Basic Video Editing With Adobe Premiere Pro

Once you've installed and opened Premiere Pro, you'll be presented with the following screen:

The operation of the different buttons should be fairly obvious. Open Project opens previous projects. Premiere 6.x users can import projects by selecting open project too. Premiere Pro will the convert the existing project to the new format and editing continues where you left off. New project again does what is says and opens a new project, which is the assumed choice for this exercise. Premiere also provides a list for quick and easy access to recent projects - just click on the desired project to open and continue editing.

If you've started a new project, the next screen let's you choose the type of project you're going to create. Despite the bewildering array of choices, in the UK there is basically one choice; PAL Standard 48KHz. You might possibly choose wide screen if your camera has this facility, but note that many camcorders simply mask the standard image with two black bars rather than use the true wide screen ratio. NTSC is the American and Japanese TV standard and unless you are using a camcorder with that standard it won't work in the UK. Unless you are outside the UK, when you must use whatever standard is appropriate, choose PAL. There is a Custom Settings tab but for the moment ignore that.

Once you've chosen your settings, Browse and select a location, then enter a project name in the bottom two boxes. Click OK to arrive at the main project workspace. This window only pops up when a new project is opened. If you choose an existing project it will use the settings already selected.

Before moving on to the editing process there is one setting that will almost certainly need changing. By default Premiere plays back the audio on the DV Hardware. This means that when you play back a clip the sound is sent back to the camcorder or other video capture hardware device. If you are trying to listen using the computer's audio, nothing will be heard.

Go to Project>Project Settings>General.

Click on Playback Settings and in the Audio Playback section choose Play Audio on Audio Hardware. (See picture below)

Click OK and again OK to close the windows.

The work area in Premiere contains a number of windows these are labelled from 1 to 6 in the picture below.

1. Project: This provides access all the project files, video and audio effects (transitions, etc). The first tab contains a list of all the files imported into or rendered from the project. You can create subfolders to arrange your files, and preview the clips in the small monitor window at the top. The effects tab underneath provides access to all the effects and transitions available from Premiere Pro and any third party effects installed which are supported by Premiere.

2. Monitor: the monitor window has dual monitor windows by default. The first monitor on the left shows the unedited clip (source) from the project window which has been selected. You can drag a clip from the project window onto this monitor and cue the clip for editing. Clicking the effects control tab at the top of this monitor lets you control the effects of a selected clip in the timeline. The second monitor is the timeline (programme) window monitor and preview. Here, you can change the quality of the real-time preview by right-clicking and selecting Quality>. Right clicking and selecting Display> allows you to look at the alpha channel and other views which will become useful as you go beyond the basics.

3. Timeline: This is where the final video is assembled. You can drag clips from the Project or left monitor window onto the timeline. This represents your actual video and can be preview in the right monitor window. Premiere also allows the use of multiple timelines. You can also render the timeline and zoom in from here.

4. History: this show a history of all actions. You can click on an item in the history window to be taken back to previous actions, or forward should you wish.

5. Info: this provides information about the currently selected clip

6. Toolbar: the toolbar affects how your curser interacts with the timeline. From here you can select whether left clicking on the time line either cuts, moves, zooms selects etc. More information about the toolbar is given further down.

If you find the screen cluttered some of the widows can be toggled on and off using the Tab key.

The first job before any editing can take place is to capture and import files into the project. So let us start with the DV capture. (Note: Premiere Pro does not support analogue capture unless a compatible third party capture device has been added to the computer). To open up the capture window, select File > Capture or press F5:

Plug in your DV camera and switch it to the VCR or Play mode. The camcorder can be controlled directly from the computer. As well as the normal play, fast forward/rewind, etc the two controls either side play move the tape one frame forward or backwards. The slider below the controls acts as a shuttle and the control below that is a jog wheel.

If you prefer the controls are replicated using keyboard shortcuts.

Most digital camcorder should be recognised by both Adobe Premiere Pro and Windows XP automatically. You can change the settings of your capture by clicking the settings tab on the right window pane (this will look like the image displayed on the right). Here you can choose where to save your captured DV footage (these are saved in the same folder as the project by default), and choose your camera by clicking options in the device control panel. Don't worry if your camcorder isn't displayed, the generic settings should work fine in most cases.
	Left: Device Control options -if your camcorder isn't there, just choose the closest settings
	Right: it is recommended to set the capture locations to your scratch disk if this is different to your project location

The logging tab also gives the option of Scene Detect. Simply click the box at the bottom of this tab and then click record (the round red button underneath the capture monitor). Premiere will then attempt to automatically detect scene changes and create a series of video files on your hard drive accordingly. I've not used this feature so can't comment how well it works.

The easiest way of capturing video is to press the record button and capture the whole tape. Unless you are simply using Premiere to get your footage on to computer, I would advise users to start thinking about editing at the capture stage. This saves hard drive space and gets you thinking about how you will assemble your footage. You can do this by either by manually recording each clip (press play, record and then stop) and labelling separately, or you can use batch capture.

