Adobe Premiere Pro CC For Dummies

When the filming stops, the real video production work begins

Ever wonder how your favorite video creators regularly put out such slick content? They're probably using Adobe Premiere Pro CC, a go-to video production app for both professional and amateur video creators.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC For Dummies walks you through each step of editing and producing slick and stylish videos that stand up to what the pros post. From transferring your digital movie files from your camera or phone to your computer all the way to uploading your latest creation to YouTube or the web, this book has the info you need to bring your ideas to life.

If you're new to video production, you can begin at the beginning with the handbook's user-friendly guide to the basics of setting clips on the timeline and making them flow seamlessly. Or, if you've already got a few videos under your belt, you can skip right to the more advanced material, like special effects and handy tricks of the trade.

You’ll also find:

• Instruction on joining video clips into a continuous final product, complete with transitions, special effects, and more
• Advice on improving sound, getting rid of color errors, and customizing the look of your videos with filters and aftereffects
• Straightforward guides to adding voiceovers and soundtracks to your videos

So, if you're new to Adobe Premiere Pro CC—or digital video editing in general—Adobe Premiere Pro CC For Dummies is the first and last resource you'll need to start editing like a pro.

John Carucci is not a celebrity, though he certainly brushes up against the stars of stage and screen on a regular basis in his role as an Entertainment TV Producer with the Associated Press. Along with hobnobbing with actors and musicians, John is also author of Digital SLR Video & Filmmaking For Dummies and two editions of GoPro Cameras For Dummies.

