Category: How-To

In this post, I’ll share my process for how to make a traditional video in Capcut. Specifically, I’ll show how to make a video that:

• comprises a collection of video and image clips
• has a simple crossfade (mix, fade-in/fade-out) transition between clips
• has background music with a crossfade between music clips
• improves audio quality
• uses AI to stabilize some shaky video footage
• improves the color and lighting of some clips
• animates some images with a subtle zoom effect
• animates some images to create rolling credits
• freezes a frame in a video clip
• has text overlays

Download and install Capcut

Visit the Capcut website, download Capcut and install it.

Import video and image footage

1. Open Capcut
2. Create a new project
3. Click the default project name at the top center and rename it to something descriptive, e.g. My Vacation
4. Click the “Media” tab at the top left and then click “Import” tab below it.
5. Click the “Import” button or drag your footage (audio, video, images) to the assets pane
6. Drag some or all of your footage to the timeline at the bottom

Drag the zoom slider at the top right of the timeline pane to zoom the timeline in and out.

Trim images

When you drag images to the timeline, the duration will be whatever the setting is under Options, which defaults to 5 seconds. If you want to change the default to, say, 3 seconds, go to Menu > Settings > Edit (tab) > Image Duration and change the value to 3.

Click on an image in the timeline. In the right pane, you will see various options to edit the image.

The playhead is a visual marker that indicates the current position or frame being viewed in the preview pane. Drag the playhead to anywhere above the image in the timeline. You will see a preview of the image in the center in the preview pane.

Click the play button in the preview pane to preview how the image will appear relative to the rest of the video project.

If the image duration is too short or too long, you can extend the duration by dragging the left or right edge of the clip in the timeline to the left or right. You can also position the playhead at a particular time and click one of the following buttons:

1. SPLIT: to split the image clip into two clips
2. DELETE LEFT: to delete the portion of the image to the left of the playhead
3. DELETE RIGHT: to delete the portion of the image to the right of the playhead

Trim Videos

Trimming video clips on the timeline is similar to trimming images. Click on a video clip in the timeline. You will see a preview of the video in the preview pane. In the right pane, you will see various options to edit the video clip.

In the right pane, click “Speed” to see the video clip’s duration. If you change the duration value here, the video clip’s speed will change accordingly. If you don’t want to speed up or slow down the video, you’ll need to trim the video clip the same way you trim image clips:

• drag the left end of the video clip in the timeline to the right
• drag the right end of the video clip in the timeline to the left
• split, delete left, or delete right the video clip relative to where the playhead is in the timeline

Speed up or slow down video clips

If your video clip is too slow or too fast, you can speed it up or slow it down. As in the previous step, click the video clip in the timeline and then click the “Speed” tab in the right pane.

Speed up

To speed up the video clip, e.g, 2x for twice the speed, just drag the speed marker to the right. The duration of the clip will change accordingly.

Slow down

To slow down the video clip, e.g. 0.5x for half the speed, drag the speed marker to the left. The duration of the clip will change accordingly. Note that if your video clip was shot at 30 frames per second (fps) and you slow down the clip by 50% (0.5x), the resulting video will stutter due to an insufficient number of frames. This is why you should shoot video at a high frame rate, e.g. 60 or 120 fps, if you know you want to play it back in slow motion, which is usually done for action scenes.

If you didn’t shoot at a high fps, you can use Capcut to smoothen the slow-mo effect by either

• frame blending
• optical flow

The results are not as good as a high-fps video, but they’re better than without smoothening, especially using the “optical flow” option.

Add transitions between clips

There are many transition effects available. I prefer to use the simple crossfade (mix) transition, which gradually fades out one clip and fades in the next clip. To add this transition between two adjacent clips, click the “Transitions” tab in the left pane, type “mix” in the search field, and drag the mix transition icon down to the timeline between two clips. If necessary, zoom the timeline out. You’ll see a semi-white section between the two clips representing the transition. If you move the playhead to that transition area in the timeline, you can see a preview of the transition in the preview pane, showing a blending of the two clips.

