped off one or more of the edges. If no clip is behind the cropped clip, that area will show black.

The advantage to using the Trim mode is that it’s WYSIWYG; the Viewer shows you exactly what your finished output will look like as you crop the image.

The disadvantage is that the word Trim already has two completely different meanings related to video editing. Did we really need a third?