# Positioning Objects on Screen

Once Curves is applied to a clip, use the on-screen controls and inspector settings to adjust its position, rotation, and scale. Get comfortable with these controls, because in the next section we will use them to create animations via keyframes.

The on-screen controls only appear if the Curves effect is selected, so make sure to select the Curves effect in the effects tab of the inspector () by clicking on its header:

A control () will appear in the viewer over the center of your clip. Click and drag it to move your object around.

Curves tries its best to help you keep everything aligned in your scene by snapping your object to the center or lower/ upper thirds. When you add animations, Curves will snap to align with other keyframes as well. This helps keep your animations centered, fluid, and consistent.

However, it may be desirable to disable snapping in certain scenarios. Start dragging the object then hold down one of the following keys to configure the snapping behavior:

Key	Effect
None	Snap to the center, lower/upper thirds, and other keyframes.
Shift (⇧)	Only horizontal or vertical movement, but not both.
Control (^)	Snapping disabled.

# Using the Inspector

Position, rotation, and scale can be adjusted in the inspector under the Curves effect parameters.

✅ Adjust parameters inside the Curves effect.

Make sure when you're adjusting settings in the inspector that you are always using the settings from Curves, and not from the object's Transform:

❌ Do not modify the built-in "Transform" parameters.

The built-in Final Cut transform settings should be left at the defaults (X = 0, Y = 0, rotation = 0°, scale = 100%). If you modify position, rotation, or scale from both Curves and the Final Cut built-in Transform, things may get cut off or look weird.

# Translation

You can adjust the position numerically using the inspector. The position parameters are normalized to the screen size; a value of 0 means "centered" and a value of ±1 means "±full width/ height". Of course, you can also just click and drag the clip using the on-screen controls (see "Positioning Objects on Screen" above).

# Rotation

Twist the rotation dial to spin the clip:

# Scaling

Use the scale slider to adjust the clip's size: