Understanding the basics of editing

If you are new to the experience of video editing, it's important to understand few basic principles before we get started. Every framing of video just like any digital photo is made up of thousands or even millions of little squares or rectangles of colour called pixels. These pixels are so small, you normally don't see them but they blend together into the shapes and images we see on digital photos or in digital video. How densely these pixels are packed together is called resolution. And every video, just like every photo, must maintain certain resolution in order for you to see pictures rather than pixels.

The video that your camcorder produces and most of what you'll be working with comes in one of two resolutions. Standard resolution video has about 350,000 little pixels in every frame of video. High definition video has over 2 million. Now matching this resolution to your video project specs are the keys to getting good, clean video results. No matter where your video is coming from or what you plan to do with it, virtually every video project has some of the same basic moves. First, you add your media files into your project.

Now, these media files, also known as project assets, can be in the form of videos, still photos, graphics, or even audio files like music. They can be media files that are already on your computer or you can download or capture the video directly from your camcorder, your iPod, your smartphone, or your other video recording device. Now, once your media is gathered and arranged on your project's timeline, you can trim it or cut it and remove what you don't want. You can also clean up the video's color or sweeten the audio sound. Then you can add effects or use several layers of video to create a video composition.

You can also add titles and animations and you can use cool new software like the scores music generator to create a custom soundtrack. Premiere Elements even includes an instant movie tool, that adds titles, music, and special effects for you, generating a complete movie from your gathered assets with just a few simple clicks. If you're going to create a DVD or a BluRay disc, Premiere Elements includes tools for creating movie menus for your discs, as well as tools for building links from your menus to the scenes in your movie. Now once you've finished editing your video premier elements includes dozens of options for outputting your finished movie.

You can burn it as a DVD or Blue Ray disc, or even upload it to a website as a web DVD. You can upload your movie directly from Premier Elements to You Tube, Venue, or even Facebook. Or if you'd like you can save your movie in an optimized format imported directly to your I Pad IPod, smartphone or other portable video player. But those are the basic moves. You bring your media into your project. You apply edits and effects to it. Then you output a new video based on those changes. Now, let's look specifically at how to edit your video in Premiere Elements 12.