If you want to apply the same transition to all clips, click one transition in the timeline and then, in the right pane, click the “Apply to all” button.

Add background music

1. Click the “Audio” tab in the left pane.
2. Click the “Import” button to import songs (MP3) from your computer.
3. Drag a song from the list of songs down to the timeline below the main video track.

As with still images and video clips, you can trim audio clips in the same manner.

If you want to crossfade two adjacent songs,

1. put the 2nd song on a separate track below the first song’s track
2. zoom in on the timeline and scroll to where the two songs meet
3. click the 1st song and, in the right pane, set a fade out duration of, say, 1 second
4. click the 2nd song and, in the right pane, set a fade in duration of, say, 1 second
5. position the playhead just before the end of the first song
6. preview the audio crossfade in the preview pane

Notice the black curve in the audio tracks showing the fade effect.

When you add audio or music track, if your video clips contain audio, you’ll hear audio from all tracks containing audio. If you want to mute all audio from all clips in the main track, click the audio icon as shown below.

If you want to adjust the volume or mute just a single video clip, click on the clip in the timeline, then in the right pane, click the “Audio” tab and drag the volume slider.

Improve audio quality

The audio in your video clips may contain background noise as well as vocals. To improve the audio quality, select the relevant clips and choose from the following options in the “Audio” panel.

• To reduce background noise, e.g. humming or the sound of an engine, check the “Reduce noise” checkbox
• To improve vocals, check the “Enhance voice” and/or “Isolate voice” checkboxes. Note that the “Isolate voice” options strips out all audio, leaving only vocals.”
• To normalize the loudness of all background music clips, select all clips and check the “Normalize loudness” checkbox.
• Slide the volume slider to increase or decrease the volume as needed.

Adjust color and lighting

You can adjust the color and lighting for both image and video clips individually.

1. Click on a clip in the timeline
2. Move the playhead to that clip
3. In the right pane, click “Adjust” > “Basic” > “Auto adjust”
4. Slide the “Auto adjust” intensity slider until you like how the clip looks in the preview pane.

You can also manually adjust the color by tweaking various color settings in the right pane.

I find adjusting color is especially helpful for brightening a dark image or video. Here’s how one clip looks before and after applying “auto adjust”.

Stabilize a shaky video

If your video footage was taken with a camera that doesn’t include mechanical stabilization (like a gimbal) or software stabilization, then the resulting footage could be annoyingly shaky. Capcut can try to stabilize your footage at the expense of cropping a portion of the video. To stabilize a shaky video,

1. click on a video clip in the timeline
2. in the right pane, click the “Video” tab and check the “Stabilize” option.

Animate images

For certain photos, I like to apply a subtle zoom-out animation effect to them. To do this,

1. click on the image clip in the timeline
2. move the playhead in the timeline to where the image clip is
3. click the up arrow key to move the playhead to the beginning of the clip
4. in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics”, change the “scale” value to 200% and click the diamond icon to set a keyframe
5. click the down arrow key to move the playhead to the end of the clip
6. in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics” and change the “scale” value to 100%
7. drag the playhead from the beginning to the end of the clip. You should see the image zoom out. You can also click the play button in the preview pane to preview the animation.

Create rolling credits

There are different ways to create rolling credits. The way I’m about to show you involves slowly animating an image’s position upwards. Therefore, you’ll need to create a tall image with the content you want in it, like this

1. Add this image to the timeline
2. Select the image in the timeline
3. Position the playhead in the timeline where the image is
4. Click the up arrow key to move the playhead to the beginning of the clip
5. In the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics”
6. Change the “scale” value until you like how the credits image looks in the preview. In the screenshot below, I set it to 500%.
7. Change “position” Y value to a value that moves the top of the image near the bottom of the preview pane. In the screenshot below, I set it to -3300.
8. Click the diamond icon to set a keyframe
9. Click the down arrow key to move the playhead to the end of the clip
10. in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics” and change the “position” Y so that the bottom of the image is near the top of the preview pane. In the screenshot below, I set the value to 3300.
11. Drag the playhead from the beginning to the end of the clip. You should see the image roll up. You can also click the play button in the preview pane to preview the animation.

