How to Crop Your Webcam in OBS Studio

Crop in OBS allows you to crop areas from your webcam or source. Standard cropping will crop areas from the sides of the camera. Cropping the camera can help it fit better into an overlay or scene. The cropping feature is also used to remove any unwanted background clutter from the view.

Fast cropping with the Alt key

The easiest way to crop your webcam in OBS is to hold down Alt on your keyboard, left-click, and drag sides. To crop your image using this method, you’ll need to have the font selected and make sure it’s visible.

With the webcam source selected, the border of the source will be red. Once one side has been trimmed, the outline will turn green.

Holding down Alt and dragging on a corner will allow you to crop two sides at once. This is useful as it speeds up

Precise cropping with Edit Transform

The transform edit menu can be used for precise cropping. This allows you to choose the exact number of pixels to remove from each side. The transform window also allows you to choose the exact position and size of the webcam.

The transform menu can be brought up by right-clicking on the webcam source and going to transform then edit transform. Alternatively, select the font and press Ctrl + E.

At the bottom, you will see the input boxes for crops. Each entry allows you to trim from one side. You can manually enter the number of pixels you want to crop or use the arrows to adjust the values.

The webcam feed will be positioned to hug the top left corner by default. This can be changed using the “Positional Alignment” dropdown menu.

With the transform edit menu open, you can still use the Alt crop method. The crop values will be manually adjusted in the transform menu as you drag the sides in. Combining the two methods allows you to quickly and accurately adjust cropping on your camera.

Abstract Shape Webcam Clipping Masks

Some streamers prefer to use abstract shapes for their camera. Allows the webcam to fit seamlessly into overlay designs. Unique camera shapes can be created using the image mask filter.

The filter uses a black and white image to define a mask for the webcam. The white areas of the image will be visible, with the black areas cropped.

1. The filter menu can be opened by right-clicking on the webcam source and choosing the filter option. All of the layer’s audio filters and effects will be displayed on this page.

2. Hit the plus icon below the Effect Filters panel and choose to add the “Image Mask/Blending” filter.

3. Make sure the Type is set to Alpha Mask (Color Channel) and the Color is set to White. They should be set by default.

4. Click on the “Browse” button to open the file browser window.

5. Find and open the skin image file. The moment the file is uploaded, the webcam is masked accordingly.

The easiest way to create a skin for your webcam is by using a raster graphics editor like Photoshop. It is recommended to match the size of the skin to the resolution of your OBS canvas. The resolution is usually set to 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high.

Green Screen Alternative

Often the purpose of cropping a webcam is to remove as much of the background as possible. Too much cropping can cause the person to fall out of frame during your broadcast or recording session.

A green screen may be used in an effort to hide the background while capturing a wide view of the camera. The green screen should be placed behind you while streaming or recording. The green area can be crop a video in OBS using the Chroma Key filter.

To achieve the cleanest skin possible on your webcam, good lighting is required. The correct lighting allows you to capture more information from the camera. The added color and definition help the filter distinguish between background and foreground more easily.

Delete a cutout in OBS

The fastest way to remove an existing crop is to select the source and press Ctrl + R on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can right-click on a font, go to “Transform” and then “Reset Transformation.” All crop changes will then be removed, restoring the font to its default state.

Resetting the transform will also change the scale of your cropped media. Another plausible method is to hold down the Alt key on your keyboard, then left-click and drag sideways. Dragging the sides or corners while holding down the Alt key will complete the crop, effectively removing the changes.

Change the size of your webcam in OBS

Resizing your webcam works differently than cropping. Instead of cutting out a part of the camera, you’re cutting out the entire source. A combination of resizing and cropping may be required to place the camera neatly behind an overlay.

The camera can be scaled by clicking and dragging one of the sides or corners. Naturally, the font will retain its aspect ratio. If you want to change the aspect ratio, you’ll need to hold down the Shift key while you scale the font.

Exact size changes can be made using the transform edit window. The fastest way to open the transform window is by pressing Ctrl + E on your keyboard.

Use a cutout in multiple scenes

Instead of adding your camera to each scene as a source, you can create a webcam scene. This is a scene that will only feature your webcam and overlay. This is often referred to as scene nesting.

Crop image in obs

Because the webcam is nested, you can make full-size crop and mask adjustments. The scene can then be added as a source and scaled down in other scenes without losing quality.

Using a webcam scene can help if you ever change your camera crop. Instead of having to change each scene individually, all settings can be made in one scene.

Another option is to copy and paste the source transform settings to another scene. The copy and paste transform options can be found by right-clicking on the layer and expanding the transform menu.

Final thoughts

The trimming feature is quick to learn and is useful if you are going to be streaming or recording content with OBS. While cropping can be used to make adjustments to a camera, it can also crop any visual source. This allows for more customization and can be a useful tool when setting up advanced scenes in OBS.

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