How to Improve Video Quality? 

In the twenty-first century, short (or even long) digital videos are not to think away from our work routine. We need them to demonstrate the advantages of our products for our customers, to show our competence to our would-be employers, to teach our students, to instruct interns at our workplace, and for whatever other purpose. And we definitely want those videos to be high-quality!

A low-quality video doesn’t look eye-catching, which causes us to lose new customers, deals, or job offers. That said, we sometimes have only some impaired raw footage to choose from. Improving the quality of our footage is of vital necessity.

This article deals with the question of how to improve the quality of a video using Clipify - a simple and free app with an intuitive user interface. Check the link above to find a more detailed step-by-step guide with multiple options for making your video better.

Here are just a few quick tips for enhancing the quality of your video to remember.

1. Cut Unwanted Parts

Each raw video can contain misspoken words, mispronounced phrases, unlucky interjections, noises etc. There is no need to keep them! Cut your video into separate parts and remove anything you don’t want your audience to see.

And this is how you do it in Clipify: once you’ve added your video, use the “Split” button right above the timeline. Break your video into separate pieces, including the unwanted one. Select the sequence you wish to get rid of, and press “Delete” - the trash bin button over the timeline. It is that simple!

2. Crop Your Video if Needed

Give a thought to the type of device your video will be watched on, and consider its purpose. To use vertical footage for a professional-looking video tutorial is a rather bad idea. Why not crop it? This way, your audience will appreciate your wish to care for their needs. 

To crop your video, click on “Crop” above the timeline and choose the aspect ratio which would leave no black bars, when watched in the full screen mode. 16:9 is recommended for most modern laptops.

In some cases, raw footage may be valuable, but a specific object in it still needs to be blurred in order to meet the legislation standards. You can censor sensitive areas by pressing the corresponding button right over the timeline. Click on the “eye crossed out” icon to enter the censoring mode.

3. Adjust the Balance of Light and Shadow

Any footage recorded at night may look too dark. The same applies to videos shot without good lighting. You certainly should think of using natural light, a ring light on a stand or even a more sophisticated lighting gear if you want to create a quality video. Without good lighting, you normally get a “grainy” video that cannot be improved much.

All that said, flawed footage sometimes is the only thing you are left with. How to improve it? The best idea is to adjust the balance of brightness and contrast, either choosing the settings manually or automatically. The correct distribution of light and shadow literally works wonders!

To do that, click on “Edit” above the timeline, select the “Image” tab and experiment with the four sliders (“Brightness,” “Contrast,” “Saturation,” and “Hue”). Alternatively, press the “Enhancement” button and tick “Auto-levels.”

4. Stabilize Your Footage

When filming on the run, you often end up with a shaky video. For a professional, such footage has a touch of authenticity. Not all viewers are professionals, though, so a shaky film may be rather annoying to watch.

To fix this flaw, press “Edit”, select “Enhancement” and tick “Image stabilization.” Apply the changes and enjoy a more stable picture.

5. Add Special Effects

“Style is everything,” to remember the name of a song by Zet Key One. Not true — but there might be a grain of truth in it. Vivid colors are usually a bad choice for a video celebrating the anniversary of an elderly couple. Parts of a video instruction showing a wrong way to do something should differ from other parts displaying how to do something in a correct manner. 

All this means to say that you may want to apply special effects to at least some fragments of your video. This way, they can stand out from the rest.

To apply an effect to your footage, click on “Effects” and select the needed filter. (My own favorites are “80’s photo” and “Old film” in the “Vintage” category, but tastes vary.)

6. Include Titles, Captions, or Graphics

Not all of us realize how important titles and captions may be. A good book needs a title, and so needs a good film. 

Understanding a speaker who is mumbling something only you can decipher or saying a phrase in a foreign language is best helped with subtitles. A quote of a famous person can be introduced with a TV-like title that appears against a dark background. Your own educational and career achievements when included in a video CV are best shown in a caption, and so on. In short, do not ever hesitate to add a piece of text to your video when needed!

To add a caption, find “Text” on the left sidebar and experiment with the options. Both text captions (overlaid on the video) and title slides (text against background) are available. 

The same applies to graphics that you might want to add to your video, such as arrows, sketches, callouts and signs. To include them, use “Stickers” on the left sidebar.

Conclusion

A good video is a great tool for selling your products, teaching your students or advertising your skills. Above, we’ve named a number of easy solutions to improve the quality of almost any video. Cutting unwanted parts, cropping your video, adjusting the balance of brightness, stabilizing the shaky footage, adding special effects if necessary, including captions — all these steps suggest themselves. Use any free video editor to do all that – and you will enjoy a video that was made significantly better.