The first step in batch capture is to log your clips. Fill in the following information in the logging tab:

Highlight clips for batch capture

Give the tape a convenient name as you will be asked to insert the correct tape when batch capturing. If you suffix the clip with 001 and are not going to give each clip a more imaginative or descriptive name, each subsequent clip will be increased by 1 (e.g. 002, 003 etc). Once you've filled out as much information as you want, it's time to start logging the clips. Scrub the tape to the start of your first clip using the backwards/forwards buttons. Log the start of the first clip by hitting the button, play or fast forward to the end of the clip and press the button. You can also use the Set In and Set Out buttons (note, allow a few seconds either side of the in and out points for transitions!). Finally click to log the clip and you'll be presented with a dialogue box similar to the "clip data" box on the left. Fill this is, click ok and then repeat the process for the next clip until you've built up a series of clips from your tape(s).

You should now have a series of offline clips in your project window.

To record these clips on to the hard drive, close the capture window and highlight all your clips in the project window. Once you've selected all your clips, select File > Batch Capture (or press F6). Batch capture will be greyed out if you've not highlighted your clips! Click OK and insert the correct tape as prompted and the clips will then be saved to the hard drive. If you have logged more than one tape you will be prompted for additional tapes. Make sure you know which is which. The capture process is in real time so you can take a break while Premiere does its stuff.

You should now have your captured clips ready to edit. If you have already have material eg, video, still images or music you want to import into your project on the computer or disk, select File > Import and browse to the desired file. You can then move this into a bin in your project window. If you have a large project with lots of clips, it's best to use the bins to group your videos in to sections, or perhaps use separate bins for audio only files/titles to help make finding clips easier.

Now we can move onto the timeline and monitor windows. To start, drag and drop a captured file from the project window to the left hand monitor window:

You can zoom in on the timeline in the monitor window by moving either ends of the bar inwards below:

Default view

Zoomed in - click and drag the bar to move along

You will almost certainly need to trim the clip (change the in and out points), which you can either do in the monitor window or on the timeline. To trim in the monitor window, move the timeline marker to your in point and click and then move the timeline marker to the end point and click the button to mark the out point. Now grab the video from the monitor (left click and hold whilst dragging on the video) and place it on the timeline. You can also drop clips directly on the timeline from the project window and edit as explained below.

You can zoom in and out using the grey bar at the top. Moving the ends in to zoom in, stretching the bar out to zoom out. The slider, or icons either side of it (shown bottom left in the picture above) can also be used to zoom in and out. Moving the whole bar along moves the view along, as does the scroll bar at the bottom of the window. To move the in and out point of a clip, simply move the cursor to the in or out point, click and drag it along. Notice that cursor changes to a red trim bar.

To delete, or adjust the video or the audio separately, you need to unlink the audio and video - just right click on the clip and select "unlink audio and video". Once you've unlinked then video and audio, click on a blank area of the timeline to deselect the clips and then reselect the audio or video clip you wish to work on. If you wish just to trim the audio or video without unlinking the tracks, press and hold the alt key before trimming the clip. If the tracks get out of sync, a red box appears at the star of the clip showing how much out of sync the audio and video are. To re-synchronise the tracks right click on the box and select Move into Sync.

If you need to alter the audio level, make sure that the track volume is selected. Click on Show Clip Volume- using the buttons in the Track Header (the left end of the timeline)

A yellow line should show in the audio track on the timeline. Use the pen tool to add key frames and adjust the level by dragging them up and down. Be careful not to select the Track Volume. The adjustments made using this remain static on the timeline as you move the clip which will give you unexpected results.

If you are dealing with complex audio projects AVI video files can be opened with Adobe Audition which gives more facilities.

The whole audio track can be muted by clicking on the button.

Once you have managed to adjust and manipulate one clip creating your entire video is just a case of adding more clips.

You should now be familiar with the timeline so we will take a look at the effects window. Click on the effects tab on the project window and the effects control tab on the monitor window. Now select a clip in your timeline by clicking on it and you'll see the fixed effects in the effects controls tab. The scale effect will zoom in or out of the clip. You can either click once on the number next to scale effect and enter a value, or click and drag left or right to increase or decrease from the default value of 100. Alternatively click on the arrow next to the effect to bring up further options, and then move the slider along. The next but one picture shows a scale value of just under 50%.

The above methods of adjustment work for almost every effect. If you have the timeline marker on a clip in the timeline, you'll see the image zoom out in the right hand monitor window as you adjust the value. The value or mount of an effect can be varied over time by clicking on the stopwatch icon which enables key frames. Clicking on this button enables the key frames, you'll see a key frame inserted as below (if you can't see the timeline as below in the effects control window, click on the button in the top right).

Now scroll along to where you want the effect to stop and click the button to add a new key frame or select a new value as above. If you select 100%, the scale will automatically increase from the initial 49% shown to 100% to fill the screen over the time between the key frames. Again, you can do this on all video effects.

Additional effects can be chosen from the Effects tap in the Project window. Open the effects tab in the project window and open up the video effects tree to "brightness and contrast" as below:

You can the apply this effect to a clip by dragging it to the clip in the timeline and adjusting its properties in the same way as basic effects in the effects control tab.