Introduction 1

About this Book 1

How this book is organized 2

Icons Used in the Book 3

Beyond the book 4

Part 1: Getting Familiar with the Adobe Premiere Pro Universe 5

Chapter 1: Perusing the Premiere Pro Landscape 7

Understanding What Premiere Pro Can Do 8

Dissecting the Workspace 8

Breaking down the interface 9

Ingesting and Editing 9

Understanding the panels 10

Getting around the workspace 10

Having a Panel Discussion 11

Knowing the Project panel 11

Spending some time with the Timeline panel 13

Making the most of the Source and Program Monitors 14

Grasping the Effects and Effect Controls panels 15

Feeling out the other panels 16

Using the libraries 18

Tooling Around the Toolbar 18

Chapter 2: Understanding the Premiere Pro Workspace 21

Identifying Your Needs 22

Working with your computer platform 22

Are you a Mac? 22

Or are you a PC? 24

Naming PC models is a little harder 24

The systems are not that far apart 26

Look before you leap on your PC 26

Understanding Workstation Requirements 27

Determining if your computer is right 28

Breaking down the differences between Mac and PC 29

Respecting the graphics card 29

Needing GPU acceleration 30

Random access memory 30

More Hard Drive Space, Please 30

Solid-state drives 31

Conventional hard drives 31

Not all hard drives are created equal 32

Scratch disks 32

Managing other computer components 33

Keying into keyboard types 33

Eeek, a mouse! 33

USB-C is the new black 34

Looking at Capture Gear 34

Smartphone capture 34

Top-of-the-line video cameras 35

Broadcast video camera 36

Consumer-level camcorders 36

Digital single-lens reflex 37

Point-and-shoot video options 37

Mirrorless camera 38

Going GoPro 39

Card readers and capture devices 39

Audio recorders 40

Going to the videotape 40

Defining Users 41

Neophyte user 42

Intermediate 42

Professional photographer 42

Video enthusiast 43

Social media influencer 43

Chapter 3: Adjusting Premiere Pro to Suit Your Needs 45

Setting Up Your Workspace 45

Subscribing and installing software 46

Feeling welcome 46

Using workspace presets 46

Edit workspace order 49

Adding a clip description 49

Customizing and saving your workspace 49

Moving panels 50

Saving your workspace 50

Hiding workspace presets 51

Using a second monitor 51

Using your iPad as a second monitor 52

Set up your iPad monitor 53

Using a broadcast monitor 53

Breaking down keyboard shortcuts 54

Personalizing keyboard commands 55

Single Key shortcuts 56

Using a skin 56

Setting your scratch disk 56

Render files 57

Pointing in the right direction 57

Tweaking Program Settings 57

Setting preferences 58

Optimizing performance 60

Fine-tuning your setup 60

Customizing the Windows 61

Doing the panel dance 61

Sizing the monitor 61

What’s inside counts 62

Adjusting the timeline 63

Modifying the Project panel 63

Freestyling with Freeform 63

Understanding the Audio Mixers 64

Audio Clip Mixer 66

Part 2: Gathering Content 67

Chapter 4: Sorting Out the Elements of Video Production 69

Defining Digitized Video 69

Binary refinery 70

Digital Video 70

High Definition is the flavor of the day 71

Fawning over 4K 71

Vying with VHS 72

Explaining Digital Video Fundamentals 72

Understanding how video works 72

Dealing with aspect ratio 73

Frame rates 73

Understanding timecode 74

Understanding formats 74

Breaking down the best file types 74

Capturing Great Video 75

Controlling the camera 75

Arranging the scene 77

Understanding shot lingo 79

Lighting the scene 80

Waiting for the sun 80

Communicating through light 81

On-camera video lights 81

The French call it mise-en-scène 83

Chapter 5: Prepping Your Movie Projects 85

Starting Your Project 86

Creating a project 86

Opening an existing project 88

Tweaking the Settings 88

Project settings 88

Title safe margins 89

Getting those preferences right 89

Timeline preferences 91

Auto Save preferences 91

Playback preferences 92

Scratching the scratch drive surface 92

Making a Sequence 94

Setting each sequence 94

Making a custom setting 94

Adjusting the Timeline 96

Increasing the height of the video and audio tracks 97

Fill the screen with a panel 98

Chapter 6: Importing Media into a Project 101

Starting Your Project 102

Ingesting media 102

Adobe Bridge 103

Transferring from a card reader 103

Editing directly from a card 105

Capturing tape from a camcorder 105

Downloading clips 107

Importing media 107

Adding music and audio clips 108

Recording ADR 108

Sound effects 108

Adding a soundtrack 109

Finding the right music 109

Grabbing royalty-free music from the web 110

Prepping still images for the timeline 111

Organizing Media 112

Creating bins 113

Color coding your bins 113

Tagging with metadata 113

Understanding data types 115

Move it on over 115

Entering data 116

Bins versus tags 116

Part 3: Editing Your Masterpiece 117

Chapter 7: Preparing Your Video for Editing 119

Getting the Lowdown on Your Clips 120

Analyzing clip details 120

Keeping bins lean and clean 121

Playing clips smoothly 121

Altering playback resolution 122

