How to Overlay in Filmora (Videos and Effects)

You’ve shot a great clip, and now you want to overlay visual effects, audio, images, borders, and more onto your footage to create impressive visuals.

Overlaying might seem like a complicated editing task that’s only for pros. Well, get ready to be surprised.

Adding overlays is a sweet and simple procedure using Filmora’s free video editing software. Just follow the steps below.

How to Overlay in Filmora

Why add overlays, you might ask? There are so many reasons, from creating interesting footage for entertainment to adding branding.

Using overlay editing, you can add overlay motion graphics for special effects such as fire, ghosts, or snow to create the illusion of a situation that wouldn’t be possible for you to film.

You can also overlay videos with a call to action to encourage followers to take some kind of action, whether that be like, buy, or follow. This can be a more effective way to increase audience engagement and communicate effectively.

What Can You Overlay?

You can overlay smaller videos onto a larger video, a technique that is popular in tutorial videos. This is called PiP video or picture-in-picture video.

Using Filmora video editing software, you can overlay filters, borders, and effects for branding purposes or to add a personalized effect.

Adding text to your video is a great way to introduce people or relay extra information quickly.

Step 1. Download Filmora

To start, first download Filmora’s video editing software and install it onto your computer by heading to their website and clicking the download button.

When you have Filmora ready and fired up to go, you can upload your footage.

Step 2. Upload Video

Open a project or start a new one, and select the footage you wish to upload,

To upload, go to the top menu bar and select File > Upload Media. Locate the video clip, and select to upload it into Filmora.

Now click on the footage in the media library and drag it down to the video track timeline panel.

Alternatively, you can press the Import button and select your video this way.

Step 3. Add Background Video

To overlay video, you will first need to add extra tracks to your project’s video timeline.

Click on the plus icon above the video track timeline. Each time you click the plus icon, an extra timeline will be added.

Add as many tracks as you have overlays to add. When added, the tracks will be empty and ready for use to overlay video effects.

Drag your background video from the projects panel onto the bottom video timeline track.

This will position your video clip as the backdrop on which you can add effects and overlays.

• Related: How To Render in Filmora

Step 4. Add Video Overlay

Filmora comes with a selection of border templates and filters, and easy access to copyright-free picture videos, all of which can be used as video overlays.

Click on the Effects button at the top of your workspace. When clicked, a side panel will appear on the left.

Here you will find Filmora’s selection of effects, including overlays, filters, frames, fonts, and more.

Place your selected overlay effect onto the timeline track by clicking and then dragging it down into position on the empty timeline above the background clip.

Step 5. Customize

To adjust the length of time the video overlay is played, drag the corners of its bounding box inwards or outwards to lengthen or shorten.

As you can see below, the U overlay effect will only play for the first section of the video, and then it will disappear.

Using Filmora’s free video overlay software, you can overlay videos with up to 99 overlays.

Sounds great, but after adding 99 overlays, the original video could be hidden from view. More is not always better.

Step 6. Preview

To preview the video overlay effect on your track, click the play button and your video clip will play in the preview window.

If it’s all perfect and even better than you were expecting, then you can jump to the final step.

Step 7. Export

To export your final video file, whether to save for later on your device or to share immediately with the world, head to the top menu bar and hit the Export button.

When the Export button is clicked, a pop-up window will appear, giving you a selection of export choices.

Select the one you want: to burn to a CD, share to Youtube, or save to your device.

Done! Your beautifully edited overlay video is complete.

How Do You Put a Video on Top of a Video in Filmora?

Placing a video on top of a video is a popular effect making it possible to display two videos simultaneously.

This effect of overlaying a smaller video onto a background video is called PiP, or picture-in-picture video.

It’s simpler than you would expect to add a PiP overlay track to a background video.

To start, place your background video on the video timeline track.

Now, open the video that will be the smaller PiP overlay video, and drag this footage down onto the timeline track above the background picture video.

When the PiP video track is placed on the timeline, the preview window will display this video.

To change the overlay video size and to reposition the overlay video, simply click on the corner edge of the video and drag the corner to shrink the video.

When you have shrunk the overlay video, you will be able to see the background video.

You can now click on the overlay video and drag it into the position you want it.

Press the play button in the preview window and watch your edited footage.

How do I layer an image in Filmora?

To add an image in Filmora when video editing is incredibly simple – they’ve made it that way so you can quickly become a video editing pro.

When your background video is open in the timeline track, click on the plus icon to the top left of the timeline.

This will add an extra timeline where you can place your image.

Upload your image into Filmora and drag it from the projects panel onto the timeline track.

When the image is placed in the track, it will run for a short length of time.

To customize the length of time the image is played for, drag the outer sides of the image’s track. This will extend the amount of time it is displayed.

And that’s all you need to do. Now, hit Play in the preview window to check that the edited footage with video effects runs smoothly.

• Check out more Filmora tutorials: How To Blur in Filmora