Dynamic trimming and editing with the keyboard

Premier Pro CS6 makes it much easier to trim clips, especially with the keyboard. The collection of features for editing with the keyboard, sometimes collectively referred to as dynamic trimming. Let's go through these trimming improvements, and see how you can use them. In this video, as much as possible, I'll be using the keyboard just to demonstrate how much you can do with the keyboard. Beginning in Bike Race One in the assets folder, let's first activate the Timeline panel by pressing Shift+3.

You can use the up and down arrows to move to the previous and next edit points. Pressing the down arrow repeatedly takes me to the next edit point, one at a time. Pressing the up arrow takes me to the previous edit point. Notice that pressing the up and down arrow each by themselves, only takes me to the next or previous edit point on the same track. If I add Shift, then I go to the next or previous edit point on any track.

If I press the left arrow button, I move back one frame at a time. I want to mute the audio on these tracks, so that we don't have to hear the audio when I'm doing this navigation. And if I press the Right Arrow button, I move forward a frame at a time. Adding Shift means that I move five frames at a time. So Shift+Left Arrow taking me back five frames at a time each time I press it, and Shift+Right Arrow taking me forward five frames each time I press it. If I press T it will select the nearest edit point, and put me into the new Trim mode.

On previous versions on Premier Pro pressing T opened a separate Trim monitor. I'll press T now, and notice this edit point is selected, it's currently selected as a rolling edit point. And instead of opening a trim monitor, the program monitor is now showing trim mode. Across the bottom we have some specialized trim commands. Here we have minus one which trims backward, or you can use control left arrow. Similarly, we have Trim Forward, which is Ctrl+right arrow.

Note, that for these keyboard shortcuts, on Mas OS Ctrl is replaced Option, so it's Option+left arrow and Option+right arrow. And we can move ahead by five frames, or move back by five frames. With these buttons or with Ctrl+Shift+Left or Ctrl+Shift+Right, left and right referring to the left and right arrows. And we can add the default transition to the selection. I'll go ahead and click this. And so now, if I press Play, it will play around the edit point. And we'll say that it's added the default transition in between. Now notice while it's playing I can actually perform some edits. So while this is looping, I'm going to press Ctrl+left arrow to move my edit point to the left.

Notice in the Timeline panel that my edit point is moving. And then I can press Ctrl+right arrow to move it back to the right all the while previewing my edit as playback continues. I'll stop playback by pressing the Spacebar. I can also perform edits with the numeric keypad. If I press a number, I'm pressing nine. Notice the number 9 appears here, and if I press enter on the numeric keypad I add a point moved nine frames to the right.

If I type minus 9 on the numeric keypad hit enter my edit point moves nine frames to the left. You can enter plus and then a number, and hit Enter. But you don't need to enter the plus if you're entering a positive number. If you're entering a negative number, you do need to enter a minus. I'll press T to exit Trim mode. But notice we still have an edit point selected, and in the Timeline panel I can enter numbers on the numeric keypad and perform numeric the same way.

So if I press nine, notice that the time code area has been replaced by this numeric field temporarily. And I'll hit Enter and my edit point moves. Minus nine, Enter and I'll press T again to go back to Trim Mode. So far we've just been showing a rolling edit, as indicated by this icon down here in the Timeline panel. I can press shift T to go to a ripple edit, press shift T again to ripple go in the other direction, shift T again to go to a regular trim. And shift T again for regular trim pointing the other direction. I'll quickly demonstrate each of those.

I'll actually move to a different edit point pressing the down arrow a few times to go to a different edit. There. Now, I'll use control left arrow to move the edit point. And notice trim blocked on video one appears, showing me that I can't go any further in that direction, so I'll use right Ctrl+right arrow and Ctrl+left arrow. Pressing Shift+T, switch to another edit type, that's the role again.

Here we have a ripple. Pressing Ctrl+left arrow. And Ctrl + right arrow. Pressing Shift+T again. Now our ripple is going to go the other direction. Pressing Ctrl + left arrow. And Ctrl + right arrow. Pressing Shift+T again to switch to another edit type. And we're back to regular trim. Another way to edit that many people find convenient is JKL trimming. So if I press L to play forward, actually I'll switch this edit type to a roll, pressing Shift+T, there.

Now if I press J to play it backward. Then press K. When I press K to stop, the edit is made where I hit the stop. If I press L to play forward, and then hit K, when I press K to stop the play, the edit was made where I pressed K. If I hold K and press L repeatedly to move one frame at a time. When I let go of K to stop the JKL playback, that's where the edit is made. I'll hold down K again, press J repeatedly, then let go of K, and that's where the edit is made.

This is sometimes referred to as, JKL trimming. Another way to edit in Trim mode is to drag. If I drag on the centerpiece, you see that I have the roll icon. And I can make a rolling edit. If I drag in the left pane, I make a ripple edit going this direction. If I drag in the right pane. I make ripple edit going the other direction. If I Ctrl+drag, I make a regular Trim, and if I Ctrl+drag in this pane I make a regular trim going the other direction. I'll press T to exit Trim mode.

Notice that I can select edit points in the Timeline panel by holding Ctrl and dragging a selection box around them. When I have selected edit points in this way, Trim mode is automatically entered. There are many additional keyboard shortcuts that are not mapped by default. If we go to Edit > Keyboard shortcuts, and search for edit point, for example. We see that there many keyboard shortcuts available for Select Nearest Edit point as ripple in, Go To Previous Selected Edit point, and so on. But they don't currently have any keys assigned to them. So if there's a specific way that you would like to work with keyboard Durant Editing, go into the keyboard shortcut dialog box, and see if the command is available and map a keyboard shortcut to it.

I'll choose cancel. So, there you go. In Premier Pro CS6, editing with the keyboard is much easier with dynamic trimming, especially with JKL trimming.