This could be handy for those looking to re-purpose their video assets, and/or run experiments without having to invest in significant re-shoots or editing.

Back in March, Facebook started testing a new ‘Smart Cropping‘ option for video editing within Creator Studio, which utilizes machine learning in order to identify areas of most interest within your video content, and then provides auto-edits based on these calculations.

Now, Facebook is making its new Smart Cropping feature more widely available, with the option now accessible in the video upload flow within Creator Studio.

As you can see here, with Smart Cropping, you can automatically generate a 1:1 or 4:5 version of any video clip, with Facebook’s system identifying the key focus elements, and optimizing based on these points.

As explained by Facebook:

“Smart Crop will optimize for the main subject in the content, keeping the main subjects centered and in-frame. You will be able to publish this video directly within Creator Studio, and can review the reframed video prior to publishing. You can also compare the reframed version with the original prior to publishing to decide which version you’d like to publish.”

Facebook uses similar technology with its Portal video calling device, which automatically pans and zooms as you chat, ensuring speakers always remain in frame. Portal will also automatically widen when someone else enters the room, and this is the same type of object recognition that Facebook’s now applying to its automated video cropping, which sounds as though it could produce variable results. But for certain types of uploads, it could also save you a heap of time.

At the least, if you’re working with a lot of video, it could be worth an experiment. The new feature is now available in Creator Studio in the ‘Upload Video’ component of the post creation flow.

Thanks to Ahmed Ghanem for posting about the update.