How to Avoid Common Mistakes When Rotating a Video

How to Avoid Common Mistakes When Rotating a Video

Rotating videos can be a useful way to correct issues with the orientation – some of which may even affect the continuity of a video project that you’re working on. It is a relatively simple alteration to make, which is why people often take it a bit too lightly and end up making mistakes.

If you want to avoid some of the more common mistakes that are made when rotating a video, you first need to know what they are:

  • Rotating for the wrong reasons

In many cases people rotate their videos for the wrong reasons. At times it is a glaring mistake, such as an ill-planned attempt to turn a horizontal video into a vertical video despite it not being suitable.

However in most it is simply because they mix up the ‘rotate’ and ‘flip’ transformations. Flips (or more appropriately the horizontal-based ‘flops’) are often used to mirror the composition of videos and maintain continuity – but rotating the video can’t do the same.

If you do intend to rotate your video, you should consider the reason why – and whether or not rotating it is the best option.

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  • Straightening without cropping, or by cropping too much

Another common mistake that is made is when a video is straightened by rotating it. Generally that requires a rotation that is not in multiples of 90-degrees, which will result in an uneven frame.

If you don’t crop the video, it will look very out of sorts. However if you make the opposite mistake and crop too much of the video you could end up affecting its quality.

In short you need to crop your video, but you should only crop as much as is required to even out the edges.

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  • Applying the wrong amount of rotation

Last but not least in some cases the wrong amount of ration is applied to the video. The most common of these is when rotating 90-degrees clockwise which can make a big difference to the video’s composition.

If there are two objects side by side in the video and you rotate clockwise, the object that was on the left will be above the object that was on the right. On the other hand if you rotate counterclockwise the object on the right would be above the object on the left.

When you learn how to turn a video and rotate it you should experiment with it a little bit and get a feel for how it works. It won’t take long but it can make a world of difference and help you to understand how it will affect your video. For example you can try the Rotate Video web app for an easy option.

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As you can see most of the mistakes described above are easy enough to avoid – all you need to do is be aware of them. With a bit of planning and by using rotation with care, you should have no problem ensuring that you never fall victim to them.