Total noob-need help with crop and zoom effects

[jannakt]

I am trying to crop a video clip and then zoom in so that the picture is closer to filling the screen, but I can only get it to zoom in to fill the exact dimensions of the screen, which distorts the image. Is there a way to customize how you zoom? Maybe there is another solution I am looking for, but I just don't know how to find. I'm a complete newbie at working with this stuff, so any help is appreciated!!

[Steve Grisetti]

As long as you are cropping the picture proportionally, the zoom will remain proportional. You can ensure you are cropping proportionally by doing so numerically in the Applied Effects panel and making sure that you're using the same crop values for each side. There's no other way to lock the aspect ratio in this tool.

On the other hand, if all you want to do is zoom in on your video, it might be easier to just change the settings for Scale under the Motion effects.

[jannakt]

Thank you so much! I change the scale settings in the Motion effects, and that worked like a charm. I appreciate your help!!

[Steve Grisetti]

Please mark this question as correctly answered, jannakt.