There is also an Audio Effects folder which contains a few (rather limited) audio effects which can be controlled in exactly the same was as the video effects. Also in the effects tab are the transitions. These are applied in the same way as video effects, but must be dropped either between or at the ends of clips. You can extend or shorten transitions by moving the start and end of the transition on the timeline. You can also adjust transitions in the effects control tab by clicking on the transition in the timeline.

A rather useful effect is the audio transitions which make audio fading in and out a much simpler task that using the audio mixer.

Now that we've applied our effects/transitions, you'll want to preview your video in the monitor window. Although this is done in real time, you'll need to render the timeline if you've applied few or complicated effects. To do this, move the work bar area to cover the area you want to preview and press enter:

Click and drag on the bar to move along the timeline or drag the ends to extend. The right hand programme window also controls the timeline.

To add a title, select File > New > Title. This brings up the title editor. By default this will be transparent. Premiere comes with several presets, which can be accessed by clicking Title > Templates with the Title Designer open. This is also a great way of adding a bug or logo to your video - simply select Title > Logo > Insert Logo and browse to your image on your hard drive. You can then resize and move the image to position by using the black arrow tool. Changes to the title can be saved by using File > Save. The title will then be added to the project window. You can then use this as a normal clip and place it on the timeline in a track above your video to overlay the title.

Another useful feature in Premiere Pro is the use of sequences. An example of the use of this is applying an effect over multiple clips. First right click in the project window and select new sequence:

Label the new sequence (e.g. sequence 02) and click ok. We can now drag and drop our first sequence (sequence 01) from our project window onto the new timeline (sequence 02) we created. This is now a "virtual clip" and any changes to sequence 01 will be reflected in the clip on the new timeline. This is useful for applying an effect over across all clips on a timeline.

Having achieved the basics (captured video, added clips to the timeline and used a few effects), let us output the edited video from the timeline. To start, let's output back to DV tape. Make sure your camcorder is connected, turned on and set to VCR/play with a blank tape inserted. Select File > Export > Export to Tape. Finally click record and your video on the selected timeline will be output to tape.

You can also output to standard AVI or QuickTime files using File > Export Movie, then clicking on settings. I tend to output as DV AVI, and then encode using external application to WMV or Quick Time (for the web) or MPEG2 (for DVD). However, Adobe Premiere Pro can do both of these using File > Export > Adobe Media Encoder:

You can change from WMV to MPEG using the Format drop down box and then change the preset to suit your needs. You can use Premiere to output to DVD, but it is probably better to use the media encoder to output to MPEG2, and then use an external application to create a DVD with menus. If you use Adobe Encore it can transcode straight from AVI files, so once you have exported the AVI movie from Premiere it will do the rest once you have imported the file as an asset.

Now that the project is finished, project manager can be used to tidy up any files we no longer need. Select Project > Project Manager from the menu to bring up the following screen:

The first option lets you reduce the size of your project by creating a completely new folder with trimmed clips. The second simply collates all files to a new location to ensure you don't accidentally deleted required clips. Click calculate to see how much space you will save! Press OK once ready.

The Tool Palette

The Tool Palette allows you to perform various operations and adjustments to the timeline.

The palette is normally vertical but I've rotated it for convenience. From left to right (normally top to bottom):

Selection (shortcut key: V) standard cursor for selection. By pressing the Ctrl key the selection cursor becomes a ripple edit tool.

Track Select (M) Selects all the contents of a specific track. Pressing Shift turns it into a multi track selection tool, which selects all the tracks. Selection extends from where you click the tool to the end of the track.

Ripple Edit (B) Enables you to adjust the in and out points of a clip in the timeline while rippling the media either side to preserve the cuts.

Rolling Edit (N) Enables you to dynamically roll the edit point between two clips updating the out pint of the outgoing clip and the in point of the incoming clip at the same time.

Rate Stretch (X) Enables you to extend or reduce a clip’s duration in the timeline, by speeding or slowing the clip, while preserving the assigned in and out points.

Razor (C) Allows you to cut or split tracks. Holding the Shift key will make a cut through all the tracks at the time point that you click.

Slip (Y) If you are not using the entire length of the captured clip in the timeline you can adjust which part of it you can see between the in and out points. Click on the clip in the timeline and drag the selection to the bit you wish to see. The rest of the clip slips under the adjacent clips.

Slide (U) Allows you to slide the visible content of the selected clip over the material surrounding it. If you slide the clip to the right, the clip to the left will have its out point adjusted to fill the gap, while the clip to the right will be covered.

Pen (P) Lets you select and create key frames in the timeline. Use the Ctrl key to add key frames. The Shift key lets you select multiple key frames and adjust them simultaneously.

Hand (H) Lets you click and drag the contents of the timeline about.

Zoom (Z) Zooms in on the timeline Use the Alt key to zoom out.

Using the tools makes it clear what each does.

Finally it must be remembered that like most software packages there are usually several different ways of accomplishing the same task. The methods mentioned above are not the only way but should get you started.

There are a number of online forum where you can find information about editing techniques with Premiere. Check out the links on our Links page and also the Adobe Forum.