LAB 7 – INTRODUCTION TO CAPCUT DESKTOP

1. Before starting this tutorial, you need to download and install CapCut for Windows or MacOS
from http://capcut.com
a. Download and extract Lab 7 resource files to your computer.
b. Open CapCut and click Start creating, OR you can sign in to CapCut using Google account
before start creating a new project.
c. CapCut interface will be shown as below.
d. The projects are automatically saved during editing.

Project
Main Name
Toolbar
Preview Sub
Window Toolbar

Media
Panel

Timeline
Toolbar
Timeline

i. Preview Window: To playback video, or pinch, drag, rotate and interact with the clips
directly inside the preview window.
ii. Timeline: To assemble, arrange, and apply edits to video, audio, overlay, effects, and text
tracks.
iii. Main Toolbar: All the tools you need can be found here. The Main Toolbar shows up when
there is no clip selected on the timeline.
iv. Sub Toolbar: Toolbars dedicated for different tracks and clips on the timeline. For instance,
there are sub toolbars for videos clips, text, audio, overlays and so on.

2. You can click Import button to import media such as videos, photos, audios, OR you can drag
the media files and drop onto the media panel. Now, you can start creating the video project
after adding videos, photos or audios from media panel to the timeline.

Adding Videos

3. You can import your own videos or use the stock video from CapCut library. The imported
videos are placed in Media panel – Local, whereas the stock video can be found at Media panel
– Library. Once the video clips are added to the timeline, you can do basic editing such as split,
crop, reverse, etc.
a. Import city.mp4, kinabalu.mkv, gsman1.mp4 and travel.jpg from your computer folder.
City.mp4 and gsman1.mp4 have no audio track.
b. Drag city.mp4 to the timeline.
4. Split Video Clip: To split a video clip in CapCut, select the video clip on the timeline and move
the white play marker line to the split location. Click the Split icon. You can remove the
unwanted clips by selecting it on the timeline and click Delete.
a. Select city.mp4 on the timeline and move the play marker to 14:00 second.
b. Click the Split icon.
c. The video clip - city.mp4 is divided into left and right parts.

Split
Play marker

5. Crop Video Clip: Select the video clip on the timeline and click Crop icon to open Crop window.
You can crop the video by dragging the white circle controls at the corners. The crop size
dimension depends on the crop ratio, such as 4:3, 16:9 or Free size. You can rotate the video by
adjusting the rotation slider.
a. Select the right part of city.mp4
b. Click Crop icon. In Crop window, choose 16:9 crop ratio.
c. Crop the video to focus only at the cyclist by adjusting the white circle controls and move the
crop area as shown in the image below.
d. If necessary, you can rotate the video by sliding the rotation slider.
e. Click Confirm to crop the video.

White circle control

Crop ratio

6. Other basic editing features on the timeline toolbars:

Icon Operations
Undo or redo the actions.
Split the video clip at the play marker line. By splitting the video, you can
add transitions in between after creating the split, remove unwanted parts
by tapping the split clip, and hit the Delete icon at the bottom of the
screen, or to insert new clips in between two video clips.
Remove the selected video clips.

Freeze the selected video clip on the timeline.

Reverse the video clip. Reversing a video can create interesting effects,
such as broken glasses restored or torn paper merged into one.
Mirror the selected video clip. Mirror a video is a way to flip the video
horizontally or to create an interesting effect when two videos are put
together side by side, while each one is mirrored to the other on the
horizontal axis.
Rotate the video clips to fix wrong orientations, or create the trendy
rotation effects that features video zooming and rotating in animation.
Open the Crop window to crop the video clips.

Record voice-over. The recording tracks are added onto the timeline.

7. There are editing features like Speed, Animation, Tracking and Adjustment in Video sub-toolbar.
These features are available when you select the video clip on the timeline.

