Shotcut tutorial · companion page
Overlap the two clips by twelve frames so Shotcut builds a real transition object, set that transition to Cut at Position 50 %, then hang a single Color Grading filter on the transition itself and keyframe it up to white and back. One filter, one object, half a second — and the finished thing saves as a filter set you can drop on any future cut.
Reading in another language? Use the translate picker in the header, or your browser’s own translate command — the Shotcut filter, control and value names are marked to stay in English so they still match what is on your screen.
Nothing is downloaded, no overlay image is imported and no second track is created. Two clips overlap by twelve frames, the overlap becomes a transition object, and that object carries the only filter in the project.
When the transition is selected, the Filters panel header reads Transition instead of a filename. Adding Color Grading there scopes the flash to exactly the twelve overlapping frames — you never have to split the clips or worry about the effect bleeding into footage either side.
Left alone, the overlap is a Dissolve and the two shots cross-fade through each other. Switching Video to Cut and Position to 50 % keeps the edit a hard cut and puts it dead centre of the twelve frames, where the picture is at its whitest.
Shadows (Lift) and Highlights (Gain) each get a keyframe at zero on the first frame, a peak five frames in, and a reset back to zero at the end. Midtones (Gamma) is never touched. Shotcut interpolates the ramp between them.
Once it works, one button turns the whole configuration — filter, values and keyframes together — into a named entry under the Sets tab. Next time you make a twelve-frame overlap you apply it in two clicks instead of rebuilding it.
[ in this particular technique, you’re only going to need one filter ]
Ben Espanto · 5:16
The seven chapter titles below are Ben’s own, taken verbatim from the video’s own chapter list, and they cover the whole runtime with nothing left untagged. Two of them — Transition at 2:20 and Filter at 5:11 — run for nearly three minutes each and contain two clearly separate operations, so each has been split into a second card marked DERIVED. Those two extra cards are ours, not Ben’s. Click any screencap or timestamp to play that moment right here in the card.
“You might have seen an older tutorial called the Light Burst Transition. Today I’m going to show you a quicker, updated version, also called a Flash Transition.”
0:08 · the demo footage the intro plays over — a night beach promenade, unrelated to the two clips used in the build. Ben names the earlier Light Burst tutorial in the first sentence and positions this one as the shorter route to the same look.
“This tutorial will be done on Shotcut version 23.12.15. If you don’t have at least this version, please upgrade your Shotcut.”
0:50 · the About Shotcut dialog on screen. Version 23.12.15, Copyright © 2011-2023 Meltytech, LLC. Every panel, tooltip and dialog on this page is that build.
“I’m going to drag the ballerina video on the timeline, and then I’m going to drag the dancer video a little bit behind it.”
1:50 · the Playlist holds ballerina.mp4 at 00:00:11:04 and dancer.mp4 at 00:00:45:19. Both go on V1 and there is never a second video track.
“Using the left arrow, I’m going to count back to 12. And sometimes it’s a little hard for you to find where that 12-frame spot is, so you can go and select this icon right here, which is a marker.”
3:00 · the status line reads Added marker: ‘Marker 1’. Hold Ctrl and drag to create a range and the orange marker sits twelve frames before the end of ballerina.mp4. The marker is only a visual target for the drag — it does no work in the effect.
“Once I’m in the properties tab, I want to select cut. And then after that, I’m going to go over to the position and I’m going to need to move the 20% to 50%.”
4:30 · Properties for the transition. Video is switched from Dissolve to Cut, and Position is raised from 20 % to 50 % so the cut lands dead centre of the twelve frames. Invert Wipe stays unchecked, Preview stays checked, Audio stays on Cross-fade with Mix at 0 %.
“In this particular technique, you’re only going to need one filter. And that filter is going to be the color grading filter.”
5:30 · the Filters panel header reads Transition, not a clip name. That header is the whole trick: Color Grading is attached to the transition object, so it can only ever affect the twelve frames the transition occupies.
“I’m going to drag it all the way to the very top so that all RG and B are at 100%. I’m also going to drag the highlights all the way. I’m probably going to go to, let’s say, 71.5%.”
