YouTube adds one-click video fixing tools

YouTube exposure fix
A change in the lighting was all it took to put Muffy in the party mood

YouTube has announced new video fixing tools that promise to spruce up sub-par video.

You can already edit videos online with YouTube, but now the site is offering to automatically fix videos for you.

Like the advice labels that we remember plastered all over our 35mm film photos when they came back from the chemist's, YouTube detects shonky camera work and pops up with a message offering to straighten it out.

The two automatic fixes on offer deal with exposure and stabilisation.

So if the lighting in your video isn't up to scratch, YouTube might be able to brighten it up a bit, and if your rocky mountain bike descent footage was bumpy-to-the-point-of-vomit-inducing, then hopefully YouTube can help with that too.

One-click to fix

The new features are one-click fixes, so there's not much in the way of user control. This perhaps won't suit budding auteurs with only-slightly-too-dark film noir shorts, but it will likely lift the lower echelons of YouTube uploaders to an almost-watchable level.

There are previews on hand to test out the finished look, and if you later decide the fix isn't working for you, there's an undo option to fall back on.

YouTube software engineer John Gregg, who posted news of the new tools, also pointed to a demonstration of the stabilisation fix using before and after vids of a particularly shaky "paaandaa!" (at a zoo, we presume).

From Official YouTube Blog