8. In Video tab, there are Basic, Cutout, Mask and Enhance tab.
i. In Basic tab, you can resize the selected video clip by sliding the Scale slider to the left or
right direction. Default size is at 100%.

ii. You can move the video clip to the left, right, up or down by entering the X & Y axis value in
Position X & Y, or you can rotate the video by entering the preferred degree value.

iii. To blend the selected video clip with the bottom video track, simply slide the opacity slider
to the left. You can choose one of the available blend mode like Normal, Brighten, etc.

9. With the speed modifier in CapCut, you can make interesting Slomo video (Slow motion) to
highlight a key moment, such as creating the bullet time effects.

10. In Speed tab, you can control the video speed using Normal or Curve mode. The Normal mode
allows you to speed up or slow down the video at a constant speed, such as 2x, 4x, 8x, etc.; the
Curve mode opens up to more editing possibilities, with the speed changing non-linearly to
create impactful speed ramping effects.

a. Select the right part of city.mp4

b. Click Speed tab and choose Curve mode.
c. Apply Bullet curve to the selected video clip.

11. In Animation tab, you can apply animation at the start (In), end (Out), or from the start to the
end of the video clip (Combo). The duration of the animation can be set using duration slider.
Click the download icon to apply the animation.

a. Select the left part of city.mp4

b. Click Animation tab and choose Combo.
c. Select one of the animation, and then click the download icon to apply.

12. In Tracking tab, you can apply Motion tracking to make the camera follow the movement of the
object in the video.

13. In Adjustment tab, you can use LUT (Look Up Table) as a way to color grade the video clip. Also,
you can adjust the Temperature and Hue value to make a video looks better.
Using Overlays in CapCut

14. Using the overlay feature in CapCut, you can add videos, pictures, stickers and text on top of the
main clip, thus creating Picture in Picture effect, special title effects, or use it in combination
with green screen effects and more.

15. CapCut offers the Chroma Key and Auto Cutout feature to remove colors such as green screen
from the overlay video. Using Chroma Key:

a. Drag gsman1.mp4 from media panel onto the timeline, place it on top of city.mp4

b. Select gsman1.mp4 on the timeline. It will be the overlay video, and city.mp4 is the
background video.
c. Click Video tab at sub toolbar.
d. Select Cutout tab and tick Chroma Key. Make sure the play marker in the timeline is over the
overlay video.
e. Click Color picker icon and identify the color to remove, which is green, on the overlay video
in the preview window.

f. Slide the Strength and Shadow slider to the right until the green color in the overlay video
completely gone.

g. Select Basic menu, slide the Scale slider to resize the overlay video to 68%, thus matching the
subject size with the background video, then move the overlay video to the right side.
16. Alternatively, you can use Auto cutout to remove green color from overlay video. Simply tick
the Auto cutout option and wait until Capcut completed the process.

Using Keyframes to Create Motion Effects

17. We can use keyframes to animate from the original state to another state with different
position, scale and rotation angle, thus resulting in motion effect animation.

a. Select gsman1.mp4 on the timeline.

b. Move the play marker on the timeline to 1:20 second.
c. Make sure the scale is 68% and the overlay video position is at the right side.
d. In Video tab – Basic, click Add keyframe at the right side of Scale and Position settings. This is
the original state – Keyframe #1.

e. Next, move the play marker on the timeline to 12:00 second.

f. Add keyframe at Scale and Position. This is Keyframe #2.
g. Move the overlay video to the left side, and slide the Scale to 140%.

h. Play the video to see the motion effect animation.

Using Mask to create Split Screen Effect

18. When you add two or more video clips on different tracks on the timeline, and make they
aligned on the timeline, these clips will show up in the preview window simultaneously in the
same screen. Video on the top track will hide the video on the bottom track.

