How to Track Your Face in Premiere Pro for a Clean Motion Look
Sometimes you want the camera to feel like it’s following you, even if it didn’t on set. Face tracking helps you do just that. It keeps the focus centered on a subject’s face, even when there’s movement in the shot. You’ve probably seen it in vlogs or reaction videos where the frame gently shifts to follow someone’s expression. Premiere Pro doesn’t have an automatic face tracker, but with a little setup and a few keyframes, you can get the same effect manually.
Set up your clip for tracking in Premiere Pro
- Drag your clip into the timeline
- Open the Effects panel and search for Transform
- Drag Transform onto your clip
- In the Effect Controls panel, set Scale to around 200% so you have enough room
Add a reference point for smoother tracking
To consistently track movement throughout the shot, it helps to have a visual reference. By turning on rulers, you can drag guides onto the screen and line them up with a fixed point on the subject’s face — most often, the tip of the nose. That way, each keyframe is anchored around a fixed point, making it easier to keep things aligned while the video plays.
Do this:
- Go to View in the top menu
- Click Show Rulers
- Click and drag from the top and side rulers to drop horizontal and vertical guide lines
Track face movement manually with keyframes
Manual tracking is just about adjusting the frame every few moments so the subject stays centered. You’ll set a keyframe, move a few frames forward, adjust the position, and repeat. Start from the first frame and work forward in small steps. It doesn’t take long to get into a rhythm, and the result is a smooth motion that keeps your subject in focus.
Do this:
- In the Effect Controls panel, click the stopwatch icon next to Position to create the first keyframe
- Use the right arrow key to move three frames forward
- Adjust the Position values to re-center the face with your guides
- Repeat until the end of the clip
Smooth out the motion with blur in Premiere Pro
Without any blur, your camera motion can feel a little stiff. You can fix that by increasing the shutter angle in the Transform effect. This adds motion blur, softening the transitions between keyframes and making the movement feel smoother and more lifelike.
Do this:
- In the Transform effect, find the Shutter Angle setting
- Increase it to 180° or higher to create blur between keyframes
There you go, now you know how to track a face in Premiere Pro without any fancy tools. It’s a small effort that can make a big difference in how your video feels.
Final thoughts
Tracking a face manually in Premiere Pro takes a few extra steps, but it’s a useful technique to have in your editing toolkit. With a few simple tools — scale, keyframes, and blur — you can guide the viewer’s eye exactly where you want it. It gives you more control over how your subject is framed and helps your video feel more polished, especially when working with handheld shots or casual footage. Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it becomes a quick fix you can use whenever a shot needs a bit more focus or flow.
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