Guide · free tool included
What each setting in Adobe’s stabiliser really does, which one to change for wobble, jelly or a heavy crop, why it sometimes refuses to work, and how its controls map onto a browser alternative.
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Warp Stabilizer is the stabilising effect in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Its best settings are usually its defaults: Result at Smooth Motion, Smoothness at 50%, Method at Subspace Warp and Framing at Stabilize, Crop, Auto-scale. Change one setting only when you see a specific problem: Position, Scale, Rotation when the picture bends, Enhanced Reduction for rolling-shutter ripples, and a lower Smoothness or Crop Less ↔ Smooth More when it zooms in too far.
This page explains each setting by the symptom it fixes, the reasons the effect refuses to run, and what decides how long it takes. For the steps to apply it, see stabilising video in Premiere Pro or the After Effects guide, which also covers the effect’s extra options there. The stabiliser at the top of this page has the same kinds of controls, live, in your browser.
Start from the defaults, then work down this list and stop as soon as the clip looks right.
Apply the effect and wait for both phases, analysing and then stabilising, before judging anything. You can adjust settings or edit elsewhere while it works.
Keep Smooth Motion for a shot that moves on purpose. Choose No Motion for a shot meant to be still, as long as part of the subject stays in frame throughout.
Raise Smoothness for a floatier camera, lower it to follow the original movement more closely. Values above 100 crop noticeably more.
Bending or swimming: Method to Position, Scale, Rotation. Ripples: Rolling Shutter Ripple to Enhanced Reduction. Lost track on a moving subject: Detailed Analysis.
Lower Crop Less ↔ Smooth More for a wider picture, or set Framing to Stabilize, Synthesize Edges to fill the gaps instead of zooming. Check the whole clip for edge artefacts afterwards.
| Setting | Choices | Change it when |
|---|---|---|
| Result | Smooth Motion (default) or No Motion | The shot should look as if it were on a tripod: choose No Motion. |
| Smoothness | A percentage; only with Smooth Motion | Small jitters remain (raise it) or the camera drifts and crops too much (lower it). |
| Method | Position; Position, Scale, Rotation; Perspective; Subspace Warp (default) | The picture bends or keystones. Each method falls back to the simpler one on frames without enough detail to track. |
| Preserve Scale | On or off | You zoomed in or out on purpose, or walked towards the subject, and it is being undone. |
| Framing | Stabilize Only; Stabilize, Crop; Stabilize, Crop, Auto-scale (default); Stabilize, Synthesize Edges | You want to see the raw correction, avoid scaling up, or fill the gaps from nearby frames. |
| Auto-scale | Maximum Scale, Action-Safe Margin | You need to cap the zoom, or a border will be hidden later anyway. |
| Additional Scale | A percentage | You want extra zoom without a second resampling of the picture. |
| Detailed Analysis | Off by default | Tracking fails on fine detail or a busy scene. The next analysis is slower and stores much more data. |
| Fast Analysis | On by default (in Premiere) | Rarely; Adobe says it speeds up the analysis without changing the stabilisation. |
| Rolling Shutter Ripple | Automatic Reduction (default) or Enhanced Reduction | Ripples remain from a phone, drone or DSLR sensor. Needs Subspace Warp or Perspective. |
| Crop Less ↔ Smooth More | A percentage; with the crop framings only | The picture is too zoomed in. Lower values show more of the frame and respond without stabilising again. |
| Synthesis Input Range, Synthesis Edge Feather, Synthesis Edge Cropping | Seconds, feather, pixels per edge | You use Stabilize, Synthesize Edges: how far it looks for filler, how softly it blends, and dirty edges to trim first. |
| Hide Warning Banner | On or off | You want to keep the current result even though a banner asks for a new analysis. |
Subspace Warp stabilises by bending small regions of the frame differently, and on shots with strong depth, close objects or plain surfaces that bending becomes visible. Adobe’s own advice is to choose a simpler Method: Position, Scale, Rotation first, Position if that still distorts. Perspective can add keystoning, where the frame’s edges seem to tilt towards you and away.
Fast shake on a rolling-shutter sensor makes each frame slightly bent, and stabilising can expose it as a ripple. Set Rolling Shutter Ripple to Enhanced Reduction. If you only need to straighten leaning verticals without stabilising, After Effects and Premiere both have a separate Rolling Shutter Repair effect; rolling shutter, explained shows what causes it.
