Dear all, welcome to this new tutorial dedicated to Adobe Premiere Pro, one
of the best video editors you can use to realize your own videos by adding
nice effects, transitions and color adjustments! In just 12 minutes
you are going to see everything you need to learn to start using it
straight away!
Premiere Pro comes with the Creative Cloud bundle and it is available for
both Windows and MacOS with a proper subscription plan.
When you open Premiere the Home Screen page opens, showing several options
to start off. You can pick any latest project made, go to Open Project on
the left to browse for any other project or click on New Project to start
with a new one by setting name, destination folder and further video and
audio options at the bottom.
The new project opens on the main interface made by several panels that
may change according to the workspace you select from the top. In this
tutorial we will use the Editing one only but you can always
reopen any missing panel from the Window tab.
Before going on, let's understand the main structure of any Premiere Pro
project. Each project is made by several Sequences, such as independent
pieces of video created by combining pictures, videos and audio files
together within a timeline view made of Tracks in time.
When starting with a new project you won't have any sequence, so use CTRL
(or CMD) and N to make a new one. On the left select the right video
template to use or switch to Settings above to use your own options. Select
Custom on Editing Mode to apply your own frame rate, frame size, color
code, sample rate and so on. Consider that you will work with these
Sequence properties through the whole video editing process.
Once the Sequence is in place you can import files by dragging and dropping
these to the timeline tracks from any folder or the Media Browser
panel on the left. Pictures and videos are collected inside Video Tracks
(with a V letter) as blocks in pink and blue color respectively. Whereas
sound files inside Audio Tracks (with an A letter) as blocks in green
color. You can use your mouse wheel to move through time and use it with
ALT (or the Option) key to zoom in and out around your mouse cursor.
You can find all your imported files and created sequences inside the
Project panel on the left.
To get a quick preview of your sequence in progress you can use the Program
panel on top, showing the frame under the blue timeline playhead. Click and
drag on the timeline to move it and check specific frames in time or use
the player buttons to playback all in real time smoothly.
If you get a laggy preview you may need to lower its quality with Playback
resolution or reduce its size by going to Sequence, Sequence Settings...,
Video Preview. Just pay attention to keep the same aspect ratio
(between width and height size) of your Sequence.
As you import clips some of these may appear zoomed in, cut or with
annoying black bars if these do not match the Sequence size and aspect
ratio. To resolve black bars open the Project panel, right-click on the
sequence and go to Auto Reframe Sequence, selecting the correct aspect
ratio to keep. A new sequence will be created with all the clips zoomed in
enough. You may need to add other clips if these are missing and correct
others if they are too much enlarged. We will see how to adjust these later
in this video.
Let's see how to edit these clips. Enable the Selection Tool on the left
and click on any clip to select it and drag it to move it in time or in
another track. Video frames and audio are always moved together, unless you
right-click on these and go to Unlink to make them independent.
If clips overlap the preview shows the clip on the top Video Track in front
of all the others in lower positions.
Click and drag any clip edge to adjust its duration. This cuts content from
videos and audio files to make these shorter in time.
To extend and shorten these in time without cutting content you can change
their playback rate with the Rate Stretch Tool: a shorter clip is played
faster (over 100%) and an extended clip is played slower, below 100%.
Whereas enable the Razor Tool and click on the clip to split it.
You can cut, copy and paste any clip by selecting it with the Selection
Tool and right-clicking on it. Choose Clear to remove any clip definitely.
Make sure to use CTRL (and CMD) and Z to undo if you make any mistake. You
can also open the History panel to go backwards in the list.
On the left you get several options for each track. The eye button hides
and shows content from the Video Track; use M (Mute) and S (Solo)
buttons to mute or solo the Audio Track and the Record button allows to record
from any microphone directly on the Audio Track. You can adjust the
recording source and options with Edit, Preferences, Audio Hardware...
Enable the Lock button to prevent modifications on any track and adjust the
whole sequence volume with the Mix Track at the bottom. Make sure to avoid
red volume levels or you risk to get distortion in output.
To add or remove tracks right-click on any vacant part on the left.
You can adjust all the properties of any clip by selecting it and opening
the Effect Controls panel. Here click and drag to change values; click on
the fx button to disable or enable any property modification and use the
Reset button to revert these to their original value.
Depending on the kind of clip selected you get video and audio options.
On images and videos you can adjust position and size with Scale,
especially if the clip is bigger than the preview or is partially cut.
Rotate the clip with Rotation and add transparency with Opacity.
On audio you can set the volume level and balance the stereo channels.
From the Effects panel you can browse for loads of video and audio effects
that you can apply by dragging and dropping these on any clip. These
effects get listed within the Effects Controls panel, where you can edit
their properties while checking the preview. You can remove any effect, just
right-click on it and go to Clear.
You can also apply advanced corrections to colors and audio with several
panels on the right. Open Lumetri Color to adjust brightness, exposure,
contrast and color intensity with sidebars, color wheels and color curves.
Whereas with Essential Sound select the kind of source you have selected
and apply audio ducking, reverb and audio adjustment. We won't see these
panels in detail in this quick beginner tutorial.
From the Effects panel you can also add video and audio transitions by
dragging and dropping these on any clip edge or between two adjacent clips.
These allow to change the video content with smooth and nice effects!
Click on the transition name to select it and drag its edges to change its
extension: the longer it is, the slower the transition effect is.
You can also open the Effect Controls to adjust its properties and
right-click on it and go to Clear to remove it definitely.
With Premiere you can also drop vector drawings and pieces of text. Enable
the Rectangle and the Ellipse tool and click and drag on the preview to
drop regular shapes. Whereas use the Pen Tool to make your own drawings,
dropping straight sides as you click on the preview and custom curves
when you click and drag, following the Bézier technique with tangent
handles.
In addition enable any Text Tool to drop horizontal or vertical text. Click
and drag on the preview to define a text contour and type within it.
All these shapes and titles are collected within a pink clip that can be
moved and edited just like other clips. You can also enable the Selection
Tool to move, scale and rotate these objects within the preview. Whereas
open Effect Controls to adjust fill and stroke appearance and also the text
font, style, size, distribution and color.
You can also use the Essential Graphics panel to adjust all these
properties as well, all collected under Edit. You can switch to Browse to
find ready templates to add motion titles, lower thirds and credits.
To save your project go to File, Save As. This saves your project with all
its sequences and clips within a .prproj format, in order to reopen and
edit it any time.
Whereas to render and export your project into a video select the right
sequence and go to File, Export, Media... On the left go to Source to crop
the video as you need and trim it by dragging the white markers placed at
the bottom.
On the right select the video format and the preset to use. You can also
customize Video and Audio properties at the bottom, changing the video
size, aspect ratio, frame rate, audio codec and sample rate. Enable
the checkmark on the right to be sure to match the original source files.
Click on Output Name to set video name and where to save it. Then go to
Export to render it!
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