19. You can crop or use the split screen features to decide the parts to show and hide, or change
the shapes of the split screen. This can be done in CapCut using Mask feature.
a. Drag city.mp4 from media panel and drop it at the end of current city.mp4 track as shown
below. The old city.mp4 is on the left, and the new city.mp4 is on the right.

b. Right-click the new added city.mp4 clip and select Copy.

c. Right-click the video track above, then Paste it there.

d. Select city.mp4 at the top track, and click Mirror at the Timeline toolbar. It will flip the top
video horizontally.
e. Select city.mp4 at the top track and go to Video – Mask sub toolbar. Tick Mask and choose
Split. It will display split line horizontally.
f. Click the rotate icon and drag it upward to split it vertically.

Adding Transitions

20. Many trendy transitions are available in CapCut Video Editor. You can choose transitions in the
Transitions library that are divided by category.
a. Click Transitions at the Main Toolbar to open transitions library.
b. Choose one of the transition and click download icon.
c. Drag the transition and drop it in between the video clips on the timeline.
d. If necessary, you can select the transition on the timeline and control the duration in sub-
toolbar.
Adding Stickers

21. Sticker can convey meaning and purpose with a unique and attractive image display. There are
many stickers that available in Stickers library, divided by category. Capcut allows you to pin
stickers to objects on the video.
a. Click Stickers at the Main Toolbar to open sticker library.
b. Choose one of the sticker and click download icon. E.g. select Mood ??? sticker.
c. Drag the sticker and drop it on top of overlay video on the timeline.
d. Select the sticker on the timeline. Move, rotate and resize it accordingly in the preview
window.

e. If necessary, you can drag the edges of the sticker on the timeline to make it appear more
longer.

22. In Animation sub toolbar, you can apply animation for stickers on the timeline. Animation can
be applied at the start (In), at the end (Out), or you can animate it continuously (Loop).
Using Motion Tracking to track object

23. In Sticker - Tracking sub-toolbar, you can apply motion tracking for stickers. The sticker will
follow the object in the video that are moving.
a. Click the sticker in the timeline.
b. Select Tracking at sub toolbar.
c. Tick Tracking and select Motion tracking.
d. Move the yellow rectangle to the object (to follow the person’s head).
e. Click Start button to begin the motion tracking. Wait until the tracking process completed to
see the result.

Adding Photos

24. Photos are incredibly important in capturing audience attention. You can import your own
photos, such as transparent png logo, jpg or gif files onto the media panel.
a. Drag travel.jpg from media panel – local to the timeline, drop it on top of overlay video
track.

b. You can drag the edges of the travel.jpg on the timeline to make it appear more longer.

25. To remove background color from photos, you can use the Cutout feature.
a. Select travel.jpg on the timeline. Go to Video – Cutout sub toolbar
b. Tick Chroma key, then click Color picker icon and identify the color to remove, which is the
white on the travel.jpg image in the preview window.
c. Slide the Strength and Shadow slider to the right until the white background color in the
image is completely gone.
d. It is advisable to use png format, instead of jpg or gif, because of its transparency features.
26. In the Video – Basic sub toolbar, you can resize the image using Scale slider, move it to other
location, or rotate the image. Blend option let you control the opacity with the bottom track.
a. Resize the travel.jpg image to make it smaller and place it at the top left corner.

27. In Animation sub toolbar, you can apply animation for photos on the timeline. Animation can be
applied at the start (In), at the end (Out), or you can animate it continuously (Loop)
a. Select travel.png on the timeline, go to Animation sub toolbar and choose In. Click download
icon at Slide Right animation to apply it.

Adding Sound

28. You can add background music, sound effects and other audio to the video by using the stock
audio library in CapCut. The stock audios are divided into music, special effects, extracted audio
and Tiktok. These stock media files are royalty free, meaning you can upload the video to
YouTube and other social platforms without copyright infringement.

