Whip-pan transitions have been a staple in TV and movies for decades. They’re when the camera rapidly moves to the side, switching from one shot to another. We’ve covered how to shoot whip-pan transitions in-camera here on DIYP before.
But what if the footage wasn’t shot that way? What can you do? Well, if you’re Kyler Holland, you can get a little help from Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature.
An involved but simple technique to learn
Kyler’s technique might seem a little convoluted at first but the results are well worth it. Even if you don’t intend to use it all that often, it’s a good technique to know and understand in case you ever need to do it for a project or client.
There’s a little bit of work involved in learning it. But if you’re doing it regularly, your muscle memory should remember the process quite quickly and eventually, you’ll just do it on autopilot. Plus, you’re also able to set up custom presets to do some of the work for you after you’ve done it once.
It’s difficult to lay the process out in specific steps because it changes a little depending on your needs and the footage you’re working with. It works for horizontal whip-pan transitions in either direction but it also works for vertical transitions. The vertical transitions also work in both up and down directions.
Photoshop to the rescue!
Essentially, it involves nesting the two clips you want to transition between in a new composition and laying them out in such a way that a simple Transform effect lets you move from one image to the other, with a big empty gap in the middle between the two shots.
Exporting a frame from this transition out as a transparent PNG provides you with a file you can bring into Photoshop. Generative fill is used to fill in the missing image data in between the two frames.
Generative fill isn’t always perfect and provides you with multiple options each time you click Generate. And if none of those options work for you, you can just run Generative Fill again until you get one that does.
Motion Blur saves the day
This produces a seamless(ish) blend between the two images that you can then put in a layer below your two transition clips. You’ll want to disable the default composition shutter angle and add some of your own motion blur.
This helps to eliminate the hard edge that may pop up between the two moving clips and the static, AI-generated image underneath. The Transform keyframes do their thing, shifting the view from one clip to the other and it all blends very nicely.
It’s a pretty effective way to achieve a whip transition in pretty much any direction you like with a fairly seamless result. You do have to be careful which frames you use from each transition, but once you get the process figured out, it shouldn’t take more than a minute to implement once you’ve got the process down.
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