Hi everyone,
I wanted to share a quick “misadventure” I had today as a reminder of how crucial the filter order/stack is in Shotcut, and how easy it is to overlook it, even when you should definitely know better!
The importance of the filter stack should be hardwired into my brain. But, I completely forgot.
I was trying to make just the right side of a clip gradient transparent. I applied my Mask: From File filters, but it kept applying the transparency map to non expected sides instead of just the right edge.
I was getting incredibly frustrated because the settings just weren’t behaving. It took me 15+ minutes of trials and errors before to realize what’s going on.
The culprit? I had resized and moved the clip using the Size, Position, Rotate filter, and I had it sitting at the top of my filter stack.
Because Shotcut processes filters from top to bottom, it was resizing the clip first, which completely broke the boundary calculations for the mask filters below it. As soon as I pushed the Size, Position, Rotate filter to the very bottom of the stack, everything clicked into place perfectly. The mask applied to the source dimensions first, and then the whole package was resized.
If you are pulling your hair out over a mask or transition effect not aligning with a resized clip, check your stack!
A reminder never hurts. 