Timeline editing and compositing guide

Audition and place media

Import media with File > Import Media…, then select an item in the Project panel and choose Place.
In the Source preview, play with Space and step with the left and right arrow keys. Press I at the first frame you want and O after the last. Turn on Loop marked source range to hear the section several times.
Under Include, choose Video and audio, Video only or Audio only.
Choose the destination composition (or New composition), the destination time and the tracks. New video track and New audio track are always available.
Choose the action and select Place.

Place: Adds the media at the destination time. Existing clips stay in place and may overlap.
Insert: Makes room on the chosen tracks. Clips after the destination time move later.
Overwrite: Replaces the interval on the chosen tracks. Material outside it stays where it is.

For a still image, set Image duration instead of In and Out. Source preview time is separate from the composition, and closing the dialog stops the audition without placing anything.

If heavy footage is slow to scrub, select it in the Project panel and choose Prepare proxy media or Prepare optimized media.

Choose a trim tool

Each tool changes a clip in a different way. The question to ask is what should happen to the clips around it.

Select V: Select and move clips.
Blade C: Click a clip to cut it at that frame.
Ripple trim B: Trim an edge and shift the following clips on that track to close or open the gap.
Roll N: Move the cut between two touching clips. Their combined length stays the same.
Slip Y: Change which source frames a clip shows. Its position and length stay the same.
Slide U: Move a clip between its neighbours, trimming them to fit.
Rate stretch R: Drag a media clip's end to change its length and playback speed together.

Trim from the keyboard

Q / W: Trim the selected clip's start or end to the playhead.
Shift+Q / Shift+W: Ripple start or end: trim to the playhead and close the gap.
Ctrl+B: Split the selected clips at the playhead.
Delete: Delete the selected clips and leave the gap.
Shift+Delete: Ripple delete: remove the clips and close the gap on their tracks.

Close gap before clip, in the clip's context menu, pulls a clip back to meet the one before it.

Copy, paste and duplicate

Ctrl+V Paste at playhead: Puts copied clips at the playhead, on the tracks they came from.
Ctrl+Shift+V Paste insert: Makes room on those tracks, pushing later material along.
Ctrl+Alt+V Paste overwrite: Replaces the range on those tracks and keeps later material at its time.
Ctrl+D Duplicate after selection: Places a copy straight after the selection. Later mask corrections to each copy stay separate.
Duplicate Linked Clips: Makes copies that share later mask corrections, so a fix to one reaches them all.

Move around a long timeline

Space: Play and pause.
, and .: Step back or forward one frame.
Up and Down: Jump to the previous or next clip start or end when the timeline has focus.
Home and End: Jump to the start or end of the working range.
Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-: Zoom in and out. Ctrl with the mouse wheel zooms around the pointer, and Shift with the wheel scrolls through time.
F: Fit the whole timeline in view. Zoom to selection frames the selected clips.

Markers and the working range

Choose Add Composition Marker to mark the playhead for the whole composition, or Add Marker to Selected Layer to mark a point on one layer, such as a music hit. Right-click a marker to rename it, move it to the playhead or delete it, and use Go to Next Marker and Go to Previous Marker in Edit > Working range and navigation.

The working range limits playback and can be used as the export range. Press I and O over the preview to set it, choose Set Working Range to Selected Clips to fit it around a selection, or Clear Working Range to return to the whole composition.

Change clip speed and timing

Right-click a video clip and open the Time menu.

Reverse playback: Plays the clip backwards and keeps its duration. Separate audio clips are unchanged.
Hold video frame at playhead: Freezes the whole clip on the current frame, keeping its length and audio. It replaces any earlier hold.
Clear frame holds: Returns the clip to its underlying timing.
New speed ramp: Constant speed, Accelerate, Decelerate, or Ease in and out, across the clip's current duration.
Edit source-time curve…: Opens the clip's Source Time keys in Animate for variable speed and freezes set key by key.
Reset source-time curve: Removes the time-remapping keys and returns to the base playback rate. The duration doesn't change.

Retimed audio changes pitch with its clip. To reverse a clip that has frame holds, clear the holds first.

Position, crop and align on the Stage

Select a layer to move it on the Stage, or type values for position, scale, rotation, anchor and opacity in Properties. The Hand tool (H) pans the view, as does holding the middle mouse button.

Crop a clip

Select a media clip and choose Crop in the Stage toolbar.
Drag the handles to crop, or drag inside the rectangle to move it. Hold Shift to keep the aspect ratio, and press Esc to cancel.
For exact values, enter the source rectangle in pixels in Properties. Reset restores the full frame.

A crop doesn't change the original media file.

Guides and alignment

Drag from a Stage ruler to add a guide. The guides menu turns visibility, snapping and locking on and off, and clears all guides. Guides never appear in an export.

Select the layers to arrange.
Open Align and distribute in the Stage toolbar and choose the reference: Composition, Selection bounds or Primary object.
If the layers are animated, choose At playhead to change the current frame only, or Whole animation to move every key.
Choose an alignment, or Distribute horizontal gaps or Distribute vertical gaps to space three or more layers evenly.

Blend modes, adjustment layers and mattes

Each layer has a blend mode in Properties: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Add, Overlay, Darken, Lighten, Color Dodge, Color Burn, Hard Light, Soft Light, Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color or Luminosity.

Choose Edit > Add to composition to add a solid, an adjustment layer, a camera or a transform controller. An adjustment layer applies its effects to all the layers beneath it. Mark a layer as a Guide to see it in the preview but leave it out of the export, and as Shy to hide it from the timeline when the shy filter is on.

Use one layer as a matte for another

Select the layer that should be revealed, and choose + beside Mattes in Properties.
Pick the Matte source: the layer whose shape or brightness decides what shows.
Set Sample to Alpha to use the source's transparency, or Luma to use its brightness.
Turn on Hide source if the matte layer shouldn't appear itself, and Invert to reveal everything outside it instead.
Adjust Opacity, Expansion and Feather. For a feather that changes around the edge, add feather points along the path and set a radius at each.

Add more mattes to combine them. The first matte sets the starting shape and each later one uses Add, Subtract, Intersect or Difference. To isolate a subject within footage, use Roto instead.

Compositions

Choose File > New Composition for a separate sequence or graphic, and Edit > Composition Settings… to change a composition's name, frame size and frame rate. Ape can place one composition inside another as a single clip, which is a quick way to make a vertical or square version of a cut. Open a nested composition from the timeline or from Properties to edit what is inside it.

If a nested composition is scaled up, turn on Continuous rasterization for the clip to keep its text, shapes and vector layers sharp.

Set audio levels and fades

Select an audio clip. In Properties, set Clip level, and enter Fade in and Fade out in seconds, or drag the fade handles at the ends of the clip. The clip's Audio menu also has Fade in to playhead, Fade out from playhead, Clear fades and Reset clip level.

For a level that changes over time, key the clip's Gain. Two keys either side of a line of voice-over, a few decibels lower between them, will dip the music under it.

Undo and History

Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo. The History panel lists every change to the project, including each Ape run as one expandable entry. Select an entry and choose Show changed to highlight the affected timeline rows, Compare to see the frame before and after on the Stage, or Restore before this to take the project back to that point.