Join Chad Perkins for an in-depth discussion in this video The Premiere Pro workflow, part of Premiere Pro CS5 Essential Training.
As you begin your Premiere education, it's good to take a step back and see the big picture. So in this movie, we're going to look at the overall workflow in Premiere Pro. The first step in the Premiere process is that we import footage. We bring in all kinds of elements that we'll be using to create our story. So in the Project panel is where this all goes down. We bring in audio clips. We bring in graphics, Photoshop files. We bring in video clips. Anything that will help us to tell our story, all different kinds of media. We then take the clips from the Project panel and add them to a little mini project called a sequence and this is really where we do our work, here in the sequence.
And this is the Timeline panel where we see our sequence. And I have several clips here that you can see. And we add effects and we add transitions to our clips in the Timeline over here in the Effects panel. We can tweak those effects and transitions in the Effect Controls panel up here. With our Timeline panel selected, we can preview and pause our timeline by pressing the Spacebar. (Male speaker: Plenty of places to ride, beautiful weather?) Just press the Spacebar again to stop.
We use the Program Monitor to see what we're doing. And the Timeline panel again is where we do most of our work. We use these tools here to work with and trim and adjust our footage. We do that here again in the Timeline panel. We also create markers so that we know where we are and we know where are significant points in our video and audio clips, and also significant points of our Timeline. We have an Audio Mixer to mix the balance of our audio tracks so we have a nice audio sound for our final output.
And once we're all done, then we output this sequence to a final video. So if we're going to boil the workflow down to three simple steps, it's that one, we bring in elements, often called clips or assets. And then we work with them here in the Timeline panel. We fiddle with them. We make them shorter. We move them around. change their sequence. And we do that here in the Timeline panel. We add effects and transitions, polish it up, make it look all nice, and then we export it. Now, of course, it is an overly simplistic view of it, but that is again the bird's eye view of what we do in Premiere.
Released
4/30/2010- Adding footage to the Timeline
- Creating dynamically linked content
- Making overlay and insert edits
- Moving edit points
- Playing a clip backwards
- Understanding pixel aspect ratio and frame rate
- Applying motion effects
- Cutting video to music
- Compositing with green screen and blend modes
- Correcting color
- Creating titles and lower thirds
- Exporting sequences
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Q: When attempting to open the project exercise files into Premiere Pro CS5, an error message appears:
This project contained a sequence that could not be opened. No sequence preview preset file codec could be associated with this sequence type.
What could be causing the error, and how can the files be opened?
A: There are a few possible explanations.
Lastly, if the projects are not importing into Premiere, try importing the video footage by itself, rather than the entire project file.
Q: How does one perform internal edits within a piece of video in Adobe Premiere? For example, if I have a single clip of video, comprised of multiple segments strung together, how would I go about removing gaps and/or cleaning up each segment and then assembling the clips in a desired order? Most tutorials emphasize laying down multiple clips on the Sceneline or Timeline, but not editing one clip of video.
A: To remove footage from a single video clip:
- Drag the Current Time Indicator (CTI) to the first frame of the segment to be deleted, click the Split Clip button in the Monitor panel, drag the CTI to the last frame of the segment to be deleted, and then click the Split Clip button again.
- Delete the segment by clicking on the clip and either choosing Edit > Delete And Close Gap, or pressing the Delete or Backspace key. That will remove the segment and the rest of the projectwill slide over to the left to fill the gap.
Q: I can't view the exercise files.
A: Most of the video clips in the training were encoded using H.264. If you are on a PC, you may need to download the latest version of the free
QuickTime player from quicktime.com. Be sure to install QuickTime with your Adobe applications closed. QuickTime installs a series of codecs on your
machine, and many Adobe apps require QuickTime components to function properly.
Q: Why are many of the video files H.264 if some users must download additional components to view them?
A: This is one of the most common video formats in the world right now, certainly for distribution. This is because it is currently the most optimal
way to provide high quality video at the low files sizes that we need to be able to distribute these assets online. Even though it may require an extra
download for some users, this is the best way to be able to get you the highest quality exercise files. There isn't another video standard that is
cross platform that is free and that works as well as H.264.
Q: What is the most effective way to import a JPEG into Premiere Pro (i.e. best quality resolution, best playback speed)? When I import a photo as a JPEG and add it to a sequence, only a very small part of my photo is shown, because of the high resolution of these photos. Should they be resized in Photoshop first? Will changing it using effects provide the quality I am looking for?
A: Images can be scaled down using the Scale Transform in the Effect Controls panel as explained in the training. You can also scale down the images in Photoshop to match the size of your sequence in Premiere. But I prefer to use the Scale Transform as it gives me more flexibility and allows me to "zoom in" (aka scale up) photos without loss in quality. You'll probably want to make sure that the proportions of the image match the sequence though.
Q: Does Premiere Pro offer Z-axis editing like After Effects?
A: Premiere Pro does not offer 3D as After Effects does, but you can use the Basic 3D effect in Premiere to simulate that environment.
Q: The exercise files don't work for me. I get an error message stating the sequence(s) could not be loaded and it returns me to the Welcome screen. I am using the trial version of Premiere Pro and the correct codecs do not seem to be included.
A: All the required codecs are included in the trial version of Premiere. You just need to activate the trial with your Adobe ID. If you don't sign into Adobe, anything with MPEG compression will be unavailable. Signing resolves that issue and restores all MPEG-based support.
Q: I'm receiving the
following error message from Premiere Pro. "This project contained a
sequence that could not be opened. No sequence preview preset file or codec
could be associated with this sequence type." How do I resolve it?
Additionally, when I try
to create a project, I only have DV sequence presets available.
Q: When I tried to open the exercise files for this course, the following message popped up.
"This project was last used with Mercury Playback Engine GPU
Acceleration (CUDA), which is not available on this system. Mercury
Playback Engine Software only will be used?"
What do I have to do to solve the issue?
Q: After loading a project from the exercise files for this course, the media appears "offline" and cannot be used. How do I fix this?
A: This issue occurs because the project was not created in your copy of Premiere Pro, so your copy does not know where to look for the asset files. To fix this, please see the video "Relinking offline media."
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Video: The Premiere Pro workflow