Making clips

How to turn a landscape video into a vertical 9:16 clip

Turn 16:9 video into vertical 9:16 at 1080 x 1920: center crop, keyframed or auto reframe, stacked layouts, safe zones, and steps in CapCut, Premiere, Resolve.

Updated September 29, 202610 min read18 sources

In short

Set the project to 9:16 at 1080 x 1920, scale the landscape video to fill the full height, and move the 9:16 window so the speaker or the action stays in frame. You can use a fixed center crop, set the window by hand with position keyframes, or let an automatic tool follow the subject, such as Premiere's Auto Reframe, DaVinci Resolve Studio's Smart Reframe or CapCut's Auto reframe (a CapCut Pro feature). For gameplay with a facecam, stack the two in separate boxes instead of cropping one picture. Keep captions and faces away from the bottom 35% and the side edges, the areas Meta's Reels ad guide says to keep clear because the app's buttons and text sit there.

On this page

The target: 1080 x 1920 and the safe zones
Five ways to fit a 16:9 shot into 9:16
How to reframe by hand: follow the speaker
Reframing tools compared (September 2026)
Step by step in CapCut, Premiere, Resolve and Clipchamp
Step by step: FastClip
Common mistakes
Questions
Sources

The target: 1080 x 1920 and the safe zones

TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts all play full-screen vertical video. Google's video ad specs list 1080 x 1920 px as the recommended vertical size (Google Ads Help). TikTok's ad specs mark vertical 9:16 as recommended (TikTok Ads Help). Instagram's recommendation guidance asks for high-resolution 9:16 vertical video with no borders (Instagram for Creators). YouTube treats square or vertical videos of up to 3 minutes as Shorts (YouTube Help).

A landscape video still plays, but small. For Shorts ads, Google says horizontal assets "will serve with blurred top and bottoms in the vertical Shorts experience" (Google Ads Help).

Each app also draws buttons, the account name and the post text over the video. This is what each platform publishes about the area to keep clear:

Platform	What the official page says	At 1080 x 1920
Instagram Reels (Meta ad guide)	Keep at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side free of text, logos and other key elements	About 269 px top, 672 px bottom, 65 px each side
TikTok (ad specs)	The safe zone depends on the video's shape, the caption length and any extra ad formats; downloadable templates	No pixel values in the text
YouTube Shorts (Google Ads specs)	Keep the logo, product and on-screen text inside the safe area of Google's downloadable PNG templates	Values are in the templates

Sources: Meta Ads Guide, TikTok Ads Help, Google Ads Help. These are ad guides. We found no pixel safe zone for organic posts on any of the three platforms, but organic posts use the same interface. In practice, keep faces and captions between about 270 px and 1,250 px from the top of the frame and at least 65 px from each side. For export settings, see vertical video specs.

Five ways to fit a 16:9 shot into 9:16

A 9:16 window cut from a 16:9 frame at full height keeps only about 32% of the width: about 607 of 1,920 pixels in a 1080p source. You must crop the rest, move the window, or show the picture smaller. Choose the layout by what the viewer must see.

Layout	How it works	Use it when	Watch out for
Center crop	A fixed 9:16 window in the middle of the frame	One person sits near the center and stays there	Anyone off-center is cut off; in two-person shots you often see the gap between them
Keyframed (manual) reframe	You set the window's position at chosen moments; the editor moves it between them	Podcasts and interviews where the speaker changes	It takes time; too many moves look shaky
Automatic reframe	The software finds the subject and moves the window	Long clips with one clear subject	It can follow the wrong person or miss fast action; check every cut
Stacked (split)	Two crops of the same video, one above the other, such as facecam on top and gameplay below	Streams and gameplay with a facecam	Each box is small; both crops must stay on target
Letterboxed or framed	The full 16:9 picture inside the 9:16 frame, with bars, a blurred fill, or a title around it	Wide shots, slides and screen recordings that a crop would ruin	The video fills only about 32% of the screen height; Instagram asks for no borders

Twitch's clip editor offers the same choice for stream clips. Its Stacked portrait layout "splits your screen into 2 boxes" for streams that capture both face cam and gameplay, and its Full layout uses one box (Twitch Help). See how to clip Twitch and Kick streams.

How to reframe by hand: follow the speaker

Manual reframing gives the most control on talking clips, and it is how you repair an automatic result. Adobe's help says a sequence with several points of interest or rapid movement may need its keyframes fine-tuned after Auto Reframe runs (Adobe Help).

