one of the things that holds us back the most when it comes to producing video content is the
amount of time it takes to edit a three-minute video might take hours to edit and a 10-minute
video might take days while you're editing speed can naturally improve with practice I'm gonna
share 20 of my favorite Premiere Pro editing tips to give your editing a boost let's get into it
hello creators I'm Ben Toalson from Podia where we empower creators like you to make a living
doing what you love in today's video I'm gonna share a massive list of tips that include things
you can do before you even open your project and things that you can do during the editing process
I'm gonna try to get through all of these in ten minutes without rushing so we'll see how it goes
let's get started check the settings on your camera specifically you'll want to check your
exposure and white balance if you have your camera set to automatic your shot may be fine
but it's always a good idea to double check and adjust settings so that you have as little colour
correction to do as possible in post what you're looking for with white balance is natural-looking
white and skin tones and with exposure you're making sure that the shot isn't too dark or
too blown out in the light areas make each take or shot a separate clip when you're recording
whether you're talking directly to the camera or shooting b-roll it can be tempting to just let
the camera roll between takes or b-roll shots but this costs you time in the editing process
because you have to watch through the footage to find the cuts get into the habit of stopping
and restarting your recording between takes and shots so you don't have to waste time rewatching
all of your footage review your footage after you transferred your video files to your computer look
through your files and see if you can identify any shots or takes you're just not going to use
I often take a handful of shots of the same object for b-roll or sometimes shoot the same object from
different angles by looking through before I start a new project I can identify the clips I
know I'm not going to use and then only import what I need organize your project before you
open your project you can actually organize your files into named folders based on categories then
drag those folders into your project this will automatically separate your footage two bins once
your footage is in your project you can select all of the footage in a specific category and choose
a colored label this will make it easier to find the type of footage you want to bring into your
timeline and easier to identify the category of the specific clip on your timeline arrange
your workspace Premiere Pro has some predetermined layouts depending on the type of work you're doing
but you can actually custom design your workspace based on your personal preferences every module
can be resized repositioned or even removed and once you get your workspace how you want it you
can save it as a new workspace so that you can easily recall that layout whenever you're going
to use it create a favorites folder for effects you plan to use regularly if there are effects
or transitions you tend to use multiple times during your editing process create a favorites
bin in your effects window and drag those effects into it this way instead of having to collapse or
expand your effects and transition bins multiple times your favorite effects and transitions are
quick and easy to find make proxies editing 4k footage and even full HD footage can put
a strain on your computer and make it difficult and frustrating to edit proxies are lower quality
versions of your original footage that make it easier for your computer to keep up while you're
editing when you finish editing your video it will render using the original full resolution footage
you can create proxies by right-clicking on your footage in the project window and selecting proxy
and create proxies 1280 by 720 is a good size to work with but if you have a slower computer
you might want to go a little bit lower than that to make sure your proxies are being used you may
need to click the plus icon in the lower right of your program monitor and drag the proxy icon
over to your other tools when the icon is blue that means your proxies are active and you can
edit with ease build an assets library if there are graphics logos icons or audio clips that you
use regularly create a bin specifically for those assets so that you can easily find them just click
on the new bin icon in the project window and drag in your assets or organize them into a folder on
your computer and drag the folder into the project window save your project as a template if you tend
to have the same format or use the same elements for your videos you can save yourself set up time
by saving a template while Premiere Pro doesn't have a template function you can just name your
file template when you open your template file to start a new project just remember to save
as your new project name right away so that you don't accidentally overwrite your template use an
adjustment layer for color correction if you've used the method of color correcting a clip and
then copying and pasting that effect to other clips in your timeline you can save time by not
color correcting the clip in the first place let me explain you can create an adjustment layer by
clicking the new item icon in the project window and selecting adjustment layer drag
this into your timeline above the footage you'd like to color correct with the adjustment layer
selected make your color correction adjustments this will apply your color correction to any
clip below the adjustment layer you can always make adjustments directly to the clip if there
are variances between clips on your timeline this also works with some of the effects and can be a
huge time-saver these next few I'm going to walk you through some keyboard shortcuts I'm using
the default set from mine but you can actually go into the keyboard shortcut settings and change the