7:24 · the peak keyframe. Shadows (Lift) at 100.0 % on R, G and B; Highlights (Gain) at 71.5 % on all three; Midtones (Gamma) untouched at 0.0 %. Both stopwatches are lit and the Keyframes panel below carries a row for each.
“You now can utilize this as a filter set. I can click this icon right here and call it filter set. And then I can name it, I’ll name it flash transition. And then I’m also going to give myself a key so that I know how many frames this thing takes up.”
9:26 · the dialog is titled Copy Filters and reads Enter a name to save a filter set, or leave blank to use the clipboard:. Ben types Flash Transition (12 frames) — the frame count goes in the name because nothing else in Shotcut records it.
“In any case, this was a quick tutorial. Thank you for watching. And once again, I’ll see you next time.”
11:30 · the outro card. The chapter list ends here and runs to the final second of the video, so nothing after it is untagged.
Every number below was read off the screen in the video, not off the audio. Where something was never shown, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
The build uses two files in the Playlist and no other media. Ben picks the second clip partly because of what is behind the subject: a low sun straight into the lens, which already reads as light and blends into the flash.
“If you notice, there’s some light sources from behind, which lends a little better for this flash transition.” The project is never saved and never named on screen, and the video mode dialog is never opened — but the timecode counters run 00 to 23, so the timebase is 24 fps and twelve frames is half a second.
Drag the first clip down from the Playlist onto the timeline, then drag the second one after it on the same track. There is no V2 in this project at any point. With the two clips butted together the timeline reads 00:00:56:23.
Select the first clip, send the playhead to its very end, then tap the left arrow twelve times. Click the marker button in the timeline toolbar. Shotcut confirms with Added marker: ‘Marker 1’ and leaves an orange marker you can still see once the playhead moves away.
The marker does nothing to the effect. It exists only so you can find the same frame again while dragging, which is otherwise fiddly at this zoom.
Sliding the second clip back over the first by twelve frames makes Shotcut replace the overlap with a transition — the purple box with an X through it. Nothing is added from a menu; the overlap is the transition.
This is the one cost of the method: the finished sequence is twelve frames shorter than the two clips were, and both clips need twelve frames of material to give up at the join.
With the transition selected, go to the Properties tab. The Video list opens on Dissolve; choose Cut instead. Then raise Position from its default 20 % to 50 % so the hard cut lands in the middle of the twelve frames rather than a fifth of the way in.
Cut is the top entry of the Video list, above Custom... and the wipes. It is easy to miss because it does not sound like a transition — but a transition set to Cut is exactly what this technique needs: a container twelve frames long that still cuts hard.
Switch to the Filters tab. Check the header: it must read Transition. Click Add a filter, type color, and pick Color Grading. It is the only filter in the entire project.
Color Grading gives you three wheels — Shadows (Lift), Midtones (Gamma) and Highlights (Gain) — each with R, G and B boxes underneath, a reset button and a stopwatch. Only two of the three wheels are used.
Park the playhead on the first frame of the transition and click the stopwatch beside Shadows (Lift) and again beside Highlights (Gain), both still at 0.0 %. That is keyframe one. Step forward five frames with the right arrow — the last frame before the hard cut — and push Shadows (Lift) to 100.0 % on all three channels and Highlights (Gain) to 71.5 %. That is keyframe two. Move to the end of the transition and click Reset to default on each wheel, which drops both back to 0.0 %. That is keyframe three.
Watch which button you click. The two icons beside each wheel label are Reset to default on the left and Use Keyframes for this parameter on the right. The stopwatch turns keyframing on; the curved arrow zeroes the values.
With the transition still selected and the filter still configured, click the fifth button on the Filters toolbar — its tooltip reads Save a filter set. A dialog titled Copy Filters appears asking for a name. Type one and click OK. Leaving it blank copies to the clipboard instead of saving.
