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Stabilise shaky videos in minutes with Adobe {{premiere}}.

See how Warp Stabilizer in Adobe Premiere helps you stabilise shaky video footage and turn handheld clips into smooth, professional-looking shots in just a few steps.

Start free trial Explore {{premiere}}

A person standing on top of a snowy mountain wearing a helmet with a camera mounted to it who plans to stabilise the footage of their ascent

Add professionalism to clips with video stabilizer technology.

When you’re filming a video, especially if you’re zooming in to get a shot, camera shake is inevitable. Even with the use of a Steadicam, every method to try and get clean shots in camera will require some post-production work. When it comes to video stabilisation software, Adobe {{premiere}} is a really powerful tool — its Warp Stabilizer effect smooths out unwanted camera shake in just a few clicks, with precision fine-tuning so you can get exactly the look and feel you want. This video stabiliser technology uses intelligent motion tracking similar to video stabiliser AI tools to remove shaking from video while preserving natural camera movement. Here’s how you can use this effect to stabilise shaky videos shot on your GoPro, smartphone, drone or handheld camera.

How to stabilise a video in Adobe {{premiere}}?

Step 1: Import your media.

Bring the video clips you want to stabilise into {{premiere}}. You can do this in one of three ways:

Select File › Import from Media Browser.
Right-click the file in the Media Browser and select Import.
Drag the file from the Media Browser into the Project panel or drag the file from the Media Browser into a timeline.

If you already have an existing sequence, drag the clip you want to stabilise into the Timeline. If not, right-click and select New Sequence from Clip.

Step 2: To maintain good performance, split your clip into the smallest working area.

Warp Stabilizer is a memory-intensive and time-consuming operation. While it lets you continue working in Premiere during processing, it will be a little slower. Once Warp Stabilizer completes the stabilising stage, Premiere returns to the normal state.

To help with this:

First identify the shaky portion of the footage
Split the clip to isolate those shaky parts
Run Warp Stabilizer only on those shortened clips

To split clips:

Move the playhead to the points in the tracks where you want to make a split
Make sure the channels you want to split are highlighted
If you want to split the audio with the video, make sure the audio track is highlighted too
Splitting and moving the video without the audio may cause your audio to go out of sync elsewhere

If clips or tracks overlap in a timeline:

Switch to the Expert View Timeline
Drag a marquee to select clips on different tracks that overlap at a point in time
Drag the playhead to the frames where you want to make the split

To complete the split:

Use the keyboard shortcut Command/Control + K (for Mac or PC, respectively)
Or choose Timeline › Split Clip

Now you have two clips from the same file that can be edited independently.

Step 3: Apply the Warp Stabilizer to the shaky clip

To apply Warp Stabilizer:

First, select the clip you want to stabilise
In the Effects panel, choose Distort › Warp Stabilizer
Apply the effect by double-clicking or by dragging the effect to the clip in the Timeline or the Effect Controls panel

After the effect is added:

Analysis of the clip begins immediately in the background
Depending on the size of your clip, this can take a while
You can watch the progress of the Stabilizer in the Project panel
The first of two banners indicates that analysis is occurring
When analysis is complete, the second banner moves along to show that stabilisation is happening
You are free to work with the footage or elsewhere in the project while these steps are occurring

Step 4: Adjust the stabilisation for the look you want.

Once the Stabilizer has finished working, you can examine your work and make adjustments to ensure the video features everything you need to see in the shot.

While the Warp Stabilizer is a smart and powerful tool, you might notice aspects in the stabilised video that you need to tweak:

If your clip finishes stabilising and parts of it look woozy or wobbly, it’s been over-smoothed
You can adjust for that
If the stabilising caused you to lose some edge material you wanted, you can also adjust the frame to get it back

The Warp Stabilizer does its job by:

Tracking different points in the frame
Performing complex counter-movements to the footage

As a result:

Your frames might rotate, lift, slide over or lower
Warp Stabilizer might zoom in to keep your clip edge to edge in spite of these adjustments

If the result is good, you’re done with stabilisation. If you see things that aren’t quite right, here’s what to do:

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Framing adjustments

Look at the framing
Inspect what the Stabilizer is doing by changing the setting to Stabilise Only under the Framing menu. This displays the entire frame, including the moving edges
Stabilise Only shows how much work is being done to stabilise the image
Using Stabilise Only allows you to crop the footage using other methods
Note: When selected, the Auto-scale section and Crop Less Smooth More property are disabled

Smoothing and cropping adjustments

Under Advanced Settings, reduce either the Smoothness or Crop Less Smooth More function
Crop Less Smooth More is much more responsive, as it doesn’t require a restabilise phase

If those two methods still aren’t enough, you might need to make finer adjustments.