Set the project to 1080 x 1920 and scale the source to fill the full height.
Watch the clip once. Note who is on screen at each moment and where.
Set the first keyframe at the start, with the subject's face centered in the window.
Add keyframes only where the subject moves or the speaker changes. Hold the window still in between.
For a hard switch between speakers, put two keyframes very close together. For a slow follow, space them further apart.
Play the whole clip in 9:16 before you export. Look for faces cut by the window edge.

Worked example. Assumptions: a two-person podcast in one wide 1080p shot, host in the left third, guest in the right third, 40-second clip. A center crop shows the table between them. Instead, set a keyframe on the host at 0:00, a close pair that jumps to the guest when she answers at 0:12, and a pair that jumps back at 0:31: five keyframes in total. If each person has their own camera, cut between the angles instead, each with one fixed crop. More in the podcast clipping guide.

Reframing tools compared (September 2026)

The table lists what each vendor's own pages say, checked on 2026-09-29. Prices are in US dollars and can change.

Tool	Automatic reframe	Controls	Cost of the reframe feature
CapCut (desktop, mobile, web)	Auto reframe	Aspect ratio, image stabilization, camera moving speed	Needs CapCut Pro, according to CapCut's help center; price not listed there
Adobe Premiere (desktop)	Auto Reframe effect (one clip) and Auto Reframe Sequence	Target aspect ratio and resolution; Motion Tracking: Slower Motion, Default, Faster Motion; clip nesting	Premiere plan US$22.99 a month, annual plan billed monthly
Adobe Premiere on iPhone	Auto reframe	Reframes to the project's aspect ratio, such as 9:16 or 1:1	Adobe calls the app free and says you pay only for generative AI tools
DaVinci Resolve Studio	Smart Reframe (Studio version only)	Object of Interest: Auto or Reference Point; Mode: Pan Only or Tilt Only	US$295, one-time purchase
DaVinci Resolve (free)	None	Manual position keyframes in the Inspector	Free
Clipchamp	None in its aspect-ratio help	9:16 preset; Fill crops the video to the frame	Not stated in that article

Sources: CapCut Auto reframe, CapCut Help, Adobe Premiere plans, Adobe Premiere mobile app, DaVinci Resolve, Microsoft Support. Adobe's newer help pages call the desktop app Premiere; many older pages and users still call it Premiere Pro.

CapCut's pages disagree. Its feature page says you can "try it for free". Its help center says Auto reframe "requires an active CapCut Pro subscription" because it uses cloud-based AI tracking. Check in the app before you rely on it.

Step by step in CapCut, Premiere, Resolve and Clipchamp

CapCut (desktop): drag the video to the timeline and select it. In the right-hand panel, open Video and turn on Auto reframe. Pick the aspect ratio, then adjust image stabilization and camera moving speed. CapCut says the feature is available only in some regions (CapCut).
Premiere, whole sequence: select the sequence in the Project panel and choose Sequence > Auto Reframe Sequence. Pick a target aspect ratio and enter a target resolution such as 1080 x 1920. Premiere creates a duplicate sequence with the effect on every clip. Choose Slower Motion for talking heads, Default for most content, or Faster Motion for fast action. Turn on clip nesting if the clips already have motion keyframes or speed changes; Adobe notes that nesting does not keep soft transitions properly (Adobe Help).
Premiere, one clip: drag the Auto Reframe effect onto the clip. Premiere generates motion keyframes that follow the action. In Effect Controls, set Motion Tracking, then fine-tune Reframe Offset, Reframe Scale and Reframe Rotation (Adobe Help).
Premiere on iPhone: in a 9:16 project, select the clip and tap Auto reframe. Turn the option off to undo it (Adobe Help).
DaVinci Resolve Studio: duplicate the timeline, open Timeline Settings, choose Use Custom Settings, set the vertical resolution, and set Mismatched resolution files to Scale full frame with crop. Select the clips, open Smart Reframe in the Inspector, leave Object of Interest on Auto, and click Reframe. If Auto frames the wrong thing, choose Reference Point, drag the box around the subject, and reframe again. Pan Only stops vertical moves (DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual, chapters 38 and 45).
DaVinci Resolve (free): set up the vertical timeline the same way. Then move the clip with the Inspector's Transform controls and click the group's keyframe button wherever the subject moves (manual, chapter 44).
Clipchamp: click the size button above the stage and choose 9:16. Select the video and click the fill button in the floating toolbar to crop it to the frame (Microsoft Support). The result is a fixed crop.