For the general trade-off between steadiness and crop, and ways to keep the whole frame, see stabilising without cropping.
Warp Stabilizer tracks points all over the frame, so someone large walking through it can drag the result along. Try Detailed Analysis, trim the clip around the moment, or in After Effects delete the track points on the subject so the effect stabilises again without them.
It works in two phases: an analysis that tracks the whole clip, then a stabilising pass that works out the steadied result. Both run in the background, so you can keep editing. The time depends on the clip’s length and resolution and on your computer. Detailed Analysis makes the first phase slower; in Premiere, Fast Analysis (on by default) speeds it up.
Changing Smoothness runs the stabilising phase again, while Crop Less ↔ Smooth More updates at once. Trimming the clip needs a fresh analysis. To save time, trim to the part you will use before you apply the effect.
Not by that name. Resolve’s equivalent is the Stabilization section of the Inspector on the Edit and Cut pages, also on the Color page’s Tracker palette. Its Perspective, Similarity and Translation modes play the role of Method, Camera Lock matches No Motion, and Cropping Ratio limits the zoom. It has no rolling-shutter setting and no way to fill the edges from nearby frames, and changing the mode, Cropping Ratio or Smooth means pressing Stabilize again. The DaVinci Resolve guide has the steps.
The stabiliser at the top of this page is built on the same ideas: track points, plan a calmer camera path, then move, rotate and slightly zoom each frame. Its controls map onto Warp Stabilizer’s like this, and all of them except Analysis and Ignore an area update the preview at once.
| Warp Stabilizer | Here |
|---|---|
| Smooth Motion | Camera: Smooth. Cinematic is an extra style that holds still, then glides in straight lines. |
| No Motion | Camera: Locked, or the Tripod preset |
| Smoothness | Smoothness |
| Method: Position | Correction: Shift only |
| Method: Position, Scale, Rotation | Correction: Shift and rotate |
| Method: Perspective | Correction: Perspective |
| Method: Subspace Warp | Correction: Warp |
| Preserve Scale | Steady these: turn off Zoom |
| Stabilize, Crop, Auto-scale | Framing: Crop to fit (one zoom for the clip) or Smart zoom (zooms only where needed) |
| Maximum Scale and Crop Less ↔ Smooth More | Zoom limit: the path follows the camera more closely wherever the shake won’t fit |
| Additional Scale | Extra zoom |
| Stabilize Only or Stabilize, Synthesize Edges | Framing: Full frame, with Edges set to Blurred, Mirrored, Repeat edge or Black |
| Rolling Shutter Ripple | Rolling shutter: Auto, or Manual with Strength |
| Detailed Analysis | Analysis: Precise |
| Deleting track points (After Effects) | Ignore an area |
Where they differ: the edges here are filled from the frame’s own border, not from nearby frames, so a Full frame result shows soft or mirrored edges rather than real picture. In return there is no frame-size rule, no speed-change error, and the shot is checked in Side by side or Split view before you press Export video. Nothing is uploaded.
Start with the defaults: Smooth Motion, Smoothness 50%, Subspace Warp and Stabilize, Crop, Auto-scale. Then change only what the clip needs: a simpler Method for bending, Enhanced Reduction for ripples, lower Smoothness or Crop Less ↔ Smooth More for a tighter crop than you want.
Smooth Motion for anything that moves on purpose: a walk, a pan, a follow shot. No Motion for a shot meant to be still, such as an interview or a landmark, provided part of the subject stays in frame the whole time. No Motion usually crops more.
In Premiere the usual causes are a clip that doesn’t match the sequence’s frame size and a clip with a speed change; nest it to fix both. Elsewhere it is usually a trimmed clip waiting for a new analysis, or footage with too little detail to track.
It depends on the clip’s length, its resolution and the computer. It analyses, then stabilises, both in the background. Detailed Analysis slows the first phase; trimming the clip before applying the effect saves the most time.
It stabilises different parts of the frame separately, bending the picture slightly so near and far areas both stay still. That handles more kinds of shake than moving the whole frame, but it is also why some shots end up looking like jelly.
No. Resolve has its own stabiliser in the Inspector, with Perspective, Similarity and Translation modes and Camera Lock, and it’s in the free version. It has no rolling-shutter setting and doesn’t fill the edges from nearby frames.
The tool at the top of this page works in your browser and never uploads the clip. It has the same kinds of choices (camera style, smoothness, correction type, framing, rolling shutter) and shows the result next to the original as you change them.