The name is the only place the frame count is recorded. A filter set does not remember how long the thing it came from was, so a twelve-frame set applied to a six-frame transition will simply run out of room. Ben puts (12 frames) in the name for exactly this reason, and every other set in his list follows the same convention.
Read directly off the frames of the video. The keyframe positions are the timeline timecodes shown in the player’s position field at the moment each keyframe was written.
| Setting | Value | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Shotcut version | 23.12.15 | Help → About Shotcut |
| Source clip 1 | ballerina.mp4 · 00:00:11:04 | Playlist |
| Source clip 2 | dancer.mp4 · 00:00:45:19 | Playlist |
| Track layout | V1 only | Timeline |
| Preview scaling | ON at 540p | Player status bar |
| Timeline before overlap | 00:00:56:23 | Player duration field |
| Timeline after overlap | 00:00:56:11 | Player duration field |
| Overlap / transition length | 12 frames | The difference between the two rows above |
| Marker | Marker 1 | 12 frames before the end of ballerina.mp4 |
| Transition Video | Dissolve → Cut | Properties |
| Transition Position | 20 % → 50 % | Properties |
| Invert Wipe | Unchecked | Properties |
| Preview | Checked | Properties |
| Transition Audio | Cross-fade, Mix 0 % | Properties |
| Filter, the only one | Color Grading | Applied to the transition, not to a clip |
| Preset | Empty | Color Grading |
| Midtones (Gamma) | 0.0 % on R, G and B throughout | Color Grading · never keyframed |
| Shadows (Lift) peak | R 100.0 % / G 100.0 % / B 100.0 % | Color Grading |
| Highlights (Gain) peak | R 71.5 % / G 71.5 % / B 71.5 % | Color Grading |
| Keyframed parameters | Shadows (Lift), Highlights (Gain) | Keyframes panel · two rows, no more |
| Filter set name | Flash Transition (12 frames) | Add a filter → Sets |
| Keyframe | Timeline position | Frames into the transition | Shadows (Lift) | Highlights (Gain) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · first frame | 00:00:10:16 | 0 | 0.0 % | 0.0 % |
| 2 · last frame before the cut | 00:00:10:21 | 5 | 100.0 % | 71.5 % |
| 3 · end of the transition | 00:00:11:04 | 12 | 0.0 % | 0.0 % |
| Point | Flash Transition · Feb 2024 · 23.12.15 | Light Burst · Oct 2020 · V20.09.27 |
|---|---|---|
| What sits at the cut | One transition object, made by overlapping the clips | Four clips — twelve frames split off each side of a plain cut |
| Edits needed | One marker, one drag | Two splits |
| Filter instances | 1, on the transition | 2, one per short segment |
| Cut behaviour | Video set to Cut, Position 50 % | A plain hard cut — no transition object anywhere |
| How long the flash lasts | 12 frames | 24 frames · 12 either side |
| Keyframes | 3 on one object · 0, 5, 12 | 2 per segment · 4 in all |
| Shadows (Lift) peak | 100.0 % | 39.6 % |
| Highlights (Gain) peak | 71.5 % | 100.0 % |
| Effect on sequence length | Twelve frames shorter — the overlap is spent | Unchanged — nothing is consumed |
| Saved for re-use | Yes — Flash Transition (12 frames) in the Sets tab | No — filter sets are never mentioned |
| Whose method | Ben’s own, offered as the quicker replacement | MusicalBox, credited on screen |
Which to use. This one is the easier build and the one that keeps: a single object, a single filter, a ramp that is symmetrical for free, and a saved set that reapplies it in two clicks. It costs twelve frames of running time and it needs twelve frames of spare footage on both sides of the join — if either clip ends where the action ends, you cannot make the overlap. The Light Burst build asks for two splits and two copies of the filter, but it consumes nothing, needs no handles, runs twice as long, and lets you tune the outgoing and incoming halves to different values — which matters when the two shots are nowhere near the same brightness. Note also that the Light Burst page was recorded on V20.09.27 and this one on 23.12.15: on the 2020 build the Sets tab and Save a filter set did not exist to be used.
