Adobe Premiere Pro
$20.99
Pros
- Number of Features
- Creative Cloud Synergy
- Built for Professionals
- Great Performance
Cons
- Pretty Hard to Learn
- Limited Media Tagging
This Adobe Premiere Pro Review is an answer to why Premiere Pro is well known as your standard professional video editing software. There are plenty of reasons: great interface, superb synergy with Adobe’s ecosystem, a rich set of features.
Adobe Premiere Pro uses the approach of incremental changes — which means that new versions are not rebuilt from the ground up. Instead with every update
Adobe Premiere Pro CC Pricing and System Requirements
Adobe Premiere Pro requires a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. It runs both on macOS starting from 10.12 and Windows 10, a 64-bit operating system is a must. You’ll also need 8Gb of RAM and a 1280×800 display.
Pricing is greatly variable. The cheapest option is $20.99 monthly with an annual plan of Premiere Pro only. The recommended option, given the software’s great synergy with Adobe Creative Cloud, is Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. It costs $52.99 monthly on an annual plan. The whole collection has 20+ creative apps and up to 10Tb of Cloud storage so it worths a buck if you’re really into content creation.
Also, you can use a 7-day free version to evaluate the software.
The Interface of Premiere Pro
I need to mention in this Adobe Premiere Pro Review that the interface of Premiere Pro CC is sleek and very flexible. The dark tone of the background is easy on your eyes and the whole user experience is crafted in a way to amplify your work. The thing about Premiere Pro’s interface that I like the most is a quick switch between different modes: Assembly, Editing, Color, Effect, Audio, Titles. Every mode resembles a step of creating a cut so you can just go from left to right doing your best at every step.
You can also edit any of these modes or create your own custom workspace — hiding and showing needed panels or even split them between multiple displays.
The default layout is four-panel. The top part is occupied with two video playback windows — the left is a source preview the right is a project preview. The lower part is divided between the project library on the left and the timeline on the right.
The interface looks clean and minimalistic for the professional video editing software. That’s because in Premiere Pro a lot of functions are hidden behind keyboard shortcuts as most of the professionals use them. However, you can add any hidden buttons to the panels and move them around the way you want. Just place a cursor and drag the panel around.
Scrubbing through the video in the project’s library as you move your mouse is a nice touch too.
Touch devices are also supported. That means that you can control Premiere Pro with all the pinch-zooms and taps that you expect from touch controls.
Premiere Pro Editing Interface
Now you can set in and out points of the clip right inside the media collection. Just scrub through the clips and mark the in and out points there, not using the preview window. Then you can Insert the clip into the preview monitor to fine-tune it or simply drag it right onto the timeline. If you hold Ctrl (Command on macOS) the clip will overwrite anything that is on the timeline. Dragging the files right from your OS file manager into the project is also a thing.
The media browser has Effects, Markers, and History tabs. The history tab is really useful when you need the get to the state of the project when you’ve made a mistake.
Markets can be noted, you can more than one marker at the same spot of the timeline. Every marker can have its own duration and in the Markers tab, you can expect each of them. If you click a marker inside the Markers tab you will instantly get to that marker on the timeline.
All in all Premiere Pro CC is a nice fit for any production. Even the most complicated. For example, there are a lot of notable movies that were edited with Premiere Pro CC: Avatar, Deadpool, Gone Girl, Swiss Army Man, and so on.
File Import
If a device is capable of creating video files then most likely it would be supported by Premiere Pro CC 2019. It works well with RAW camera formats. Arri Alexa, Red Epic, Canon cameras — footage from all of these cameras in resolution up to 8K is supported in Premiere Pro. Smartphones and DSLRs are something that you just expect to work — so they are.
In one of the latest updates, Premiere Pro CC even got the support for HEIF files and ProRes HDR footage import. The decoding of Canon Cinema RAW has also been fastened.
Premiere Pro Clips Trimming
Trimming clips on the timeline is one of the most important things that can be made inside any NLE. Premiere Pro allows you to do Regular Trim with the blade and also some more cryptic edit types: Roll, Ripple, Slip, and Slide.
All of the edit types can be found on the left of the timeline. Icons are pretty self-explanatory. Making edits during playback is also a great feature that Premiere Pro users can enjoy.
Double-clicking on an edit point of two clips allows you to switch to Trim mode in the preview window. This mode shows you the last frame of the first clip and the first frame of the last clip. There are dedicated buttons to go back or forward for 1 or 5 frames to apply the transition.
Adjustment layers are a feature that allows you to put effects on them and then all of the effects would be applied to the video tracks below the layer. You can simply create the layer with the right click on the project panel. And then drag and drop effects onto it. Let’s continue this Adobe Premiere Pro review.
Transitions and Effects
Transitions are not a thing that professionals bother about. If you want to have great pre-made transitions look for some of the home software like Movavi Video Editor Plus. Movavi includes a lot of creative transitions and Movavi Effects Store gives even more options to put something beautiful into your movie.
As for Premiere Pro, it has only 38 built-in transitions. Professionals tend to invent something unique with After Effects, not to bother with classic Windows Movie Maker-style transitions.
Effects, on the other hand, are something that you expect from the top-notch product. Keying, chroma-key, lightning and colorizing options, transforming — there is a tool for any situation. No to say that the possibilities of Premiere Pro can be greatly improved with third-party plug-ins. All the effects and transitions can be easily accessed via the search option.