Knowing how far can you go 122

Changing playback resolution 123

Working the In and Out Points 123

Setting In and Out points 123

Using markers 125

More than a bookmark 125

Types of markers 125

Making your mark 126

The Markers panel 127

Modifying Clips 128

Scrubbing through the clip 128

Using keys 128

Using the arrow keys 128

Marking the scrubbed clip 128

Adjusting clip duration 129

Changing speeds 129

Rate Stretch tool 130

Here’s how to use it 130

Reversing the action 130

Understanding Clip/Speed Duration 131

Rippling through the Ripple tools 131

Ripple Edit tool 132

The Rolling Edit tool 132

Chapter 8: Editing in the Timeline 133

Managing Your Sequence 134

Populating the timeline 134

Adding clips 134

Backing it up a bit 135

Moving clips 136

Dragging clips into the timeline 136

Adding clips through the Program panel 136

Source Patching and Targeting 137

What you drag isn’t always what you get 138

Fine Tuning Your Clips 139

Trimming clips 139

Handling enough clip frames to trim 140

Naming clips 140

Expanding to see waveforms 141

Freezing frames 141

Choosing Insert Frame Hold Segment 143

Advanced Timeline Tricks 143

More advanced clip movement 143

Using the Track Select tool 143

Overwrite a clip with an adjacent clip 143

Considering the three-point edit 144

Back-timing edits 145

Trying a four-point edit 146

Making the right choice 147

Chapter 9: Transitioning between Clips 149

Choosing Effective Transitions 150

Perusing the transition palette 151

Why do you need transitions? 151

Grasping Transition 101 153

Setting default transitions 155

Apply default transitions 156

Controlling transitions 156

Using clip handles 158

Advanced Transition Techniques 158

Planning for your transitions 159

The one-sided transition 159

Differentiating transitions in the timeline 159

Changing and deleting transitions 159

Copying and pasting transitions 160

Plug in to your transitions 160

Chapter 10: Finishing Your Edited Video 161

Exercising Video Correction 161

Fixing exposure issues 162

Tweaking those tones 162

Adjusting color 163

Cropping to fill the frame 163

What can you do about it? 164

Correcting Color and Tone 165

Grasping Lumetri Color 165

Understanding the Lumetri Color Landscape 166

Adjusting tone 167

Making a quick correction 169

Codec limits 170

Using color for style 170

Matching color in the scene 171

Using Video Scopes 171

Accessing the scopes 172

Different scopes for different folks 173

Defining the “scope” of terms 174

Exploring Some Advanced Techniques 175

Making adjustment layers 175

Making an informed decision 176

Using Comparison view 176

Removing a color cast 177

Adding punch to the clip 178

Quickly correct luminance 178

Color correction with an Adjustment Layer 179

Chapter 11: Constructing the Video Composite 181

Understanding Compositing 182

Layering clips 182

Adjusting opacity to reveal 183

Messing with opacity 183

Using the Opacity and Blend modes 184

Striking the right balance between clips 184

Let’s look at the Blend modes 187

Introducing the Blend modes 187

Applying a Blend mode to an adjustment layer 192

Transform effect and adjustment layers 192

Merging clips in a nest 192

Working with the nested clip 193

Understanding alpha channels 193

Creating an image mask 195

Working with Keyframes 195

How keyframes work 195

Keyframing in action 196

Compositing with Special Effects 199

Keen on green screen 199

Blue too for chroma 199

Shooting your very own chroma key 199

Putting your green-screen composite together 201

Fine-tuning your key 202

Layering video 202

Making clips side-by-side 204

Chapter 12: Choosing Cool Effects for Your Movie 207

Understanding Effects 207

Enhancing the look of your video 208

Improving the scene with Lighting Effects 208

Controlling Lighting Effects 209

Breaking down light types 210

Scaling video 212

Cropping video 214

Making Corrections 215

Dealing with shaky footage 215

Understanding Warp Stabilization 215

Warp Stabilization settings 216

Blurring video 217

Using Blur under a still image 217

Making video sharper 219

Creating a mosaic 219

Removing effects 220

Adding a timecode 221

Playing with Your Clips 222

Flipping video 222

Changing speeds 223

Time lapsing your video 224

Trying Turbulent Displace 224

Chapter 13: Working with Audio 227

Understanding Your Audio Needs 227

Sound matters 228

Defining great sound 228

Adjusting audio levels 229

Mixing audio 230

Get those levels right 230

Simplifying varying audio levels 231

Beginning with Recording the Audio 232

Considerations for capturing audio 233

Be aware of sound on the scene 233

Working with Audio in Your Movie 235

Linking and unlinking tracks 235

Working with separate tracks 237

Navigating the Essential Sound Panel 239

Using the Essential Sound panel 239

Working with audio tracks in the Essential Sound panel 240

Organization is key 241

Assigning audio track roles 241

Delving into the Dialogue presets 241

Looking into the Music option 243

Effecting the SFX track 244

Adjusting Ambience 245

Making voices sound better 246

