How To Crop and Zoom in OBS — Get to the heart of the action!

OBS (Open Broadcaster System) is a remarkably powerful tool. With OBS we can record videos, using various scenes and sources to create broadcast quality shows, for free! OBS can also be used to livestream via many different services, and using a few plugins you can also interact with your community.

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Recently I had a need to record video from a 4K USB video capture device. The video source was the latest LattePanda Sigma SBC, which I was testing using Steam for a review. Steam’s built-in FPS counter was a little small (yes I could install another FPS counter, but that would incur a performance hit), so I duplicated the video source, laid one on top of the other, then cropped the FPS counter area, followed by a zoom in. 

Here is how I did it.

• OBS (Open Broadcaster System) is a powerful tool for live streaming and recording video.
• OBS is commonly used to create video made from multiple sources, including cameras, capture devices and applications.
• OBS has tools to merge audio and video sources with ease.
• Using zoom functionality, OBS can draw the viewers eye to a particular area.

To Crop a Source

We don’t always need all of the image to tell a story. Sometimes, just a part is helpful. By cropping out the parts that we don’t want during the recording process, we save ourselves precious time in the edit suite. Sure we could duplicate the effect in an editor such as DaVinci Resolve, but with this quick OBS hack we save time, and it can be used during a livestream.

1. Open OBS and select the scene to edit.

2. Select the source that you wish to use.

3. Right click on the source and select Copy.

4. Right click in the sources and select Paste Reference. This will duplicate the source in the list.

5. Right click on the duplicated source and select Transform >> Edit Transform.

6. Tweak the crop settings, targeting the area to zoom in to or crop from the shot. Click Close to set. Here from our 1080p video source we have cropped in from the right by 200 pixels and from the bottom by 80 pixels. Sources can be moved by changing their position in this dialog, or they can be directly grabbed in the preview window. This makes it easy to layout your scene.

Alter the Zoom of a Source

Sometimes a source can be a little too large, inversely it can also be too small. OBS has an easy means of altering the zoom for any video source. Once a source has been altered, it can also be moved around the screen to produce the layout of your choosing.

1. Open OBS and select the scene to edit.

2. Select the source that you wish to use.

3. Click on the source in the preview window and using the red frame, move the source so that it shrinks / grows. Hold SHIFT to shrink / grow the source and retain the aspect ratio.

4. To reset the size and position, right click on the source and select one of the five options to fit / stretch / center the screen.