The hard cut itself falls at 00:00:10:22, the midpoint of the twelve frames, which is why keyframe two sits one frame earlier at 00:00:10:21: the picture is at its whitest on the final frame of the outgoing shot and stays near-white across the join. 71.5 % on Highlights (Gain) is Ben’s taste, not a rule — he says “let’s say 71.5%, that should be good enough” while dragging the slider. Shadows (Lift) at 100.0 % is what makes the frame genuinely white rather than merely bright, because it lifts the black point with everything else.
Where a filter set actually lives. The video never opens a folder, a settings dialog or a file path, so the on-disk location cannot be read off these pixels and this page will not guess at one. What is on screen is the whole in-app lifecycle: a set is written by the Save a filter set button on the Filters toolbar through the Copy Filters dialog; it is stored per user rather than per project — the set saved in this video is recalled a minute later in the same unsaved, untitled project alongside sets Ben made for other tutorials years earlier; it is recalled from Add a filter → the Sets tab, listed alphabetically by the name you typed; and it is removed by right-clicking it, as the hint under the list says: Delete a custom filter set by right-clicking it.. A set carries the filter, its values and its keyframes — when it is re-applied and played back, Shadows (Lift) and Highlights (Gain) show interpolated mid-ramp readings with both stopwatches lit. What it does not carry is length, which is why the frame count has to go in the name.
Machine transcribed from the video audio. Spoken phrasing is left as-is; only the product and filter names the transcriber mangled have been corrected. Every timestamp plays the video in the hero from that second. Nothing numeric on this page comes from here — all of it was read off the pixels.
You might have seen an older tutorial called the Light Burst Transition.
Today I'm going to show you a quicker, updated version, also called a Flash Transition. So stay tuned.
I'm just a normal person with no video editing background. I wanted to start making YouTube
videos and maybe cool transitions and effects. I don't really plan on being a professional
video editor, so I was looking for a free easy to learn video editing software. Luckily I
stumbled on Shotcut, a free open source video editing program that can do many of the tricks you
can do on more enterprise video editors like Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, but with a much
simpler and leaner interface, thus dramatically shortening the learning curve. It just takes
using your imagination. So let's learn together. Before we get started, this tutorial will be
done on Shotcut version 23.12.15. If you don't have at least this version, please upgrade your Shotcut.
Okay, so this one's going to be really quick. I'm going to start out with two videos that I've
already loaded on my playlist. The first one is this ballerina video,
as you can see here. And the second one is this dancer video.
And if you notice, there's some light sources from behind, which lends a little better
for this flash transition. So I'm going to drag the ballerina video on the timeline,
and then I'm going to drag the dancer video a little bit behind it.
So first I'm going to play the ballerina video and find a perfect spot where the
flash transition should occur, which actually at the very end of it should be sufficient
right there. And then I'm going to play the dancer video.
And I think that's fine too. I think right at the beginning should be a really good transition
point. So I'm going to drag them close to each other, and I'm going to make it a little bigger so
it's easier for you to see. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go and select the first video,
I'm going to go to the very end, and using the left arrow, I'm going to count back to 12.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
And I'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see where it is, as you can see right there.
And sometimes it's a little hard for you to find where that
12-spot is or the 12-frame spot is. So what you can do is you can go and select
this icon right here, which is a marker. So you can actually add a marker, as you can see here. So
even if I remove the cursor away from it, I can find the spot because it's indicated by that
marker right there, which is that orange marker. Now that we have that orange marker,
what I can do is I can go to the second video and drag it over until it overlaps
all the way to that cursor point or that point where that marker begins. And once again,
it's going to create a transition. And this box here that has an X in the middle,
that's a transition between the first video and the second video. And what you're going
to see right now as I play it, you're going to see it gradually switch over to the second one.
So the first one slowly fades out while the second one slowly fades in,
which traditionally that's a really good transition. But actually for this particular
technique, I don't want that to happen. So while I have that transition selected,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to select properties.
Once I'm in the properties tab, I want to select cut.
