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Media overlays let you place an image or video on top of your recording — a logo, a screenshot, a reaction GIF, or a picture-in-picture clip — without replacing what’s already on screen. This is different from media (B-roll), which swaps out a whole slot of your layout. An overlay floats above everything for the stretch of time you choose. For the other kinds of overlay, and how they fit together, see Overlays overview.

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Where to find media overlays

  1. Open your video in the editor.
  2. Open Overlay in the sidebar.
  3. Find the Media section.

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Add an overlay

  1. Move the playhead to where you want the overlay to appear.
  2. Click the plus button beside Media. This opens the Media Library.
  3. Pick an image or video — upload one from your computer, choose an existing item from your Personal or Workspace library, or generate an image with AI. (It’s the same library you use for media/B-roll.)
The overlay drops onto the canvas at the playhead.
A selected time range wins over the playhead. If you have a range selected — on the timeline or in the transcript — the overlay starts at the beginning of that range instead, and selecting several ranges adds one overlay to each. Clear the selection first if you want the playhead to decide.An image fills the whole range. A video shorter than the range does not stretch to fill it — the card ends when the clip runs out.
With the library open, you can paste a copied image (⌘V / Ctrl+V) to upload and drop it in as an overlay in one step — no need to save the file first.
Transparent video overlays keep their transparent areas. This includes WebM files encoded with VP8 or VP9 and ProRes files with an alpha channel.

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Drop files onto the timeline

You can add local media without opening the Media Library:
  1. Drag one or more image, video, or audio files from your computer.
  2. Drop them where you want them to start on the playbar, or on the timeline shown in Cut, Zoom, Overlay, or Layout.
Tella adds images and videos as overlays and adds audio files as sound effects. The files are also saved to your Personal library so you can reuse them. When you drop several files together, Tella uploads and adds every supported file at the same point. The editor opens the Overlay sidebar and selects the first new item when the uploads finish.
Drop a file on another clip’s section of the playbar to add it to that clip.

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Position, rotate, and size it

  • On the canvas, drag the overlay to move it and drag its corners to resize it.
  • To rotate it, select the overlay and drag the rotation handle above it.
  • The overlay keeps its position and size relative to your video frame, so it stays put across aspect ratios.
For image overlays, select the overlay to open its contextual controls in the sidebar. Use Ratio to crop it to its original shape or a preset aspect ratio, and use Size to set its width as a percentage of the canvas.

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Set when it appears

In the Overlay timeline, adjust how long the overlay is on screen:
  • Drag the start or end of the overlay card to change its duration.
  • Drag the card left or right to move it earlier or later in the clip.
  • Hold Option on Mac or Alt on Windows while dragging to turn snapping off.
Card edges snap to nearby overlay edges, the playhead, and word boundaries. An alignment guide shows the edge Tella used.
The video preview follows the moving edge while you drag a duration handle, helping you choose the exact frame where the overlay appears or disappears.
Overlapping overlays appear on separate timeline tracks. See Work with the multi-track timeline for how tracks are laid out, and for selecting, splitting, copying, and reordering cards.
A video overlay shows its audio waveform on the timeline card. Its trimmed range is capped to the length of the source clip, so a short video won’t loop to fill a longer overlay.

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Mute a video overlay

Video overlays can include their own audio. To turn it off without removing the overlay:
  1. Select the video overlay on the canvas or timeline.
  2. Open its three-dots menu in the Overlay sidebar.
  3. Select Mute audio. Select Unmute audio from the same menu to restore it.
The mute action only appears for video overlays that can contain audio. It does not appear for image overlays.

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Animate the overlay in and out

By default, an overlay hard cuts — it pops in and out instantly. To make it fade instead:
  1. Select the overlay on the canvas or timeline.
  2. In the sidebar’s Transition control, choose Smooth to fade the overlay in at its start and out at its end, or Hard cut to keep it instant.
Fades only apply to visual overlays. Audio clips are added as sound effects, which mix in without a fade.

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Duplicate an overlay

  1. Select the overlay on the canvas or timeline.
  2. Open its three-dots menu in the Overlay sidebar and select Duplicate.
The copy keeps the same media, position, size, timing, transition, and source trim. It is selected and placed directly over the original, at the front of the overlay stack, so you can move or retime it immediately.

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Edit or remove an overlay

  • Select an overlay on the canvas or timeline to open its contextual controls in the Overlay sidebar.
  • Click Back in the sidebar or click an empty area of the canvas to deselect the overlay.
  • Use the selected overlay’s three-dots menu to remove it.

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Reorder layers

Right-click an overlay on the canvas and choose Send to front or Send to back to move it directly to either end of the stack. You can also drag a card between tracks, or nudge it one track at a time with the arrow keys — see Reorder overlays with tracks.

Related topics

Overlays overviewAdd text to your videoWork with the multi-track timelineApply many video editsAdd an overlay to a clip