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Robbie34135385e7mh
Known Participant
April 28, 2025
Question

Placing the anchor point

  • April 28, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 579 views

I feel like Adobe have made the anchor point so much more confusing than it needs to be. 

 

I've been looking for ages for a way to set the anchor point without messing everything up and messing up the position parameters of an object and I've finally found the solution. Before doing any animating in the Transform panel, I need to move the anchor point to where I want and then copy the coordinates to the Position so they have the same value. This now means I have a transform panel with position values that make no sense when looking at where the object now sits in the program monitor. 

I understand this is quite a hard thing to explain but that's why I don't know why Adobe has made this so complicated. 

 

Hopefully this screenshot helps. It shows my position values being 968 x 918 despite the image being sat directly in the center (as I want my anchor point to share those values). This makes things really confusing when trying to animate with proper coordinates and is just generally such a weird way of setting the anchor point. 

2 replies

Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
Community Manager
Kevin J. Monahan Jr.Community Manager
Community Manager
April 28, 2025

Hey Robbie,

Thanks for the message, the screenshot, and for explaining your workflow. Thanks to Neil for providing additional information.

 

I think I understand what you are wanting to do. For me, when repositioning clips, I always move the Anchor Point to the point of interest in the shot, then do my Transform. That way, I don't need to adjust the Position too much. Scale usually does the trick. Placing it exactly at the same spot as the Position can be advantageous for a lot of workflows, as well, but not all. The setup of these parameters is very similar across all NLE platforms, so you may face this issue elsewhere too.

 

There may be a script to help you automate your workflow, so see if you can find anything that might help. I am unaware of anything, unfortunately.

 

If you would like Adobe to address your issue with an adjustment to the current feature set, feel free to file a feature request here: https://adobe.ly/4jQB22n. I hope the advice helps. Let me know if you need more assistance. Sorry for the hassle.

 

Thanks,
Kevin

 

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    April 28, 2025

    From long experience, including a couple long in-person discussions and a demo by a staffer, the anchor point behavior is "as designed" because it makes it possible to do certaing things for advanced workflows with experienced users. 

     

    Yes, it's got a complicated relationship with tracking data if you move the anchor point after setting any tracking changes. Because it needs to for those fancy workflows.

     

    For most of us, the takeaway is simple ... 

     

    1) DO NOT EVER move the anchor point after doing any tracking of posistion, shape, or sizing of any screen element.

     

    2) IF after starting to set movement, you realize you need to change the anchor point, probably easiest thing to do is start over.

     

    After getting some experience with anchor points, and especially if you get some assistance from an experienced user or trainer, you can start doing more.

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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