Enhance videos in Photoshop

Put your photo-editing skills to work on moving images to maintain a natural-looking and striking aesthetic

- James Paterson

James Paterson

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most.

Keyframe animations

Video clips and other elements like text or still images can be animated using keyframes. First, click the arrow icon by the clip name to expand the options. Transform lets you alter the size and position of elements. We’ve used it to make our clip slightly larger over the course of a few seconds, which makes it look like a slow zoom. (It’s best to use 4K footage for this, then set the image size to 1,920 x 1,080 so that you have the resolution to work with.) Simply click the stopwatch icon to set a keyframe, move the playhead and resize the clip to set a second keyframe.

Even though Photoshop has offered video tools for several years, many users still don’t know they exist – and those who do may assume that Photoshop is unsuited to editing videos. But not only is it possible to edit video in Photoshop, it can also be a sensible way for photographers to work with moving images.