Focus Areas: zoom in on or highlight part of the picture with the Area Tool

Applies to 0.11Updated 9 Nov 20263 min read

Draw an area over anything at the playhead, then zoom in on it, highlight it or cut it out while the rest of the picture dims. Your clip is never changed.

Focus Areas bring one part of the picture forward: a person, a sign, a line of a caption. Pro (masks and tracking).

Draw an area

• In the Tools panel, click Area. A bar over the Program Monitor offers 11 shapes: Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Circle, Square, Triangle, Diamond, Hexagon, Star, Polygon and Freehand.
• Drag over the item at the playhead: a video, a photo, a title or a graphic. For a Polygon, click the corners, then the first one again. For Freehand, draw round the area.
• The areas go on a new track above, called Focus Areas, as an adjustment clip as long as the item. Your item underneath is never changed.
• Areas are numbered 1, 2, 3 in the order you draw them. The outline, number and handles show only in the Program Monitor, never in the export.
• With the Area tool, drag a handle to resize, the knob to turn (Shift: 15° steps) or the inside to move.

The Focus Areas window

Click an area to open it.

• Show Now brings the area out at the playhead. Put Back returns it to its place.
• Cut Out: Object Inside (Automatic) cuts out the objects inside your shape along their own edges; Exact Shape uses the shape as drawn.
• Follow It follows the object through the video from the playhead, and the area moves with it.
• Action: Zoom to Center, Highlight in Place, Zoom to Left, Right, Top or Bottom, Zoom to Fill or Zoom to Fit. Zoom sets how much of the frame it fills.
• Transition: Smooth Zoom, Cross Dissolve, Cut, Whip or Bounce, from 0.1 to 3 seconds.
• The rest of the picture can be dimmed, blurred, desaturated or vignetted. The area can have an outline, a glow and a shadow.
• In the list, drag a row to change the order, use the eye to hide an area, or the trash button to delete it.

Play them in order

• Play in Order brings every area out in turn from the playhead, holds it for the time set (for example 3.0 s each) and puts it back.
• While the video plays, click an area to bring it out at that moment, and click again to put it back. Each moment is saved as keyframes you can edit in Effect Controls.