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.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
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.