How to build whip, glitch and spin transitions in Premiere Pro

How do you make transitions in Premiere Pro without plugins?

You build them from effects that come with Premiere, stacked on an adjustment layer that sits across the cut. Keyframe a fast move that is quickest on the cut frame and blur it at its peak. The viewer then sees one motion running through two clips instead of a hard edit.

Every transition on this page comes from four effects:

• Transform sets the position, scale and rotation of everything below the adjustment layer. It drives spins and shakes.
• Offset slides the picture across the frame and wraps it round, so a sideways move never shows an empty edge. It drives whips and glitch jumps.
• Gaussian Blur hides the cut while the picture is moving.
• Levels pushes brightness up or down for a flash.

A note on names and steps. Adobe now calls Premiere Pro simply Adobe Premiere, a name for its family of apps on desktop and mobile. This guide uses both names.

We checked Adobe's help pages on 3 November 2026. The articles on transitions, presets and keyframes did not return their step text, so this guide does not quote Premiere menu paths or keyboard shortcuts. To find each effect, type its name into the effects search in your version. Then use whatever keyframe controls your version shows.

If you only want to drop a ready-made transition onto a cut, our guide to adding transitions in Premiere Pro covers that. This page is about building your own.

What do you set up before building any transition?

Trim both clips first, then put one adjustment layer on the track above, centred on the cut. Every recipe below starts from that same layout.

1. Trim the outgoing and incoming clips so the cut sits exactly where you want the change. If you move the cut later, you have to move every keyframe with it.
2. Check that each clip has spare footage past the cut point. The transition shows frames on both sides of the edit, so a clip with no handle runs out early.
3. Create an adjustment layer and place it on the track directly above the two clips.
4. Trim the adjustment layer so it starts a few frames before the cut and ends a few frames after it. Keep the two halves equal at first; you can skew them later.
5. Add a marker on the cut frame. Every keyframe in the recipes is placed relative to that frame.
6. Rename the adjustment layer after the transition, such as Whip L or Spin 360, so you can find it and copy it later.

Why use an adjustment layer instead of the clips? Effects on the adjustment layer act on the combined picture beneath it, so one set of keyframes moves both clips as a single image. Your clips keep their own motion and colour settings, and deleting the layer removes the transition completely.

How do I make a whip pan transition in Premiere Pro?

Keyframe Offset to slide the picture one full frame width across the cut, and keyframe Gaussian Blur to peak on the cut frame. The outgoing clip flies out, the incoming clip flies in from the same side, and the blur hides the join.

1. Add Offset to the adjustment layer. On the layer's first frame, set a keyframe with the picture in its normal place.
2. On the layer's last frame, set a keyframe that moves the horizontal centre one full frame width to the left or right. In a 1920-pixel-wide sequence, that is 1920 pixels. Because Offset wraps the picture, the frame ends up looking exactly as it would with no effect, now showing the incoming clip.
3. Ease both keyframes so the move starts slowly, is fastest at the cut and slows down again at the end. A linear move looks mechanical. The speed curve is what sells a whip.
4. Add Gaussian Blur. Set it to 0 on the first frame, high on the cut frame and 0 again on the last frame. If your version lets you choose a blur direction, pick horizontal to match the move.
5. Play it back at full speed. If you can still see the hard cut, raise the blur at the peak or shorten the layer by a frame on each side.
6. For a vertical whip, move the vertical centre instead and use the sequence height as the distance.

The direction should follow the camera. If the outgoing shot pans right, whip right too; a move that fights the footage reads as a mistake. A whoosh on the audio track, peaking on the cut, does as much work as the blur.

How do I make a spin transition between two clips?

Keyframe Transform's rotation through a full turn across the cut. Scale up at the peak so the corners stay filled, and blur the middle frames. The outgoing clip spins away and the incoming one spins in.

