Removing captions that type in, fade in or pop word by word

Updated November 5, 2026 · Peelframe

Shorts and Reels often use captions that type in letter by letter, fade in slowly, or turn just the spoken word a different colour. They look good, but they are harder to remove than captions that sit still: the same sentence has a different number of letters and a different brightness in every frame, so a letter that is just appearing or just fading out is easy to leave behind. This is the order to follow when removing such captions in the workspace.

What counts as an animated caption

• Typing: the sentence grows one letter or one word at a time. The moment the last letter appears is short and easy to miss.
• Fade: letters go from transparent to solid, or fade away at the end. Several half-transparent frames follow one another.
• Word highlight: the sentence stays, and only the spoken word changes to another colour, such as yellow.
• Pop: letters grow and settle back to their normal size, so the first few frames are larger than usual.
• The second line of a two-line caption: the top line appears first and the bottom line starts a moment later.

1. Draw the area at the longest, largest moment

A typing caption starts short and gets longer. If you draw the area on the first frame, the letters that appear later fall outside it and stay on screen.

1. On the timeline, go to the moment when the whole sentence is shown. For a two-line caption, the moment both lines are visible.
2. Draw the area around all of the text in that frame. Leave about one letter of room on the sides and about half a letter's height above and below.
3. If the caption pops, also look at the frame where the letters are largest and widen the area to fit them.

There is no need to make the area huge. Subtitle text · when visible looks only for the caption's own letters inside the area, so the picture around them stays as it was.

2. Give the start and end some room

A fading caption starts with a very faint first frame. If the start time is set after the letters become clear, the faint letters before it stay behind.

• Set the start just before the letters appear and the end just after they are completely gone. The −0.01 s / +0.01 s buttons next to the position field step one frame at a time.
• It is fine if a few frames without a caption fall inside the time range: this mode only works on frames where letters are visible.

3. Test the difficult frames before processing

Before running the whole video, press Test current frame on the few frames where traces are most likely. Each test takes only seconds.

• The first frame where the caption starts to appear
• The frame where the last letter of a typing caption has just appeared
• The frame where the second line has just started
• The last frame, as the letters fade away

Preview current removal mask shows which part of that frame will be removed. If a letter that has just appeared is not marked, the area is too small.

4. After processing, check the moments of change

Watch the result once at normal speed, then pause where the caption changes and step a few frames back and forth. Most traces of animated captions are at these moments. Also look at the Leftover subtitle check shown when processing finishes: it points to the places and times where letters may remain.

5. Fixing what is left

1. Only a frame or two: at that position, open Touch up this frame with the brush, paint over the remaining letters and press Re-restore selected range. There is no need to process the whole video again.
2. The same letters across many frames: usually the area does not cover them. Widen the area slightly or extend the start and end, then process again.
3. Only the highlight colour is left: in a word-highlight caption, the coloured word is part of the caption too. Make sure the area covers every highlighted word.

Good to know

Where letters were removed, the AI draws the area again from the picture around it. When letters keep changing over a fast-moving background, the filled area can look very slightly different from frame to frame. Check important scenes with the side-by-side slider before posting. And use this only on videos you made or have permission to edit.