Freeze a frame in a video clip

Sometimes, you may want to freeze a frame in a video clip for a few seconds. For example, in the screenshot below, there’s a video clip of a vehicle moving along a road and a sign showing various destinations. To freeze the frame at the point when the sign is shown,

1. move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to freeze a frame
2. click on the video clip in the timeline
3. click the “freeze” button above the timeline

The video clip will be split at that point and you will see a still image of the frame added to it. You can then adjust the duration of the image. Make sure not to add any transitions between the video clip and the still image. You can group the two clips or create a component to prevent accidentally adding a transition between them.

Add a text overlay

There will be times when you’ll want to overlay text on a scene to describe a location or what’s happening as in the following screenshot.

To do this,

1. click the “Text” tab in the left pane
2. drag the “Default text” item to the timeline on a track above the clip where you want the text to appear
3. drag the ends of the text clip in the timeline to increase or decrease the duration
4. click on the text clip in the timeline and, in the right pane, edit the text and various other properties, e.g. background color and background opacity
5. in the preview pane, drag the text overlay to where you want it. you can also drag the corners to resize it.

Add a marker on the timeline or a clip

When editing a video, it can be helpful to add markers at certain points to remind you where a specific moment is. For example, you may want to align some a music clip to a specific moment. To do this,

1. move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to add a marker
2. click the marker button above the timeline

You will see a light blue marker added on the timeline.

Export your video

Click the light blue “Export” button at the top right to export the video.

Export a still image of a video clip

1. move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to freeze a frame.
2. click the hamburger menu (3 horizontal lines) at the top-right corner of the preview pane
3. click “Export still frames”
4. if you don’t want the still image added to your project, uncheck the “Import project” checkbox

Create a fast-rewind effect followed by a slow-motion effect

For fast-moving scenes, you may want to replace the scene in slow motion. One way to do this is to show the original clip (1) followed by a fast rewind of the clip (2) followed by a slow-motion version of the clip (3) as shown in the screenshot below.

To do this,

1. copy and paste the original clip twice and place the copies after the original clip on the timeline
2. click the 2nd clip to select it and then click the “Reverse” button above the timeline

3. Change the speed of the 2nd clip to something like 5x.

4. click the 3rd clip to select it and then change the speed to something like 0.2x.

One thing I’ve noticed with a lot of people is they have a lot of clothes but only wear a few. There could be many reasons for this. For example, their “fancy” clothes are only suitable for special occasions but since most days are just not special, they only wear simple but comfortable clothes most of the time. Not only do their clothes consume a lot of space, they may not realize that many of their clothes just don’t fit them anymore or they may no longer like how they look on them. People may also forget just how nice some of their clothes look on them until they try them on again. One way to get organized with your wardrobe and remind yourself of your clothing options and how you look in them is by creating a wardrobe photo inventory.

Here’s how to create a wardrobe photo inventory using Google Photos.

1. Group clothes by type

First, group all your clothes by type, e.g.

