Even if your camera has in body image stabilization or electronic image stabilization you may end up with shaky footage. In the first part of this guide we saw how you can stabilize shaky videos using Wondershare Filmora or the Movavi Video Editor. In the second part we will see how to smooth out jumpy video footage using one of the most powerful video editing suites., Davinci Resolve Studio. Davinci Resolve has more features and can stabilize footage in a more efficient way than other video editors. But it is more difficult to use and it can take a bit of time to get used to it. It is also much more expensive. It is cheaper though than Adobe Premiere where you must pay for a subscription (month to month or annual plan) to use it. You must also know that DaVinci Resolve requires a lot of processing power and you will need a modern multi-core processor, lots of memory, a fast hard disk or ssd and a fast graphics card with at least 4GB of memory.
DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve is an advanced software program from Blackmagic Design that supports video and audio editing, color grading and visual effects. It has a free version but with less features and a paid Studio version. Both versions are available for Windows, Mac and GNU Linux. You can register and download the free edition here. Keep in mind that you need a high end computer with at least 16GB of RAM and a modern GPU (if not more GPU's) with at least 4GB dedicated memory. Such a powerful video editor may look overwhelming and a bit bloated at first glance and you will need to invest some time to learn it. The learning curve is not big though at least for the basics.
But enough with the prologue.
- Open Davinci Resolve and create a new project
- Now we need to add the video that we want to smooth out in the timeline. Go to File --> Import File --> Import Media and select your footage. If you prefer to using keyboard shortcuts simply press CTRL and I.
- Now you must select the edit tab in the bottom. See picture number one
- From there go to the upper right corner and select the inspector. See picture number three
- A new drop down menu will appear. Scroll down and select Stabilization
- You will see MODE. It has three options. Perspective, Similarity and Translation. These are the different software algorithms that Davinci Resolve uses to stabilize shaky footage. Perspective is the default option and it crops the video to stabilize it. Similarity and Translation use different methods but they crop the video too. Perspective works well most of the times, at least for me. Use the other two if you are not happy with Perspective. Camera Lock is really effective but the zoom in - crop is big. It locks footage and it will try to make it look like you used a tripod. If you use Camera Lock the other options will be disabled. If you disable zoom you will see a weird effect with a video that will look like it is floating. The Zoom function will remove all the bar bars from the edges during stabilization. It is enabled by default.
- Cropping Ratio: Consider this option like a command on how much it can crop the footage to stabilize it. The higher the value the more smooth the video but also the more the crop. The default option here is 0,5.
- Smooth: You can set how smooth the motion in the video will be when you apply stabilization. The bigger the value the smoother the video but also the more the crop. The default value is to lowest 0,250. Feel free to change it.
- Strength: You can set how strong the stabilization will be. The stronger, the better but the bigger the crop again. The default option is 1
Now lets see an example. Select Mode - Perspective, 0,250 Cropping Ratio, Smooth 0,400 and Strength 0,6. Zoom should be enabled. Now press Stabilize. It may take a while to see your footage stabilized. Those values usually gives us a good result without heavy cropping. If you are happy with the stabilization you can export the video. If the footage is still shaky undo the stabilization using the icons next and increase the values. Especially increase cropping ratio and strength. If it stills fails then you may wanna try again using Similarity or Translation mode instead of Perspective. That was it. From now on you will be able to stabilize footage using Davinci Resolve. The key here is using trial and error to balance between stabilization, cropping and artifacts. If you feel that DaVinci is really complicated and you need a more user friendly or cheaper program then you can read my previous guide by clicking here: How to stabilize shaky footage using software - Filmora and Movavi for video stabilization.
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