1. Add Transform to the adjustment layer. Keyframe rotation at 0 on the first frame and 360 degrees on the last, so the image lands upright on the incoming clip.
2. Ease the rotation keyframes so the spin is fastest on the cut.
3. Keyframe scale too: 100% on the first and last frames, and higher on the cut frame. A rotating rectangle uncovers its corners, and scaling up at the peak keeps empty triangles out of shot. Raise the peak until no corner shows at the widest angle.
4. Add Gaussian Blur, at 0 on both ends and highest on the cut, as with the whip.
5. For a quicker spin, shorten the layer rather than adding degrees. A full turn over fewer frames looks faster and cleaner than two turns over many.

Spins are dizzying if they run long, so save them for energetic edits and alternate the direction if you use more than one. The scale-up crops the picture slightly, so keep faces and titles away from the edges on the frames around the cut.

How do I make a glitch transition in Premiere Pro?

Make Offset jump in sharp, uneven steps for a few frames around the cut, and use Levels to flash or crush single frames. A glitch is about abrupt change, so the keyframes should snap rather than ease.

1. Add Offset to the adjustment layer. Over the frames just before and after the cut, set keyframes that jump the picture sideways by uneven amounts: a small jump, a big one, back near the centre, then a jump the other way.
2. Make every change abrupt. If your keyframes ease into each other, place pairs of keyframes one frame apart so each jump happens in a single frame.
3. Add Levels and pick two or three single frames near the cut to push very bright or very dark. Aim for irregular. Evenly spaced frames look like a pattern, not a fault.
4. If you like, add a one-frame spike of Gaussian Blur on the cut frame itself so the change of clip can't be read.
5. End on a clean frame of the incoming clip, with Offset back at its starting value.

A glitch reads best with a sound hit, such as a short digital crackle or a drop-out in the music on the jump frames. Keep the whole effect brief; a long glitch stops looking like a transition and starts looking like a broken file.

How do I add a light flash or a shake hit on a cut?

For a light flash, keyframe Levels so the picture brightens to near white on the cut and then falls back. For a shake hit, keyframe Transform's position in short, shrinking jolts just after the cut.

Light flash

1. Add Levels to the adjustment layer.
2. Keyframe normal levels a few frames before the cut, the brightest setting on the cut frame, and normal again a few frames after.
3. Make the fall slower than the rise. A quick climb with a slower fade feels like light; a symmetrical curve feels like an ordinary fade.
4. Add a touch of Gaussian Blur at the peak to soften the brightest frames.

Shake hit

1. Start the adjustment layer on the cut frame, not before it. A shake hit reacts to the cut.
2. Add Transform and scale up slightly so the moving edges never show empty space.
3. Keyframe position on alternate frames: a large jolt, a smaller one in the opposite direction, smaller again, then back at centre. Make each jolt roughly half the one before so the shake dies away.
4. Add a little Gaussian Blur on the biggest jolt only.

Both of these land well on beat drops. If you want your cuts on the beat first, see beat markers in Premiere Pro.

Which effects go into each transition?

Here is this page's hand recipe at a glance. The effects are Premiere's own; the keyframe plan is ours.

How do I make a smooth transition between clips?

Smoothness comes from matching the footage on both sides of the cut: the direction of the move, its speed curve and its timing. Effects only hide the join. Matching is what makes it feel intended.

• Ease every keyframe. Linear keyframes start and stop dead, which is the most common reason a homemade transition looks cheap. Our page on the Premiere Pro easing plugin covers shaping keyframe curves.
• Match the direction. Whip the way the camera was already moving, and spin the way a subject turns.
• Cut on action. Place the cut where something in the outgoing shot is already moving fast, so the transition continues that motion.
• Keep it short. A transition that lasts long enough to study stops hiding the cut and starts drawing attention to it.
• Use sound. A whoosh, a hit or a riser lined up to the peak frame smooths the join as much as blur does.
• Use a zoom when nothing moves. On talking heads, a punch-in often reads better than a whip. Our Premiere Pro zoom transition guide builds one by hand, and the auto zoom guide covers punch-ins written as keyframes.

How do you reuse a transition you've built?

Copy the adjustment layer. The effects and keyframes live on the layer rather than the clips, so one copy placed over the next cut is a finished transition, as long as its middle lines up with the new cut.