• Outerwear
  • Sweaters
  • Jackets
• Tops
  • Short-sleeve Dress shirts
  • Long-sleeve Dress shirts
  • Short-sleeve Polo shirts
  • Long-sleeve Polo shirts
  • Short-sleeve T-shirts
  • Long-sleeve T-shirts
  • Turtlenecks
• Bottoms
  • Jeans
  • Cargo Pants
  • Khaki Pants
  • Dress Pants
• Fitness
  • Tracksuits
  • Sweatpants
• Vacation
  • Hawaiian shirt
  • Beachwear
  • Swimming clothes
• Shoes
• Hats
• Costumes
• Other

2. Create a photo studio

Find some space, like a spare bedroom, and create a photo studio using

• a green screen like this 6′ x 9′ one on Amazon
• a pair of lighting softboxes like this one on Amazon
• a camera and a tripod

For the camera, you can use your phone. I used my Insta360 Ace Pro action camera with flip screen. By enabling the hand gesture feature, I can just make a peace sign with 2 figures to tell the camera to take a photo in 3 seconds.

The green screen will make it super easy to remove the background from the subject (you). I just used push pins to stick the fabric to the wall (drywall).

The softboxes will make your face and clothes appear bright and sharp with balanced lighting without any shadows. Here’s a comparison of photos taken with and without softboxes.

3. Take photos

Go through all of your clothes and take photos of yourself wearing them. When deciding what to wear, I find it convenient to have a tall mirror with Hollywood lights around the perimeter near my closet like this one on Amazon.

3. Option A: Edit photos in Photoshop

If you know Photoshop or how to do image editing, you can follow this step.

1. Open your first photo in Photoshop
2. Remove the background. Photoshop will detect the background and show a “Remove background” button. Click it to remove the green background.

3. Crop the image to remove unnecessary whitespace.

4. Replace the background with any background you like. Here’s what I chose.

5. Repeat that process for all photos.

6. Use horizontal and vertical guides to resize each photo so they are the same width and height.

7. Optionally, group the layers by clothes type, e.g.

3. Option B: Edit photos in Google Photos

If you don’t know Photoshop or how to do image editing, you can do basic image editing like cropping directly in Google Photos. Upload all photos to Google Photos and click the Crop button to crop the photos.

4. Upload all photos to Google Photos and enhance them

For each photo, click the Enhance button to improve the levels, brightness, etc.

5. Create an album and group photos by type

In Google Photos, select all photos and add them to a new album with a name like “Clothes”.

Click the 3 vertical dots in the top right corner to reveal options. Click the “Edit album” option.

Select one or more photos and drag them to rearrange them.

Click the “Add text” icon to add text between groups of photos.

6. You’re done!

Now, you can browse your wardrobe on your phone to visually remind yourself of what clothes you have and how they look on you the next time you’re undecided about what to wear.

If you need to create a very strong and long-lasting loop at the end of a rope, the best practice is to use a thimble along with a fastener. The faster can be a ferrule or rope clamp.

Wire rope is preferred because it is much stronger than non-wire rope like nylon, polypropylene, paracord, etc.

The benefit of a rope clamp is you can unlock the clamp and reuse the rope for something else. Also, you just need pliers to tighten the clamp nuts. The benefit of a ferrule is its small size and permanent nature. However, you would need a special crimping tool. Ideally, you would use a hydraulic crimping tool.

One tricky part when creating such a loop is getting the thimble to be snug and tight. Following is one way to do it, which worked for me.

First, make sure you use a thimble that is the right size for the wire rope you are using. In the example below, the wire rope is 1/8′ thick, so the thimble is for that size rope. If you use a smaller thimble, I found it harder to get the thimble tight and snug.

Slide the rope through the ferrule to create a loop. Then, clamp the rope using locking pliers as shown above.

Next, insert the thimble and pull the ferrule toward the thimble until it touches the thimble. If you are having difficulty making the ferrule and thimble stay touching each other, try making the short end of the rope longer.

Insert the correct size die for the ferrule in the crimping tool, then insert the ferrule in between the dies within the tool to clamp it. Follow the instructions to clamp the ferrule. Before clamping, ensure the thimble and ferrule are still touching each other for a permanently tight fit.

Clamp down multiple times as hard as you can. When do, turn off the hydraulic crimper to release the clamp.

You’ll see that the crimping crimped the ferrule, creating a permanent clamp.