shortcut for specific actions what I want you to focus on is not as much the specific letters but
the tools and the methods I'm using ripple trim this first method is a little bit complicated but
it's a huge time-saver for wherever your playhead is located on the targeted track that means the
track that's highlighted on your timeline you can either ripple trim previous edit to playhead
which will delete the clip segment to the left of the playhead or ripple trim next edit to playhead
which will delete the clip segment to the right of the playhead on my keyboard I have those set to Q
and W you may want to lock out any clips you don't want to move in relation to your edits like audio
company ment or adjustment layers duplicating Clips one of my absolute favorite shortcuts to
use is option drag to duplicate clips I use this a ton if I've created graphics or text elements
with effects I want to use throughout my video rather than copying and pasting or rebuilding
the text and effects every time I can option drag the clip I want to duplicate and just edit the
text the original version stays intact and I can do this countless times throughout my timeline
applying default transitions in the transition bins each transition type video or audio has a
default transition that's highlighted in blue you can change which transition is your default
by right-clicking your preferred transition and selecting set as default and you can also adjust
the default length of the selected transition by clicking the menu drop-down next to effects and
selecting set default transition duration once you've chosen your preferred default instead of
dragging it over to your Clips just select your clip and hold Shift D or however you set it in
your shortcuts adjust playback speed if you're editing a talking head video or if you've got a
lot of footage to work through you can hold shift l after you started your video to speed up your
playback you may want to tap it a number of times to get up to a comfortable speed unfortunately
once you stop and restart the playback it'll revert back to the normal speed so you'll have
to use the shortcut again but still it can give you just that little bit of extra speed when
you're editing zoom like a pro you might already know that you can zoom in and out of your timeline
with the plus and minus key but you can also hold the command key as you zoom to change the vertical
height of the video tracks and the option key is use ium to change the vertical height of the audio
tracks you can also hold the option key and track up or down on your mouse and the timeline will
zoom in or out to wherever your cursor is located save timeline presets another way you can make it
easier to get your preferred timeline view is to create timeline presets this only works for
track Heights but it can come in handy if you're working with multiple layers for this adjust the
height of your tracks to your preferred view then click the wrench icon in the timeline window and
select save preset next give your preset a name and select a track height preset now you can map
the track height preset to a keyboard shortcut in your shortcut editor I'm going to use shift
and a number key for mine now instead of having to manually adjust the height I can use the keyboard
shortcut markers another way to easily navigate through your timeline is by using markers before
you add your markers you may want to click markers in the menu and make sure ripple sequence markers
and copy-paste include sequence markers are both checked this ensures that the markers will move
with your footage as you make edits the simplest way to add a marker is to put the playhead where
you'd like a marker and hit the M key once you've added your markers you can use shift m or command
shift m to jump to the next or previous markers on your timeline copy and paste effects if you
want to copy any type of effect to another clip select the original clip highlight the effect
you'd like to copy and type command C and then select a new clip and type command V this will
automatically add the effect to your new clip including any animations you might have added
to the effect replace clip from bin this can be a fun trick if you've got graphics or video clips
you've already added effects to but would like to replace without having to redo all of those
effects in your project window click on the new graphic or video clip you'd like to use then in
the timeline right-click the clip you'd like to replace and choose replace with clip and from bin
this will replace your clip while leaving all of the effects intact create transition effect
presets this technique uses the adjustment layer and works with effects that can be applied to
Clips through the adjustment layer for example I've created a transition that uses directional
blur and lens distortion to transition between Clips because these clips are in the adjustment
layer I don't have to manually apply these effects to every clip I'm going to select the adjustment
layer and put the playhead right at the center of the transition and type em to create a marker on
the clip this will allow the adjustment layer to snap easily to the cut points between Clips
if you want me to make a video about how I created this transition let me know in the
comments the last step is to right click the adjustment layer and select make subsequence
this will appear in your project window and you can rename it however you'd like now you
can just drag that subsequence to any place on your timeline you'd like to use that transition
all right that's all of them if I blew past the ten-minute mark I apologize and hopefully these
tips were worth it they've helped me a ton and I hope they help you as well where any of these
tips new to you are there any tips you'd add to this list let me know in the comments don't
forget to subscribe if you're not already and hit the notification bell so you can be the
first to know when we publish new videos thank you for watching and I'll see you next time