The Warp Stabilize feature, which is the same that present in After Effects is just superb. It can help you to smooth even very shaky footage. Surely, it takes its time to analyze your video but the result worth it. You can adjust smoothness, crop, and apply auto-scale options.
The work of stabilization of Premiere Pro is on par with After Effect and much better than in other professional video editing software.
Multi-Camera Editing
Premiere Pro has an unlimited number of angles in Multi-cam mode. You just need to select all the clips and click «Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence» in the context menu. Then simply choose a syncing option. Premiere Pro does a really good job with audio syncing between clips which are really useful for clips with no time codes, for example, smartphone and DSLR footages.
The tools allow you to select needed Multi-Cam angles during playback. Then you can fine-tune the cuts with the editing tools of your choice.
Color Adjustment Tools
The Lumetri Color Tools allows Premiere Pro to be on par with such famous software for color correction as DaVinci Resolve, at least in my book. Lumetri Color allows you to tweak an insane number of controls as well as select a great variety of HDR and film looks.
You can control white balance, contrast, highlights, shadows, exposure, and so on. And the best of all is that all the controls can be changed in keyframes. You can also Sharpen, Saturate, adjust Vibrance and apply Faded Film. Not to say about the curves and color wheel.
Applying these effects can be done with masking. You just specify the area with a pen tool and here you go. However, in order for these masks to track the motion of an object, you should use After Effect.
Audio Editing in Premiere Pro
Audio mixer in Premiere Pro is something that you can expect from professional software. It allows you to tweak any option during the playback: pan, balance, levels, turn solo, or mute tracks. VU meters and clip indicators are also a thing.
Creating audio tracks is automatic while you import your video files into a sequence. You can choose between different audio modes — Standart, 5.1, stereo, mono or adaptive.
Every track has resizable audio meters and mute/solo options.
Premiere Pro also supports third-party VST plug-ins, so adding some compressors or EQ by, for example, Waves is something that can be made effortlessly. That way you can up your audio editing game to the level of professional DAW.
Synergy with Adobe Audition also allows you to fine-tune your audio with industry-leading noise reduction, studio reverb, and so on.
Titles and Captions in Premiere Pro
Options for creating text are truly vast. XML and SRT files are supported as you can expect. The selection of fonts is great and you can also use anything from Adobe Typekit. All the options are here: kerning, rolling, rotation, opacity, and more. Strokes and shadows can also be applied, just like in Adobe Photoshop.
Animating the text is requiring After Effects. That’s the way that professionals do it after all. If you need some pre-made animated titles, look for something like Movavi Plus or CyberLink PowerDirector.
Adobe Creative Cloud Synergy
A great thing about any Adobe software and Premiere Pro is no exception, is the synergy with all Creative Cloud. There are a lot of times when you need to work with Photoshop and After Effects — that can be easily done here. You can use the same content with native file formats with no need for any conversion or tuning. Get graphics done in Photoshop, animations in After Effects, sound in Audition, conversion in Media Encoder, Story for a script, and so on.
That’s not to mention compatibility with famous third-party plugins like NewBlue or Red Giant.
Working with Adobe mobile apps is also a blast. You can start editing on your iPhone with the latest Adobe Premiere Rush, apply some effects and titles, then choose «Open Premiere Rush Project» inside Premiere Pro and continue with any precise and complex edits that you want. All Premiere Rush projects are automatically synced between your iPhone and Mac or PC using Adobe Cloud. That way cross-platform working is easy and effortless.
Rendering Output and Performance
After editing you can export your move in most formats that there is. Exporting can be done with Adobe Encoder. It supports pre-made options for Vimeo, Facebook, DVD, Blu-ray, and many many more. You can even batch encode with different files for different devices such as HDTVs, iPad, and so on. HEVC or H.265 encoding is also present.
Your brand new 64-bit processor will be taken into advantage. Rendering is fast on even not the latest machines, PC or Mac. Gone are the days when PowerDirector could export your movie faster than Premiere Pro.
Team Collaboration
Premiere Pro is a professional product that’s why it supports teamwork. Using Creative Cloud allows you to store media in the cloud so you can simultaneously work on the same project. For example, your teammate can make After Effect animations while you make the cut. But the teamwork feature is only available for business accounts for an additional fee.
As for working on multiple machines — Premiere Pro syncs project to Creative Cloud so you can start editing on one PC and continue editing on a Mac or on a different machine.
Adobe Premiere Pro Review conclusion
It’s no brainer that this product stands for its Professional name. It a video editing powerhouse. Synergy with After Effect and other Creative Cloud software allows you to do complete work on your movie completely inside Adobe’s ecosystem. It’s an enormous software and this review has barely scratched the surface of what Premiere Pro can do.
If you’re looking for professional video editing software — then look no further. This Adobe Premiere Pro review should have convinced you. To get Adobe Premiere Pro click this link.
Quick Overview
Pros
Well-designed and adjustable interface. Plenty of tools for organization. The quick response of the user interface. Great performance during editing and rendering. Strong synergy with other Adobe Creative apps. Top-notch stabilization tool.
Cons
Limited media tagging. A little bit too much dependence on other software such as After Effects CC.
Verdict
Brilliant professional video editing powerhouse. Premiere Pro CC is a role model for any advanced video editing software, especially so if it comes to synergy with other video and photo software.
If you want to learn more about video editing software check our article — Top 10 Best Video Editing Software in 2018.