How to Use Corner Pin Tracking in After Effects

Corner pin tracking in Adobe After Effects allows you to replace planar surfaces—such as phone screens, billboards, and computer monitors—by tracking four points of motion across a shot. This guide explains how to set up the native Tracker panel, configure a Perspective Corner Pin, analyze motion across your footage, and map a new graphic or video layer directly into the scene for a seamless composite.

1. Set Up the Composition

  1. Open Adobe After Effects and import both your background video (the footage containing the surface you want to replace) and your replacement graphic or video.
  2. Drag your background video onto the New Composition icon.
  3. Place your replacement asset into the composition above the video layer, then hide its visibility for now by clicking the eye icon next to the layer.

Tip: If your replacement graphic has a different resolution or aspect ratio than the tracked surface, right-click the replacement layer and choose Pre-compose (selecting "Move all attributes into the new composition"). This ensures the corner pin coordinates map correctly without distorting the source dimensions.

2. Configure the Tracker Panel

  1. Select your background video layer in the timeline.
  2. Open the Tracker panel by going to Window > Tracker.
  3. In the Tracker panel, click Track Motion. This automatically opens the Layer panel and adds a single track point to the view.
  4. Locate the Track Type dropdown menu inside the Tracker panel and change it from Transform to Perspective Corner Pin. After Effects will generate four track points labeled Upper Left, Upper Right, Lower Left, and Lower Right.

3. Position the Track Points

  1. Move the timeline playhead to the frame where the surface is most visible and clear (typically the first frame of the shot).
  2. Click and drag the center of each of the four tracking points to the respective corners of the object you want to track (e.g., the four physical corners of a screen or sign).
  3. Adjust the inner box (Feature Region) to encompass a distinct high-contrast detail at each corner.
  4. Adjust the outer box (Search Region) to define the area After Effects scans from frame to frame. Keep the search region small for slow, stable shots, and enlarge it if the camera moves rapidly.

4. Analyze the Motion

  1. In the Tracker panel, locate the Analyze controls.
  2. Click the Analyze Forward button (the right-facing play icon).
  3. Watch the tracker carefully as it processes. If any track point slips off its target due to motion blur, occlusions, or sudden movement, stop the analysis immediately.
  4. Manually reposition the slipped point on the problematic frame, then resume tracking forward.

5. Apply the Tracking Data to the Target

  1. Once the track finishes, click the Edit Target button in the Tracker panel.
  2. In the dialog box that appears, select your replacement layer (or the pre-comp created in Step 1) as the target and click OK.
  3. Click the Apply button in the Tracker panel.
  4. After Effects switches back to the Composition panel and applies the Corner Pin effect directly to your replacement layer, populating the corner values with the keyframes generated from the track.

6. Refine the Composite

  1. Make your replacement layer visible again in the timeline.
  2. Enable Motion Blur on the replacement layer and the composition to naturally blend fast movements.
  3. Change the blend mode of the replacement layer (e.g., Screen or Multiply) to allow original surface reflections and lighting variations to show through.
  4. Apply color correction effects like Curves or Lumetri Color to match the black levels, exposure, and color temperature of the background plate.