29. Besides using stock audio, you can use CapCut to extract music from your favorite videos, or
you can import your own audios from computer.
a. Click Audio at the Main toolbar to open stock audio library.
b. Choose one of the music, e.g. Getaway, drag and drop it at the bottom of video track.
c. You can control the volume by drag up or down the horizontal line in the audio track.

d. Alternatively, you can control the volume at Audio – Basic sub toolbar. Here, you can add
keyframes to control which audio part is louder or slower.
e. Drag the play marker, add keyframes and slide the volume slider at each keyframe to
implement this action.

f. You can apply fade-in, fade-out, noise reduction and voice effect at Audio – Basic sub toolbar.
g. At Audio - Speed sub toolbar, you can control the audio speed at a constant speed, such as
1x, 2x, 4x. The audio duration will be shorten if the speed is increased.
h. Choose one of the Sound effect, e.g. Correct, drag and drop it at the bottom of audio track.
Place it at the correct location where the person in overlay video finish reading the map.

i. Click Mute clip audio at the track toolbar to mute the track and click again to unmute.
30. Most of the video come with audio track. In Capcut, the video and audio remain on the same
track. You can control the audio volume in Video – Audio sub toolbar. There are volume control
to make the audio louder or slower, fade-in, fade-out effect, noise reduction and voice effects
option.
a. Drag kinabalu.mkv from media panel and drop it at the end of city.mp4
b. Right-click kinabalu.mkv and select Separate audio.
c. The audio from the video will be separate and placed on the bottom track.

d. To remove the audio, you can select and delete the kinabalu audio clip, but you can recover
the audio by right-click the video clip and select Recover audio.

31. You can record voice-over using a microphone attached to the computer.
a. Click Record (mic icon) on the timeline toolbar.
b. When the record window open, click the record button.
c. Wait until the countdown finish, then start recording your own voice. You say “Mount
Kinabalu” and then stop the recording.
d. The recording clip will be added to Audio track on the timeline. Move it to be aligned with
kinabalu.mkv clip.

Adding Effects

32. CapCut has a vast library of effects that you can apply to your video. Effects are divided into two
categories: Video effects and Body effects. You can click Effects at the main toolbar to open
Effects library.
a. Click effects at the main toolbar.
b. Expand Video effects.
c. Select one of the effect, e.g. Zoom Lens effect.
d. Click download icon, then click plus sign to add the effect to the timeline.
e. Zoom Lens effect will be added to Effect track.
f. Move the effect to be on top of kinabalu.mkv clip.
g. You can modify the effect at the Effect sub toolbar.
33. Body effects used mainly on human body in the video clip.
a. Expand Body effects in Effects library.
b. Select Emotions – Bright Idea 1.
c. Click download icon, then click plus sign to add the effect.
d. Bright Idea 1 effect will be added to Effect track.
e. Move it to be on top of gsman1.mp4
f. You can control the effect details in Effects sub toolbar

Adding Filters

34. CapCut provides you with a lot of advanced filters to make your videos less monotonous.
Filters are divided into eight categories: Featured, Life, Food, Movies, Nature, Retro, B&W,
and Style. You can click Filters at the main toolbar to open Filters library.
a. Click Filters at the main toolbar.
b. Select Style – Punk filter.
c. Click download icon, then click plus sign to add the filter to the timeline.
d. Punk filter will be added to Filter track.
e. Move the Punk filter to be on top of city.mp4 clip.
f. You can modify the filter at the Filter sub toolbar.
Adding Text

35. Text is an important element of multimedia. It is a common practice in video editing to put text
into videos, which can be used for demonstration, elaboration, caption, subtitling, and
commentary purposes. Adding text to videos has become easier with Capcut. We can put our
own text, or use the text effects and template provided by Capcut. Auto caption and local
caption also available for caption and subtitling purposes.

36. We can add text by selecting Text at main toolbar, which will open the Text library.
a. Click Text at the main toolbar.
b. Select Add text and click plus sign at Default text to add text to track
c. Default text will be added to Text track. Place it at the beginning, 00:00 second. Drag the
edges of the text clip to make it appear more longer.
d. Edit text in Text – Basic sub toolbar. Enter word “TRAVEL VLOG”.
e. Select Green London font size 15pt, or you can choose any of the available Preset style.

