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WernerGg
Known Participant
May 26, 2025
Question

Transparent Portrait Video Overlay in a Landscape Project

  • May 26, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1057 views

I have a 16:9 landscape video project. Within the timeline there is a clip which is a landscape photo media element. This photo shall be overlaid with a portrait 9:16 video clip from a second video track. Unfortunatly the vertical margins arround the portrait video clip are rendered black not transparent. Hence the underlying photo is no longer visible.

 

How can I make the margins of the portrait video clip transparent instead of black? I tried several things, including the "Transform.Clip" effect, but I did not succeed.

 

(Premiere Elements 2025, Windows 11)

 

 

3 replies

W
WernerGgAuthor
Known Participant
May 27, 2025

Apparently my request was not understood.

The photo is a locomotive in 16:9 landscape format (250521 FE 02 ...jpg). The video is a 9:16 portrait video with a pan across the locomotive from front to back (250521 FE 03...mp4).
The video should be superimposed on the photo.

The aim is to make the black vertical margins of the portrait video transparent so that the photo underneath remains visible.

(Windows 11, Photoshop Elements 2025, Premiere Elements 2025, Lenovo Thinkpad P1 Gen 4)
S
Steve Grisetti
Legend
May 28, 2025

In the video clip of the train you provided, the black margins on the sides are part of your video. Is this video directly from your camera/phone? If so, it should not included these black margins on the sides.

W
WernerGgAuthor
Known Participant
May 30, 2025

Hello Steve,

As you can see on the VLC screenshot below, the video has no black borders, even though it has a resolution of 1920x1080 (and not 1080x1920). It was recorded with an Android Pixel 9 in an upright position.

The black borders in Premiere Elements only seem to appear when the video is added as a clip to the timeline of a landscape project.

But regardless of this, the question is how to make the black edges transparent. If it were a photo, I would mask them in Photoshop and replace them with transparency or erase them with the background eraser.

(Windows 11, Photoshop Elements 2025, Premiere Elements 2025, Lenovo Thinkpad P1 Gen 4)
S
Steve Grisetti
Legend
May 26, 2025

If your photo does not have black margins on its sides, this should not happen. 

 

What does your original photo look like? Can you post it to this forum?

P
pier luigit69016332
Known Participant
May 26, 2025
Si tratta di due foto o di due video? Nel primo caso puoi utilizzare Adobe
Photoshop Elements e comporre una sola clip da due foto con l'ordine che
preferisci. Attenzione che la clip 9:16 deve essere ritagliata perché
troppo alta rispetto alla clip 16:9
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