This is a simple guide for using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit simple videos.
Adobe used to sell a Master Collection of all Adobe software that cost thousands of dollars. Adobe have moved to a monthly subscription model for single or bundled software packages. Goto http://www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud.html and review the software options.
Adobe Photoshop is a must for editing Photographs and Adobe Premiere Pro is a must for video editing.
You will need to choose your Adobe Software Package or Bundle (above) and follow the prompts to purchase it. You will be required to link the software to an Adobe ID (Adobe Account). Once you link your Software to an Adobe ID you can login into any PC/Mac and install your software using the Adobe App Download Utility.
Fyi: If you can buy a subsidised 1 year subscription of Creative Cloud at your work you will need to..
- 1: Buy the 1 year redemption from your work.
- 2: Create an Adobe account.
- 3: Redeem the subscription.
- 4: Download the apps with the Adobe Download Manager app.
The Adobe Download manager will allow you to download or update any of your purchased software packages
Update installed apps
Download new apps.
Once you have installed Adobe Premiere Pro you can open it.
Before you start.
- Have you recorded all of your footage?
- Do you have at least 20GB free space?
- Save your videos to a folder that will not be moved later as Premier Pro links to the videos where they reside are and moving the videos will trigger you to re-link them.
- Do you have a good story to tell?
Bookmark the Adobe Premiere Pro CC help pages here https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro.html and visit YouTube and search for Adobe premiere Pro CC Tutorial.
Adobe Premiere Pro user Interface Basics.
I created a new project called “snow” and will save the project in the default place. Select “HDV” for High Definition. Click on the scratch disc tab.
Adobe Premiere Pro will use these locations to copy andy of the videos or audio instead of touching the original videos. You can delete cached content later (these folders will grow a lot).
The first thing you need to learn is how to reset your workspace. Go to the Window then Workspaces the Editing menu to reset your view.
Click the “Project: Snow” tab in the lower left-hand side to get ready to start importing videos.
You could just start dragging and dropping in dozens of videos but I would suggest you create a number of folders (called “bins”) to store your video and other media assets into.
I will create 4 folders (bin’s) called:
- 01. On our way to the snow
- 02. Above Sheba Dam
- 03. Near Ponderosa
- 04. Misc
Now I can drag the videos (and pictures) into each bin folder.
Once you have filled each folder take some time reviewing each folder and think about what story you can create. I am going to create a fun mash-up for the day in order.
Creating My Snow Video
First, I double click on my “01. On our way to the snow” bin folder and drag the video onto the timeline sequence.
Hopefully, you can now see your video in the timeline
Shortcut Keys:
- SPACEBAR plays and pauses the clip.
- MINUS will Zoom Out of the timeline.
- PLUS will Zoom Into the timeline.
- BACKSPACE will zoom out and show all of your timeline.
More shortcuts keys here.
If you were skilled at recording you can just add more video to the timeline and be finished in no time but we have loads of editing and re arranging to do.
Adding a Title
Move your playback cursor to the start pf the video (press HOME ) and go to the Title, New Title then Default Still to start creating a new title.
If you ever used Photoshop this will be very familiar. Close the title screen to save it.
Now I dragged and dropped the timeline above the existing video track. I moved the driving time-lapse to the right and dragged a photo before the time-lapse. Now you can see how you can mix together Videos, Picture and text.
Before I get too carried away I am going to source a background soundtrack from https://www.youtube.com/user/NoCopyrightSounds/videos I am going to choose this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkUweq5FAcE
If I have enough footage I like to have my videos match the audio where possible for greater impact.
Basic Editing Tools
These are the tool’s that you will use 99% of the time.
If you want to cut a video in half use the Razor tool, if you want to move or interact with clips switch back to the selection tool.
Cutting, Trimming and Cropping Videos and audio
Move the selection tool to the end of a video and click and drag when you see this icon to truncate the length of a video without cutting it.
Move the selection tool to the start of a video and click and drag when you see this icon to truncate the length of a video without cutting it
You could cut a video to size but truncate it (like above) will allow you to extend the clip again without rejoining the video sections.
Layers
Adobe Premiere Pro (like Photoshop) allows you to have layers of videos to allow you to show a “picture in picture” or (picture in picture in picture).
Building your Video.
Now comes the time-consuming bit of finding each video to insert, placing it, trimming it, cutting it and or moving it. This can take hours or days (depending on how fussy you are).
Caching your files.
Adobe Premiere Pro likes to cache your files to speed up the preview and export process. The green, yellow and red lines indicate what parts of your timeline are cached.
Exporting your Video
Exports can take up to 1 hour per 5 minutes on a 3 year old computer.
My VLOG Trip to the Snow video.
My 1st VLOG video.
Tutorials to Watch:
- Create a Ken Burns Effect in Premiere Pro CC
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC – Editing 101: Basic Audio (Part 3)
- Episode 19 – Adding Video and Audio Transitions – Tutorial for Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015
If you need more help consider buying a professional Adobe Premiere Pro CC course from Udemy.com or search YouTube for Adobe Premiere Pro CC Tutorials
The Adobe Help site is great too: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro.html
Good luck and let me know what you create.
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