37. To make it more attractive, you can apply Bubble, Effect and Animation to the text. Also, you
can apply Motion tracking, like stickers in the previous step. More text effects available in Text –
Effects library, that are divided into several categories.

38. One of the interesting feature in Capcut is the ability to apply Text-To-Speech technique. It will
generate audio based on the text entered and the voice profile selected.
a. Click Text at the main toolbar.
b. Select Add text and click plus sign at Default text to add text to track
c. Default text will be added to Text track. Place it at the beginning, 17:25 second. Drag the
edges of the text clip to make it appear more longer.
d. Edit text in Text – Basic sub toolbar. Enter word “Yey.. train city”.
e. Select Text-to-speech tab, and choose Female vocalist.
f. Click Start reading to convert text to speech. The generated audio will be add to audio track.
g. You can remove the text clip from the text track.
39. There are text template available in the Text -Template library divided into several categories.
We can add the pre-defined text and effect to video. But, you can edit the text in Text – text sub
toolbar according to your needs.
a. Click Text at the main toolbar.
b. Select Text template and choose one of the template in Title category, e.g. Winter is coming.
c. Click download icon, then click plus sign to add text to track.
d. Place it at the end of video. Drag the edges of the text clip to make it appear more longer.
e. Edit text in Text – Basic sub toolbar. Rename the word “Winter is coming” to “Thank you for
watching”.

40. Auto captions feature in Text library can generate subtitle based on the speech in the video
track, or you can upload subtitle file manually by importing it in the Local captions.

Making Intro and Credit Title Video

41. Normally, people use video intro at the start to tell people what the video is about, and credit
title video at the end to give thanks to people who played a role in making these videos.
a. Click Media at the main toolbar.
b. Select Library – B&W, select black background video.
c. Click download icon, then click plus sign to add the video to the timeline. Place it at the end of
the video track.
d. Click Text at the main toolbar.
e. Select Add text and click plus sign at Default text to add text to track
f. Default text will be added to Text track. Place it aligned with the black background video clip.
Drag the edges of the text clip to make the duration same as the credit title video.
g. Edit text in Text – Basic sub toolbar. Enter credit titles:

Thanks to:
Mixkit.co
Youtube.com
CapCut.com
h. Format the text. Alignment set to center. Choose any preset style.
i. Click Animation tab, choose Loop and select Scroll Up animation.
j. Slide the Speed slider to the right to make the rolling animation more slower. E.g. if the
duration of credit title video is 5.0s, change the animation speed to 5.0s

Making a Cover for Video

42. The covers are simply a way to identify our videos, this will allow people to identify a part of the
video and thus they will know whether or not it is of interest to them.
a. Click edit a cover button located at the left side of video track

b. It will open Select a cover window, choose Select from video

c. Move the yellow line to the part of video that show the video title, then click Edit.
d. Here you can design the cover using the available templates, or just click Complete to finish.
e. The cover for video will be display at the left side of video track.
Export Project

43. Once you have completed your CapCut video project, and you want to post it to your chosen
platform, all you need to do is export it. This takes all the effects, video clips, images, music,
colour and edits you have made and creates a single video file for you to upload to YouTube,
Google Drive or somewhere similar.
a. Before click the Export button, make sure to show all video, sticker, effects and filter tracks,
also unmute all audio track. If you hide or mute the track, it will not be included in the video
file that has been exported.

b. Click the Export button at the top right corner of CapCut interface.
c. It will open Export window.

d. Enter the export details, such as video title and location to save the video and cover files.
e. Choose video resolution, the higher resolution meaning that the bigger size of video file will
be rendered by CapCut. 720p or 1080p resolution can produce a high quality video. Leave
other setting to default values.
f. Click Export button to begin the export process. Wait until the process completed at 100%
g. Once completed, you can post the video to Youtube or Tiktok by click the respective button,
or you can click OK to exit the window.