Change aspect ratio: 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1

A Rooster project starts in the shape of your footage. To make a vertical cut for Reels, Shorts or TikTok, or a square one for a feed, change the canvas shape - the edit, the captions and the layers come with it.

Change the shape

1. Below the picture, on the left, click the canvas shape. For a widescreen video it reads Landscape · 16:9.
2. Choose one:
   • Landscape · 16:9, for YouTube and desktop;
   • Portrait · 9:16, for Reels, Shorts and TikTok;
   • Square · 1:1, for feed posts.

Rooster keeps the canvas's short edge and works out the long one, so a 1080p landscape video becomes a 1080 by 1920 portrait one. It is one step you can undo with ⌘Z.

Fit or fill

When the footage and the canvas are different shapes, open Adjust with nothing selected and choose under Framing:

• Fit shows the whole frame, with the background showing where the shapes differ.
• Fill fills the canvas and crops whatever falls outside.

The choice applies to every video clip in the project. To reframe one layer by hand - move the speaker into the middle of a portrait frame, say - select it on the canvas and drag it, or use its Size and position in Adjust.

Adjust also shows the canvas's exact size and frame rate under Canvas.

Other shapes

The three shapes above are the ones Rooster offers. A video recorded in another shape, such as 4:3, keeps its own size until you choose one of them.

View > Show Safe Areas (⌘') marks the title-safe area and the band where captions sit, which helps when reframing for a phone.