Dear all, welcome to this short tutorial on VEGAS Pro 18, one of the best
video editors to realize custom videos and slideshows, for both amateurs
and professional users. It comes with amazing visual and audio effects,
advanced color corrections, transitions and also great text templates.
Please take a look at our YouTube channel and our official website to get
news, free tutorials and participate in our exclusive giveaway campaigns!
To start with a new VEGAS project go to New Empty Project in the top left
corner. This shows an empty timeline at the bottom and several panels and
windows on top, that you can close and reopen from the View tab, under
Window.
You can import videos, images and audio files by dragging and dropping
these from any folder directly onto the Timeline. You can also open VEGAS
Capture from the Project Media window to record from your webcam or
microphone from scratch.
The timeline is the place where you edit and create your final video. All
the imported files are shown as blocks called Events or clips, with video
frames and images collected inside Video Tracks and audio content inside
Audio Tracks, showing one audio waveform per channel representing its
volume level over time.
On the right side the Video Preview represents the timeline content where
the black marker is placed in time. Click on it to fix the starting point
and then use the player to playback in real time, using Project Video
Properties above to adjust resolution, frame rate and advanced options; and
Preview Quality to fix its quality. This new VEGAS version includes full
hardware support on both HDR files and full range 8-bit pixel format, with
automatic GPU acceleration for the smoothest preview experience.
You can get a faster preview by using the loop regions. If you click and
hold on while dragging on the timeline you create a blue loop region that
also moves the marker. This way you can check different frames forward or
backwards in time, without any audio. The same loop region is also used
to playback its inner part in loop if you keep Loop Playback enabled.
On the left side you have several options to manage the content of each
Track. Right-click on any Track to add, duplicate or remove it. Whereas use
the Mute button to disable its whole content and the Solo button to disable
all the other Tracks but the current one.
Moreover you can use the Level bar to adjust the opacity level of the
whole Video Track content; the Volume bar to adjust the volume level and
the Panning bar to balance the left and the right stereo channels on Audio
Tracks. Just make sure to check the deciBel meter over time, avoiding any
red volume level that can cause excessive distortion.
Now let's see how to edit the timeline clips. First thing to do is to
select the events to be modified: you can enable Normal Edit Tool and click
on any clip to edit it or use the Selection Edit Tool and click and drag
to select multiple clips within the defined area.
Once any clip is selected you can move it within the same Track or in
another one. In case visual clips overlap in time the ones placed on the
top Video Track are shown in front of all the others inside lower Video
Tracks.
Videos with sound have frames and audio parts grouped, unless you select and
use the U key.
You can cut, copy and paste any clip by using CTRL and X, C and V
respectively. This always acts on the clip event as a whole, unless you
have a loop region on it. In this case the only part within it will be
affected. Use CTRL+Z to undo if you make any mistake.
To adjust the clip duration click and drag its edges. If this become
shorter, part of its content is cut. If longer, this is simply put in loop
every time you see a marker at the top.
Whereas if you drag its edges while holding down the CTRL key you adjust
a clip duration by changing its speed rate, becoming faster if you
shorten it and slower if you stretch it, without creating any loop or
changing the audio pitch. In case audio sounds distorted, you may need to
adjust its pitch by right-clicking on the clip and going to Properties,
enabling Lock to stretch.
In addition, if you zoom in on a clip enough you get some buttons and
handles. Pull down the top blue handle to adjust the opacity level on
visual clips and the volume one on sound clips. Whereas use Event Pan/Crop
to open the Video Event FX panel, showing the visual clip content under a
dashed rectangle that can be moved, sized from its nodes and rotated from
its dashed circle to change the way to show it. In particular, if you scale
with Lock Aspect Ratio enabled you zoom in or out on the clip; if you do so
with this disabled you crop the clip instead.
Whereas if you click on Event FX... you will get the full list of visual
and audio effects available, depending on the kind of clip chosen. Select
any effect from the list and use Add to apply it on the clip chain above,
added in order from the left to the right. As you click on OK you can
select any effect to adjust its properties from the same panel while
checking the Preview. You can also return to Pan/Crop to find and edit the
dashed rectangle seen before.
You can also make advanced color adjustments on clips by applying the Color
Grading effect and opening its interface by using its button at the bottom.
Here correct colors and luminance on lowlights (Lift), midlights (Gamma)
and highlights (Gain) on all the RGB color channels, using Offset to
balance the color ranges. On the right you can also get Color Curves and HSL
options, including color shift with Hue, Saturation and Luminance on the
overall clip. Use Exit to apply all and come back to the standard timeline.
In VEGAS Pro 18 you get several new effects such as denoising, flicker
noise control and black bar filling. It also includes AI-driven tools like
Colorization and Style Transfer to give your clips a completely new set
of colors, also similar to famous paintings.
You can also add amazing transitions, which are special effects used to
introduce or end any clip content. To add simple fade transitions just
drag any clip from its corners, as much as you want it longer and slower in
time. This fades the opacity or the volume level in time depending on the
kind of clip, with an envelope that can be changed by right-clicking on it
and going to Fade Type.
You can also drop other special visual transitions from the Transitions
panel, using Transition Properties... to adjust it if you need.
With VEGAS Pro you can also make static and animated titles with the
templates inside the Media Generator panel, under Titles and Text. Just
drag and drop one on a Video Track to create a text clip and edit its
content, style, color and appearance by going to Generated Media...,
applying any Animation to add nice effects or transitions on it. Make sure
to place your text clip on a top Video Track or it gets overlapped by
other clips higher in position.
To save the current status of your work, including the current marker
position on the timeline, use CTRL+S. This saves a .veg project file that
you can reopen any time. You can also use Incremental Save to save new .veg
files that include a counter for a correct versioning.
Whereas if you need to turn your project into a final video go to File
and then to Render As..., selecting the format on the left and the ready
template to use on the right. You can take MAGIC HEVC to export a .mp4 file
for YouTube or any audio template to render just the audio content. Go to
Customize Template to personalize and chose templates as you wish.
At the bottom set where to save the video and its name, using the Render
button to start rendering. By default the whole timeline gets rendered,
until the end of the last clip in time. You can also render any selected
part within a loop region if you enable Render loop region only under
Render Options.
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