Rotating then cropping

[pixel_a_ted]

Running Premiere Elements 15 on a Windows 10 computer. One of my clips had to be rotated a few degrees. Then I wanted to crop it so that the cropped area on the screen matched a first clip that I had cropped without rotation. For that first clip, there is an area in the frame with content that is surrounded by black. The issue is that for the rotated clip the crop controls are themselves rotated, so what I end up with is a rotated area with the corrected content surrounded by black, which doesn't match what I have for the first clip.

Is there a way to rotate a clip and then do something such that if I crop afterward the crop controls are horizontal and vertical? I tried scaling after rotating but that didn't help. For example, in Photoshop if you rotate an image and then follow with a crop, the crop controls themselves are not rotated.

[pixel_a_ted]

Just to clarify - I can understand if I crop first and then rotate, the cropped area will be rotated. But I don't want that to happen if I rotate first and then crop.

[P1965 · Accepted solution]

You could probably accomplish this with the garbage matte feature, anywhere from 4 point and up.

[pixel_a_ted]

Thanks. I didn't know about that feature.

[pixel_a_ted]

Re. the garbage matte feature, is there a way to constrain the sides to be horizontal and vertical (holding down Shift, Ctrl or Alt didn't seem to work)? I'm finding it's not easy to end up with edges to the video that aren't jagged. Thanks.

[P1965]

I'm not sure about a way to constrain the edges, maybe someone else can chime in on that. If the perimeter edges are jagged, you could try slightly increasing the magnification until they are off the viewing area.