1. Select the finished adjustment layer and copy it.
2. Paste it on the same track above the next cut, then slide it until its middle sits on the cut frame.
3. Flip the direction if you need to by changing the sign of the Offset distance or the rotation on the last keyframe.
4. Keep a sequence of finished transitions in your project as a library to copy from.

If you keep effect settings as presets, our guide to importing Premiere Pro presets covers moving them between projects and computers.

Why does my homemade transition look wrong, and how do I fix it?

Nearly every problem is one of six: empty edges, a visible cut, bad timing, a mechanical move, a short clip or choppy playback.

• Empty edges or corners. Transform has moved or rotated the picture away from the frame edge. Scale up at the peak, or use Offset for sideways moves.
• You can still see the cut. The blur peak is off the cut frame, or it is too low. Check that the peak keyframe sits exactly on your marker.
• It feels early or late. The adjustment layer is not centred on the cut. Slide it, or skew it on purpose so more of the move falls on the incoming clip.
• It looks mechanical. The keyframes are linear. Ease them so the speed builds into the cut.
• The incoming clip jumps or freezes. It has no footage before its first visible frame, so the transition runs out of picture. Trim the cut to make room.
• Playback stutters. Blur and movement on full-resolution footage are heavy to play. Judge the timing only on smooth playback. Our guide on making Premiere Pro run faster covers playback.

Where mouzeclick fits (we make it)

We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. Doing it by hand teaches you the recipe and costs nothing beyond Premiere. If you build one whip a month, you don't need us. If you want transitions on cut after cut, mouzetrans, one of mouzeclick's Premiere Pro extensions, puts them on your cuts from a panel. Its list includes Whip, Spin, Glitch jump, Light flash and Shake hit, the five built by hand above.

• mouzetrans has 11 transitions on cuts: Zoom in, Zoom out, Whip, Spin, Slide push, Blur dissolve, Light flash, Shake hit, Stretch, Glitch jump and Fade to black. Every item is listed on the mouzetrans feature page.
• It runs on Windows and Mac. Press Install Premiere bridge on the app's Tool wheel page and restart Premiere. Then open mouzetrans under Window › Extensions and keep mouzeclick running. All 22 extensions are on the extensions page, and Mac setup is on installing mouzeclick on a Mac.
• Search effects finds every installed effect and transition, plug-ins included, on Windows and Mac. Type part of a name, then press Enter to apply it, or Shift+Enter to apply it and pin it to the Tool wheel. See Search effects.
• The Premiere Pro Tool wheel holds 112 tools in 12 segments, among them punch in, slow zoom and a shake that dies away. Open it with F10 or a held right button. It runs on Windows and Mac; see Premiere Pro mouse shortcuts.
• mouzestate writes a start look and an end look as Premiere's own keyframes, with ease, spring or bounce, on up to 40 clips at once. It runs on Windows and Mac; see mouzestate.
• Windows only: the Premiere Pro workspace adds 10 light-leak transitions in its Library, AutoZoom in Cut desk, and Easing lab, which bakes a curve into the keyframes of the properties you tick. The Mac app does not include the workspaces.

The mouse app runs on Windows and Mac and puts Premiere shortcuts and macros on any mouse button, per app, with no driver. There are 309 built-in shortcuts on Windows. The trial lasts 3 days with no card, and every Premiere Pro and After Effects tool works fully. After that it is one plan with everything included; see pricing.

What do you need to follow this guide, and what does it cost?

You only need Premiere itself. The four effects come with it, so the hand method costs nothing extra. Adobe's prices below are as shown on its US pages, checked on 3 November 2026.

Adobe says Premiere has no perpetual licence. It is sold only as a membership, with a monthly or annual commitment. Adobe also offers Premiere on mobile as a free, standalone social video app for iPhone and Android. This guide covers the desktop app.

Questions people ask

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-03. Prices and features change: each link goes to the maker's own page.

1. Adobe Premiere product page: name change, single-app price, Creative Cloud Pro, licensing, mobile app (checked 3 Nov 2026)
2. Adobe Creative Cloud plans: Adobe Premiere single-app price (checked 3 Nov 2026)
3. Adobe Premiere free trial: platforms and refund window (checked 3 Nov 2026)

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