Trim excess wire rope using a wire rope cutter.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a custom-designed shirt at home using heat transfer vinyl. We will make a shirt that looks like this.

Equipment

I will be using the following equipment.

• Cricut Explore Air 2
• 12″-wide heat transfer vinyl (HTV)
• Teflon sheet
• 10″x10″ portable heat press machine
• Assortment of vinyl weeding tools
• Cricut® Heat-Resistant Tape (cheaper generic options on Amazon)
• Bath towel
• 65lb white cardstock
• Black t-shirt
• Cricut Design Space (software)
• Cricut® Lightgrip Adhesive Cutting Mat
• Transfer Tape for Vinyl 12″ X 20 Ft

Instructions

Find an image (SVG)

First, you need to design your shirt by finding some images. You want the images to be SVGs so that you can scale the image without losing quality. To make the shirt shown above, I searched Google for “visit California logo svg”.

I found a “California” logo that I like, but I needed to edit it to remove the “visit” part.

I then searched for “california bear svg” and found a bear image that I liked.

After doing some image editing, I ended up with these 2 images.

Determine printed image dimensions

Lay your shirt down and, using a tape measure, decide how wide each image will be. For the “California” logo that would go over the chest, I chose 9 inches.

For the bear image that would go on the sleeve, I chose 5 inches.

These dimensions are not final. We will preview the design using cardstock (thick paper) first before using vinyl.

Import the images into Cricut Design Space

Download, install, and open Cricut Design Space. Follow the guided setup. Then, click the Canvas tab and then the “Upload” icon to upload each image. For the “California” text, I uploaded a large PNG on a transparent background and then set the width to 9 inches.

Do the same for the bear image. Since the Cricut Explore 2 machine can accommodate vinyl up to 12 inches wide and my video is 12 inches wide, I positioned the bear image below the “California” text.

After setting the width of the bear to 5 inches. I selected both image layers in the right column and chose “Attach” so that I could cut both images at the same time.

Cut images from the cardstock

In Cricut Design Space, click the green “Make” button. You will see a preview of the images on the mat.

You will see a preview of the design on the board. To make weeding easier, cut a sheet of 65lb cardstock large enough to accommodate the design. In this case, I round up to the nearest inch, so my cardstock will be 10″ x 6″.

Then, place the cardstock on the lightgrip mat as shown in the preview above.

Click “Continue”. Connect the Cricut machine to your computer via bluetooth or USB. Once Cricut Design Space detects your machine, you will follow a 3-step process to cut the images on your chosen material.

Make sure the dial on the machine is set to “Custom” because we will choose the material type in Cricut Design Space.

For step 1 (Set Base Material), click “Browse All Materials” and choose “Value Cardstock – 65 lb (176gsm)” since that’s the material we’re going to use first.

For step 2 (Load tools and material), make sure the correct blade is loaded in the correct clamp, load the material into the machine, and then press the flashing Load/Unload button on the machine.

When you press the “Load/Unload” button, the machine will grab and pull the mat a little to prepare it for cutting.

For step 3 (Press Go), just press the flashing “Go” button on the machine. Since we are printing on cardstock, where both sides of the cardstock are the same, we don’t need to toggle the “Mirror” option.

Once cutting is complete, click the “Load/Unload” button to unload the mat.

Notice the outline in the cardstock showing where the cardstock was cut.

Remove the cut images from the cardstock

Remove the cardstock from the mat and separate the cut images from the rest of the cardstock. Use a weeding tool, if needed.

You should be left with this.

Preview cut images on a shirt

We’ll want to preview how the cut images appear on our shirt. To do this, cut the transfer tape in the size as the cardstock – in this case, 10″ x 6″. Cut straight lines as that will make it easier to center and position the design on the shirt.

Remove the transfer tape from its backing.

Place the transfer tape over the cut images and press it on the cut images.