Chapter 14: Dazzling with Titles and Graphics 249

Understanding Titles and Motion Graphics 250

Using the Text Tool 250

Navigating the Essential Graphics panel 250

Browsing the templates 250

Using Text to Speech 251

Creating a transcript 252

Creating Captions 253

Understanding Create Captions Controls 254

Editing text 255

Editing Graphics 255

Searching for a graphic is easy 256

The Browse section 256

The Edit section 257

Putting words on the screen 258

Breaking down text adjustments 258

Replacing fonts 258

Create graphics 260

Adjusting graphics 260

Making a text layer 260

Creating titles 261

Adding static titles 261

Title Safe and Action Safe 262

Making a graphic title 263

Smartening up your movie 263

Crediting your movie 263

Arranging your opening movie credits 264

Closing credits 265

Adding credits to your movie 266

Making your own rolling credits 266

Identifying a subject with a lower third 270

Tweaking fonts 270

Making a (simple) motion title 271

Part 4: Finishing Off Your Project 275

Chapter 15: Finalizing Your Project 277

Being Your Own QC Monitor 278

Watching and studying 278

Assuring clip continuity 278

Matching audio levels 280

Checking graphics and titles 280

Previewing the Timeline 280

Casting a critical eye 281

Having gap insurance 281

Watching on an external monitor 282

Viewing the meters 282

Listening on speakers 283

Being a good listener 283

Hearing with your eyes closed 283

Fine-Tuning Video for Export 284

Pre-export process 284

Being efficient 284

Bumping up the preview quality 285

Avoiding crashes 286

Checking the timeline closely 288

Dividing the export 288

Relinking media 289

Grabbing freeze frames 290

Here’s how to make a freeze frame 291

Exporting a JPEG sequence 292

Chapter 16: Kicking Out Your Movie 295

Exporting Your Movie 295

Familiarizing yourself with the Export panel 297

Choosing a format 297

Introducing the presets 298

Understand the top video file extensions 298

Popular file formats 299

Checking the Summary 300

The lower section of the Export panel 300

Bitrate Setting 300

Checking the right boxes 301

Knowing the difference between file containers and codecs 302

Setting output names for delivery 303

Choosing the Right File Format for Your Needs 304

Exporting uncompressed video as a master file 304

Pre-export checklist 305

Exporting a portion of the movie 306

Pointing the file to a folder 306

Saving settings for future exports 306

Converting outside Premiere Pro 307

Chapter 17: Spanning the Globe with Your Movie 309

Showing Your Movie 310

On your computer 310

Watching on a smartphone 310

Tablet viewing 311

Projecting on a screen 311

Playing on a home theater 312

Cast a movie on your iPhone or iPad 313

A warning about intellectual property 313

Using the World’s Largest Screening Room 314

Uploading your movie 314

Sharing videos on YouTube 315

Sharing video on Vimeo 317

Using Social Media 320

Showing your movie on Facebook 321

Instagram 321

Twitter video is meant to be short 323

Twitter video upload requirements 324

TikTok 324

Sharing your Movie 325

WeTransfer 325

iCloud 326

iCloud Drive 326

Dropbox 327

Hightail 327

Google Drive 327

Going Old School 328

Burning to DVD 328

DVD creation software 330

Export to tape 330

Color bars 331

Adding a good leader 332

Part 5: The Part of Tens 333

Chapter 18: Ten Ideas for Making Fantastic Movies 335

Making Your Own Brady Bunch Opening (Or Something Like It) 336

Exploiting Montage Editing 337

Showing Restraint While Using Plug-ins 338

Transforming Your Movie to Film Noir 339

Making Still Images Move (The Ken Burns Effect) 340

Adding a voiceover 340

Producing Your Own News Segment 341

Using Transitions to Help Tell the Story 342

Applying a Filter Over Your Movie 343

Having Fun by Reversing Motion 344

Chapter 19: Ten Essential Premiere Pro Plug-Ins 345

Knocking Out Your Movie with the Cine Punch Bundle 346

Roll with Motion Array Premiere Pro Transitions 346

Making Your Still Photo “Pop” Using Photo Montage 2 347

Producing the Look of Film Stock with Film Convert Nitrate 347

Emulating Star Wars Opening Titles with the Free Star Titler 347

Sweetening Up Audio with Accusonus ERA 5 Bundle 348

Prettying Up Your Subject’s Skin Tones with Make Up Artist 3 348

Adding Pizazz between Shots with Andy’s Swish Transitions 348

Making Seamless Time-Lapse and Slow-Motion Video with Flicker Free 349

Simulating Beams of Light Coming through Portals with Light Rays 349

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Making Video Easier to Edit 351

Shooting Movies “Horizontally” with Your Smartphone 352

Producing Better Video to Edit by Keeping It Steady 353

Shooting to Edit for Quicker Turnaround 354

Taking Advantage of Natural Light 356

Handling Each Shot for Your Edit 357

Seeing True Video Quality with a Calibrated Monitor 358

Adding Drives for Scratch Space 358

Ditching the Pinhole for a Microphone 359

Using an Audio Recorder for Great Sound 360

Converting Master Files into the Right Format 360

Index 363

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