And then after that, I'm going to go over to the position and I'm going to need to move the 20%
to 50%. What I'm telling Shotcut basically is I want a hard cut between the first video
and the second video. So now if I play it, it just hard cuts to the second one. And the hard cut
happens right exactly in the midpoint of this transition box. And so it's doing exactly what I
wanted to do. So there you go. So that's the first part. So now that I have that hard cut,
once again, I want to make sure that the transition is selected and I'm going to go into filters.
And in this particular technique, you're only going to need one filter. And that filter is going
to be the Color Grading filter. And so I'm going to look for color grading.
There it is.
And then we're also going to be implementing
the keyframes functionality of this particular filter. So I'm going to position
the cursor at the very beginning of this transition. And then what I'm going to do is
I'm going to click the keyframe icon for both the Shadows section
and the Highlights section of this particular filter. So first I'm going to go into the
Shadows section. And all of a sudden a new box shows up, which is the color grading box. So
I'm going to go ahead and expand that. So that's selected. And I'm also going to select the
key gains keyframe right there. And so now it actually created two keyframes
on the same spot. Now I'm going to use the right arrow. And I'm going to move forward to
the very last frame before it cuts over to the next video, which is this one here.
And so while that cursor is there, I'm going to go back into the Shadows section of the color
grade filter. And I'm going to drag it all the way to the very top so that all
RG and B are at 100%. I'm also going to
drag the highlights all the way. I'm probably going to go to, let's say, 71.5%. That should be good enough.
So what you're going to see on your screen is all white. And then I'm going to go to the very end
of this transition.
And now I'm going to select the reset to default, which brings it down to zero for
the highlights. The same thing reset to default for the shadows, which again brings it back to zero.
So what's going to happen here, I'm going to go to the beginning of the keyframe.
It's going to raise both the shadows and the highlights
to nearly 100% up to the midpoint of that transition. And then it's going to drop back down.
And so when we play it on the timeline, this is how it looks like in real time.
And that's it.
That's the flash transition. And this is the easier version of the flash transition.
So now that you got this finished, what you can do so that you don't have to keep on remembering
what the settings are for this particular transition. Again, thanks to the new updates to Shotcut,
you now can utilize this as a filter set. So while the settings are already in place,
what I can do is I can click this icon right here and call it filter set.
And then I can name it, I'll name it flash transition.
And then I'm also going to give myself a key so that I know how many frames this thing takes up.
So I'm going to say 12 frames. And I'm going to click OK.
And what happens there is I've now saved this particular technique as a preset.
So if I go and remove this filter here and just to prove to you, I'm going to go ahead and play it
and you're going to see again, it's a hard cut. While this is selected, I can now go
and add a filter. And instead of adding a filter, I can go into filter sets.
And I could look for flash transition 12 frames. Once I do that, I can go ahead and play.
And once again, it implemented the flash transition. So that's how you can save all the previous
filters and techniques that you've previously implemented. Now, once again, because I've saved
this, I'm going to give this away to anyone who is a member of my channel. And once again,
all you have to do is go below this video, you're going to see a membership icon.
And if you're a member of this channel, it is it is a paid membership, but it's just 99 cents.
And so if you're a member of this channel, you will have access to every single one
of my filter sets. I'm going to show you where it is. And so right now,
these currently are all my filter sets. And if you're a member of my channel,
all of this is going to be free to you. And so you don't have to remember
how to implement each one of the previous techniques and transitions that I've shown you.
As long as I have a filter set version of it, you can have it for free.
In any case, this was a quick tutorial. Thank you for watching. And once again,
I'll see you next time. I just wanted to remind you that if you haven't yet,
go visit my channel. I'm sure you'll find tons of Shotcut related videos.
And don't forget to subscribe so that you know when I drop a new Shotcut related tutorial.
Every video on my channel was done on Shotcut. So aside from examples of what Shotcut can do,
you can also visit my playlist of tips and tutorials all geared toward the beginner.
Visit my Shotcut tips and tricks playlist and learn all the tips and tricks I've learned
during my journey toward video editing. So once again, please subscribe. And I'll see you next time.
