Grit Guides Pro

Rulers, guides, grids and safe zones for framing in Final Cut Pro.

New in 2.0: Save as Viewer Overlay (guides that never end up in an export), several aspect outlines at once, Instagram's profile grid crop, an All Platforms safe zone, YouTube's player and end screen, App Screen, and three new composition grids.

1. Install

Open the disk image and double-click Grit Guides Pro.
If it asks, click Move to Applications. It opens again from there.
Click Install.
Quit and reopen Final Cut Pro.

Grit Guides Pro is now in Titles › Grit Guides Pro and Effects › Grit Guides Pro. To install a newer version, open its app the same way and click Update.

2. Title or effect

Both draw the same overlay with the same controls. Pick whichever fits how you work.

As a title

Drag Titles › Grit Guides Pro into your timeline above your clips, and stretch it over the part you're framing.

With Timeline Size on Auto, the title works out your project's shape on its own: 16:9, 4:3, vertical, 4:5, square or cinema wide. If a frame ever looks the wrong shape, select the title once, or choose your project's size under Timeline Size.

Projects wider than 16:9 (2.39:1, 21:9, DCI): Final Cut gives a title only the middle 16:9 of the frame, so the left and right edges, with the left ruler, stay empty. Use the effect on an adjustment layer instead: it covers the whole frame.

As an effect

Add an adjustment layer above your timeline and drop Effects › Grit Guides Pro on it. It takes your project's shape on its own, whatever it is, and covers the whole frame.

3. Presets

The Preset menu at the top sets everything at once.

Built-in: YouTube 16:9, Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, All Platforms and Thirds Only. They leave your colors and Timeline Size alone.
My Presets: Your own. Save as New Preset… keeps the current settings; turn on Guides to keep the guides' count and positions too. Update, Rename and Delete work on the preset that's chosen.

The menu also has Save as Viewer Overlay: see Viewer overlay.

Once you change a setting, the preset's name shows (edited). The circular arrow applies the preset again, undoing your changes. Presets are saved on your Mac and work in every project.

Share presets

Open the Grit Guides Pro app and use its Presets menu. Export Presets… saves yours to a file; on another Mac, or for another editor, Import Presets… adds them to theirs. A preset they already have isn't added twice, and a name that's taken gets a number.

4. Start

Show Overlay: Turns everything on or off.
Timeline Size: The size the rulers and guide numbers count in. Final Cut doesn't tell plug-ins the project's size, so Auto works it out from what Final Cut draws and from the project's shape. If the numbers ever look off, choose your project's exact size from the list.

5. Guides & Rulers

Rulers: Rulers along the top and left edges, numbered in pixels. Ruler Opacity sets how dark their band is.
Guides: Up to 10 vertical and 10 horizontal guides (Vertical Guides, Horizontal Guides). Each guide's position is a number in pixels: type it, drag the slider, or drag the guide in the viewer. Its number shows in the ruler next to it.
On-Screen Controls: The handles in the viewer for dragging guides. Final Cut shows them for the effect that's selected: click Grit Guides Pro's name in the inspector.
Snap: A dragged guide snaps to the center, the edges, the thirds, the golden-ratio lines, the safe zones and the other guides.
Mirror Pairs: Guides move in pairs (1 with 2, 3 with 4…): drag one and its partner mirrors it across the center.
Show Spacing: Measures every gap: an arrow between neighboring guides (and from the outer guides to the frame's edges) with the distance in pixels.
Guide Color: The guides' color.

6. Composition

Grid: Rule of Thirds, Golden Ratio, Custom Grid (your own columns and rows), Center Cross, Diagonals, Phi Grid, Golden Triangle (Flip mirrors it), Harmonic Armature and Fifths, with its own color and opacity.
Layout Grid: Columns and rows with a margin and a gutter, like a design layout. Shade Cells fills them so they're easy to see.

7. Delivery Checks

Safe Zones: Action safe and title safe (as percentages), and the 4:3 center cut.
Social Safe Zone: Where Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts or Instagram Stories cover the picture with buttons and captions. All Platforms takes the widest margins of all of them, for one edit you post everywhere. Shade tints what's covered, and the edge of what stays clear is outlined. Custom lets you set the margins yourself. App Screen shows the app's buttons, caption and tabs over your video (with made-up names and numbers), so you see it the way viewers will (each app's own; not with All Platforms). Profile Grid Crop (3:4) shows the part of a Reel's cover Instagram keeps on your profile grid.
Aspect Check: How a shot crops at 2.39:1, 2.35:1, 2:1, 1.85:1, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 4:5 or 9:16 (or your own). Mode draws an outline, letterbox bars, or both. Also Outline 9:16, 4:5, 1:1, 16:9 add more outlines at once, each labeled, for one edit cut to several shapes. They show even when the check above is off.
YouTube: Player Screen shows YouTube's title bar, progress bar and controls over a 16:9 frame. End Screen shows where an end screen's videos and Subscribe button usually sit in its last 5 to 20 seconds, so nothing important ends up under them. In a project that isn't 16:9, YouTube shows your video with bars around it inside its 16:9 player, so Grit draws the player the same way: in a 2.39:1 video the controls fall in the bars below the picture, and in a vertical one most of the end screen falls beside it.

8. Reference Image

Put a still or a clip in the image well and raise its Opacity to line your shot up with a reference, like a storyboard frame or a client's layout. It sits under the guides.

9. Appearance

Color Set: Colors for everything at once: Classic, Neon, All White or All Black.
Line Width, Dark Edge: How thick the lines are, and a dark outline that keeps them visible over bright footage.
Text Size: The size of the numbers.
HDR Brightness: How bright the lines are in HDR projects.
Ruler Numbers: From Top Left (Pixels), or From Center (Position) to match Final Cut's own Position values.

Every change can be undone with ⌘Z.

10. Before you export

Grit Guides Pro draws into your export like any title or effect. Before you share, select its clip and press V to disable it, or turn off Show Overlay. Or use a viewer overlay, which is never exported.

11. Viewer overlay

Final Cut can show an image over its viewer that never goes into an export or the scopes: a Custom Overlay. Grit Guides Pro can make one from your setup:

Set up the overlay the way you want it (guides, safe zones, App Screen…).
In the Preset menu, choose Save as Viewer Overlay. It's saved at your project's size, named after the preset.
In the viewer's View menu, choose it under Choose Custom Overlay, and turn on Show Custom Overlay.
Disable the Grit Guides Pro clip (V), or delete it.

The overlay now shows in every project until you turn Show Custom Overlay off. It's a still picture: to change it, turn the clip back on, adjust, and save it again (the same name is replaced). To remove one, delete it from ~/Library/Application Support/ProApps/Custom Overlays.

12. Troubleshooting

It isn't in the Titles or Effects browser: Quit and reopen Final Cut Pro. If it's still missing, open the Grit Guides Pro app: it says whether it's installed, and Install puts it back.
The handles don't show in the viewer: Click Grit Guides Pro's name in the inspector, and check On-Screen Controls is on.
The overlay looks cropped, or the numbers don't match my project: Set Timeline Size to Auto, or to your project's exact size.
The guides are in my export: See Before you export, or use a viewer overlay.
The viewer overlay doesn't show: In the viewer's View menu, check that it's chosen under Choose Custom Overlay and that Show Custom Overlay is on, at an opacity above 0%.

13. Uninstall

Open the Grit Guides Pro app and click Uninstall…. It removes the title and the effect from Final Cut Pro and moves the app to the Trash. Clips that used it show it as missing. Your presets stay in ~/Library/Application Support/Grit Guides Pro.

Support

Questions or problems: support@dnftd.net.