Step by step: FastClip

FastClip added a vertical crop on 2026-09-29. It is a manual, keyframed reframe, not an automatic one.

Turn it on: open a landscape clip in the draft editor and switch on Vertical 9:16.
Place the frame: go to a moment in the clip and drag the frame strip to place the 9:16 window. Each drag sets a keyframe at the current moment.
Build the path: add keyframes where the speaker changes or moves. The render moves the window smoothly from one keyframe to the next, or jumps straight to it if you mark the keyframe as a cut (useful when the conversation switches to the other speaker).
Finish the clip: FastClip renders a full-screen 1080 x 1920 video, with word-timed captions sized for the vertical frame and placed above the bottom 35% that the apps cover with buttons and text.
Post it: the 9:16 video goes to Instagram Reels as-is. For TikTok and YouTube Shorts, download the MP4 and upload it.
Know the limits: FastClip does not track faces automatically, so you set every move yourself. It does not stack a facecam over gameplay; for that, use Twitch's Stacked layout or another editor. Its other vertical option is a 9:16 card that frames the whole landscape video under a title.

Common mistakes

Cutting off the speaker. A center crop keeps only the middle third of the frame. In two-person shots it often shows the empty space between them.
Captions under the app's interface. Captions in the bottom 35% or near the right edge sit under the buttons, the username and the post text. See captions for clips.
Upscaling low-resolution footage. A 1080p source gives a 9:16 window of about 607 x 1080 pixels, so a 1080 x 1920 export is upscaled about 1.8 times and looks softer. 4K sources keep more detail (table below).
Too many camera moves. Dense keyframes, or a fast-motion setting on a calm interview, make the frame jitter. Hold still between speakers.
Cropping away on-screen information. A crop removes scoreboards, chat and lower thirds at the sides of the source. Use a stacked or framed layout when viewers need them.
Plain black bars on Instagram. A simple letterbox goes against Instagram's no-borders guidance.

Source	9:16 window at full height	Scale to 1080 x 1920
720p (1280 x 720)	405 x 720	About 2.7x up
1080p (1920 x 1080)	About 607 x 1080	About 1.8x up
1440p (2560 x 1440)	810 x 1440	About 1.3x up
4K (3840 x 2160)	About 1,215 x 2160	About 0.9x (scaled down)

The window width is the source height times 9/16. Upscaling adds pixels, not detail, so use the 4K version of a source when it exists.

Questions

What size is a vertical 9:16 video?

1080 x 1920 pixels. Google's video ad specs recommend it for vertical video, and TikTok and Instagram both ask for 9:16. Meta's Reels ad guide recommends a larger 1440 x 2560 frame, so treat 1080 x 1920 as the minimum.

How can I convert a landscape video to vertical for free?

DaVinci Resolve's free version lets you move the crop by hand with keyframes. Adobe Premiere on iPhone has Auto reframe, and Adobe describes the app as free apart from generative AI tools. Clipchamp can switch to 9:16 and crop to fill, as a fixed crop. CapCut's Auto reframe now needs CapCut Pro, according to its help center.

Is Smart Reframe in DaVinci Resolve free?

No. The DaVinci Resolve 21 manual marks Smart Reframe "Studio Version Only", and DaVinci Resolve Studio costs US$295 as a one-time purchase. In the free version you reframe by hand with position keyframes.

What is the best way to reframe a podcast to vertical?

If each person has their own camera, cut between the angles and give each a fixed crop. If both sit in one wide shot, use keyframes that jump to whoever is talking and hold still in between. Automatic tools follow one subject and can miss speaker changes.

Does auto reframe work for gameplay with a facecam?

Not well, because it follows one subject, so you lose either the face or the game. Use a stacked layout with the facecam in one box and the gameplay in the other, such as Twitch's Stacked portrait layout.

Does FastClip track faces automatically?

No. FastClip's Vertical 9:16 crop is manual: you drag a frame strip to place the window, and each drag sets a keyframe. The render moves smoothly between keyframes and outputs 1080 x 1920. FastClip also does not stack a facecam over gameplay.

Sources

We checked every claim on this page against these sources on the date above. Platform rules and rates change often. Found an error? Tell us.

In short

The target: 1080 x 1920 and the safe zones#

Five ways to fit a 16:9 shot into 9:16#

How to reframe by hand: follow the speaker#

Reframing tools compared (September 2026)#

Step by step in CapCut, Premiere, Resolve and Clipchamp#

Step by step: FastClip#

Common mistakes#