How to Zoom in Video After It's Recorded or Saved

Liza Brown

Oct 09, 2024• Proven solutions

What video software can zoom in a video at different places and let audiences pay extra attention to a specific part on my video as well as help me snap pictures of a video? - Mark

Want to zoom in video during your favorite scenes like Mark, after the video has been recorded and shot? This article will show you how to zoom in video and make a Ken Burns Effect by cropping video and the Pan& Zoom effects.

There are many free video editing software that you can use to zoom in on videos, for Mac users, you can use the free Movie on Mac and iPhone or iPad to zoom in on video. For this demo, we'll use our own video zoomer Wondershare Filmora  (Windows 7/8/10 supported) for an example. Filmora is a powerful video editor that comes complete with all common video editing tools, along with an array of video effects, transitions, titles and various options to share your creations.

How to Zoom in on Videos [Video Tutorial]

Note: The video tutorial above is made with Filmora 8.X version, I’ve updated the details about how to zoom in on videos with the latest Filmora below.

How to Zoom in on Videos [2 Easy Ways]

Before zoom in on videos, download and install Filmora first. And then launch Filmora to import the video footage. There are two ways to import video files to zoom.

Option 1 is to click "Import" on the primary windows and select files from your computer. Option 2 is to directly drag and drop files to the media library. Then, you'll see your videos on the screen. Any further editing won't change your original files. Next, drag videos from the media library to the video track on Timeline.

Method 1 Zoom in videos by Cropping

Right-click the video need to zoom on the timeline and then select Crop and Zoom from the sub-menu. You can also select the video in the timeline and click on the Crop and Zoom icon in the toolbar or press ALT+C to enter the Crop and Zoom interface. You'll find a "Crop" button in the middle of screen. Click it to open the editing window to zoom in videos by cropping unnecessary part.

To help you crop and zoom in on video quickly and easily, you can manually select the crop area to make a zoom effect in the original video, or keep the zoom in area in different aspect ratio such as 16:9, 4:3, 9:16 or 1:1. Drag the marquee to the target position in the original preview window.

Note: if you’ve cropped and zoomed an original 16:9 video to a 4:3 aspect ratio video, you’ll find black bar in the cropped and zoomed clip. In this case, you can add some background blur filters to the clip like the screen shown below.

Hide blackbar with backgorund blur fitlers in Filmora

Method 2 Zoom in videos with Pan&Zoom effects

Pan and zoom effects, which are famous as Ken Burns effects too, will make the video or image slowly zoom in on the specific subjects and pan from one to another.

In the Crop and Zoom window, switch to Pan&Zoom tab and the window will show as below:

You will see a start and an end rectangle on the window. The default start and end settings will zoom in the video slowly and slightly to the center.

To change the section of the video that appears at the start of the effect, select the Start rectangle to adjust the crop size and drag it on the window to get target position. To change the section of the video that appears at the end of the pan & zoom effect, select the End rectangle to adjust the crop size and drag it on the window to set its position.

Click the Play button to check the Pan & Zoom effect in the video and you can also exchange the Start and End areas by clicking the Swap button in the bottom left corner. And click the OK button to save the Pan and Zoom effect.

Always preview your video before output your video. When the preview is good, click Export and a dialog as below will appear. Here you can export video in any popular formats on the local computer by choosing "Format". If you want to play video creation on iPod, iPhone, iPad, click "Device" and select the thumbnail of your devices. You can also directly upload your zoom-in videos to YouTube and Vimeo or burn to DVD discs for playing on TV using a DVD Player.

Zoom in video tips:

• iPhone doesn't come with the optical zoom feature. So you can't natively zoom in / zoom out iPhone video. However, with the help with application like Wondershare Filmora, you can effortlessly zoom in iPhone videos. As described in this article, you can import iPhone video to Wondershare Filmora and zoom in video at your pleasure.
• Make sure the aspect ratio of the zoom-in video is the same with that of the selected output format. Or add some background blur filters to hide the black bar.
• Note that the quality of zoom-in video depends on the chosen output format to some extent. For example, you have selected small dimensions, but output as large dimensions of video, the quality would not be good. In such case, smaller output dimensions are recommended.

Besides the Pan & zoom effect, Filmora provides much more features. Download the free trial version and find out more creativities with Filmora.

Liza Brown

Liza Brown is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Liza Brown