Sometimes, a little bit of shake can be lovingly called an artistic choice, but more often than not, camera shake finds its way into your footage where you don't want it to be. Whether from improper stabilization or a slightly over-enthusiastic camera operator, sometimes footage is rendered a little too jarring, and you want to smooth it out a little bit. 

Thankfully, Adobe Premiere Pro has some handy tools that will help you take the shake out of your footage in post-production and give you smooth, stabilized video instead of a headache-inducing earthquake. 

Why Should You Stabilize Your Video?

There are a variety of reasons you might want to stabilize your video. Most of the time, it's due to unintended shakes during camera movements such as pans and tilts. This can be caused by stabilization equipment that is improperly calibrated or cheap tripod heads. 

When a camera shakes where it naturally shouldn’t, it can be extremely distracting for the viewers and take them out of the “suspension of disbelief” that you hope they enter while watching your project. It also just makes the footage look less polished, lowering your overall production quality. 

How to Stabilize a Shaky Video in Premiere Pro

With Adobe Premiere Pro, you can stabilize shaky footage using their handy Warp Stabilizer tool. Here’s how:

Step 1: Select the video you want to stabilize and add it to the timeline.

Step 2: Go to your “Effects” workspace and locate the Effects folders.

Step 3: Choose the Video Effects folder and open it.

Step 4: Scroll down to "Distort," open it, and double-click on "Warp Stabilizer"

Step 5: Premiere will now "Analyze" your footage for stabilization; this may take a minute or two. 

Step 6: Once the footage is analyzed, Premiere will now stabilize it using its stabilizing algorithm.