Remove the transfer tape using a weeding tool to keep the cut images stuck to the tape.

Cut the transfer tape around the individual images.

Wear your shirt and place the cut images on the shirt where you want them to go.

The size of the “California” text looks good to me.

The size of the bear, on the other hand, looks way too big.

Iterate

Since the bear looks too big, I’ll reduce the size from 5″ wide to 4″ and 3″, repeat some of the previous steps, and see how that looks.

This is how the 4″-wide bear looks on the sleeve of the shirt. It still looks too big.

This is how the 3″-wide bear looks. I think that’s a good size.

Now that we have our images and final dimensions, we’re ready to cut the images on heat-transfer vinyl (HTV) and iron them on our shirt.

Prepare images

Follow the same steps as above except instead of a 4″-wide bear, make it 3″ wide.

Trim heat-transfer vinyl

The vinyl I bought is an 8-foot long roll that is 12 inches wide. Since our mat is 12″ x 12″, I cut it to make it easier to work with.

I actually have some leftover vinyl from a previous project, so I’m going to use that.

Cut images from the vinyl

In Cricut Design Space, click “Make” and then “Continue”.

For step 1 (Set Base Material), click “Browse All Materials” and choose “Everyday Iron-on”

For step 2, you’ll notice 2 things:

• For iron-ons, the “mirror” must be turned on. This flips the images so that when they are ironed on, they appear correctly. Cricut Design Space automatically toggles this on for you.
• You need to place the iron-on material face (shiny side) down on the mat.

For step 3 (Press Go), go ahead and press go to start cutting.

Trim heat-transfer vinyl

Remove the vinyl from the mat and trim away material from the designs. To make it easier to position and align the designs on a shirt, I like to cut straight lines around the designs so I end up with perfect rectangles.

Remove the dull side of the vinyl

Use a weeder tool, if necessary.

You should be left with your designs on a transparent liner.

Determine design placement on shirt

Measure where you want the designs to be on the shirt. I’m going to position the top part of the “California” text to be about 3.75″ from the top as shown below.

Turn on heat press

Turn your heat press on and set the target temperature to 315 degrees Fahrenheit. Set the timer to 5 seconds.

Press the designs on the shirt

Put the shirt on a bath towel on a hard surface like the floor.

When the heat press is ready, place it on the shirt for 5 seconds where the design will go. This will remove wrinkles from the shirt.

Set the heat press timer to 30 seconds

Place the design on the shirt exactly where you want it to go. Use this measurement guide to make it easy to center designs.

Optionally, secure the design to the shirt using heat transfer tape.

Place a sheet of teflon on the design to protect the shirt and the heat press.

Place the heat press on the design until the 30 second timer is up.

Wait one minute. Then, remove the transparent liner from the design. If the design comes off the shirt, then put the heat press back on and press firmly on it for another 30 seconds.

Once the transparent liner is removed, I like to put the teflon sheet over the design and apply the heat press once again for 30 seconds.

Now, let’s apply the bear to the sleeve. Lay the shirt down such that the seam is at the bottom and in the middle.

Cut a piece of cardboard and insert it into the sleeve as shown below. We need the surface of the top part of the sleeve to be flat. Otherwise, the design can be ruined due to the bump from the seam.

Remove wrinkles from the shirt by place the heat press on it for 5 seconds.

The brown cardboard could cause discoloration in the white design. Cover the cardboard in the sheets of teflon first as shown below.

Secure the teflon to the cardboard using heat-resistant tape.

Place the design on the sleeve where you want it.

Put a sheet of teflon on the design.

Press the heat press firmly on the design for 30 seconds.

Wait one minute. Remove the transparent liner.

Optionally, place a teflon sheet on the design and apply the heat press again for 30 seconds.

The finished product

Removing vinyl

If you make a mistake, this video will show you how to remove vinyl from your shirt.

Some other shirt designs

You can also iron vinyl on pants.