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Making fine adjustments to Stabilisation.

How do you adjust stabilisation strength, smoothing, and cropping?

Gain greater control over the intended stabilisation result in your video editing by adjusting Stabilisation settings.

Start by using the sliders to adjust the degree of stabilisation and cropping.

You’ll see a tradeoff between cropping and smoothing:

Lower smoothing values are closer to the camera’s original motion
Higher values are smoother
Values above 100 require more cropping of the image

This can result in two types of footage:

Smooth motion (default): This retains the original camera movement, but makes it smoother. When selected, Smoothness is enabled to control how smooth the camera movement becomes.
No motion: This attempts to remove all camera motion from the shot. When selected, the Crop Less Smooth More function is disabled in the Advanced section. This setting mimics the look of having set the camera on a tripod. It will produce artefacts (strange, unwanted effects) if your camera was actually in motion, like filming from a car. Smoothing is disabled with this setting.

Which Warp Stabilizer method works best for your footage?

You can also control the counter movements of the Warp Stabilizer on the frame by adjusting the Method, which uses different tracking to find stability with different degrees of complexity. Each time you make an adjustment, you’ll see that the Stabilisation restarts, but the analysis won’t have to.

Here are the methods Warp Stabilizer performs on the footage to stabilise it:

Position: Stabilisation is based on position data only and is the most basic way footage can be stabilised.
Position, scale and rotation: Stabilisation is based upon position, scale and rotation data. If there are not enough areas to track, Warp Stabilizer chooses position.
Perspective: This uses a type of stabilisation where the entire frame is effectively corner-pinned. If there are not enough areas to track, Warp Stabilizer chooses the previous type (Position, Scale, Rotation).
Subspace Warp (default): This attempts to warp various parts of the frame differently to stabilise the entire frame. If there are not enough areas to track, Warp Stabilizer chooses the previous type (Perspective).

The method in use on any given frame can change across the course of the clip based on the tracking accuracy. Running this edit may take a while.

How do you control framing, edges, and auto-scaling after stabilisation?

Lastly, you can control how the edges of the stabilised results appear in the Framing.

You have less freedom here than with the other controls, depending on the clip.
If you select stabilising that addresses the edges but isn’t related to the rest of the camera movement, you’ll get black artefacts visible in your clip.
The default setting here is Stabilise, Crop, Auto-scale.
This crops the moving edges and scales up the image to refill the frame.
The automatic scaling is controlled by various properties in the Auto-scale section.

Once your clip is ready, you can move on to the next or finish your project and export it.

Warp Stabilizer quickly allows you, in a few ways, to find a solution to shaky video footage while preserving some intentional camera movement to keep things natural.
It’s what makes Adobe Premiere a great video stabilisation software.
No matter how you shoot, you can get after it and then, in post, play around with the settings and sliders until you get the look and feel you want, edge to edge.

How can you stabilise a shaky video after filming?

You can stabilise a shaky video in post-production using video stabilisation software like Adobe Premiere that tracks motion between frames and smooths camera movement. This process helps remove unwanted shake while preserving natural motion in the footage. Stabilisation works well for handheld recordings, drone footage, and smartphone videos.

What causes shaky footage in videos?

Shaky footage usually happens due to handheld filming, zooming while recording, movement during tracking shots, or filming without stabilisation equipment. Shooting in low light can also cause shake because slower shutter speeds make camera movement more visible.

Can stabilising video reduce image quality?

Stabilising video may slightly crop or scale footage to smooth movement, which can reduce visible frame edges. Most stabilisation tools balance smoothing and cropping to maintain image quality while removing camera shake.

How do you stabilise video in Adobe Premiere?

You can stabilise video in Premiere by applying the Warp Stabilizer effect to a clip in the timeline. The effect analyses motion in the footage and automatically smooths camera shake, while allowing you to adjust smoothing, cropping, and framing settings.

When should you stabilise video during editing?

You should stabilise video after trimming clips but before colour grading, effects, or exporting. Applying stabilisation early in the editing process helps ensure smoother motion adjustments and consistent framing across your project.

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