VSCO’s new editing tool Montage lets you edit and layer both photos and video

VSCO, a popular photo editing app (and Gen Z meme), is continuing to shift its focus to video. Last month, the company finally gave its creators the ability to publish their video edits to the VSCO feed alongside their photos. And today VSCO is rolling out a more powerful and complex video editing tool called Montage.

Already, VSCO allowed users to apply photo-like edits to their videos by doing things like applying filters or adjusting the exposure, for example. But Montage is an entirely different sort of video editing experience. Now, users will be able to tell longer video stories involving scenes, where they can even stack and layer one or more videos, photos, colors, and shapes in order to create a collage-like finished product, VSCO explains.

The new feature is available from VSCO Studio, which is where all VSCO projects begin. To get started, users will pick an aspect ratio (e.g. square, landscape, portrait) as the canvas, then begin adding their multiple photos and videos from their Camera Roll to create their scenes.

As you create your “Montage,” you can also adjust the opacity of the images you add in the various layers, VSCO notes. There’s no limit to the number of scenes you add to the video, but only videos two minutes or less can be posted to the VSCO feed. The end results can also be shared outside Vimeo, if you choose.

VSCO’s investments in video come at a time when the company has seen video editing double, reflecting the younger generation’s increasing interest in video-sharing across social media, as with Instagram Stories or newly popular apps like TikTok and Byte.

Last year, VSCO signaled its intention to shift more of its energy into video when it acquired the video technology company Rylo.

The app’s new video features, including Montage, are intended to help VSCO grow its paying subscriber base. In December, VSCO said it was on pace to surpass 4 million paying users sometime in 2020 and was approaching $80 million in annual revenue, thanks to the app’s $19.99 annual subscription. In total, VSCO sees more than 20 million active users per week, 2+ million who are paying members.

Free VSCO users will be able to play with Montage, but to save and post a finished video, you’ll need to subscribe. Montage rolls out on iOS and Android, starting today.