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How to Cut Audio File in Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019

Premiere Pro is a popular video editing software by Adobe that works on both Windows and on Apple computers. It is comparable to Apple's Final Cut Pro video editing program, but has become the program of choice for many video producers.

Premiere Pro is a non-destructive editing software, which means nothing you do in the program can change or overwrite your media files. That said it's always good to keep a backup of your project and media files. Premier Pro is taught in three of our workshops. For a hands-on video editing experience join Premiere Pro for Intermediate Video Editors or Advanced Video Editing.

Creating a New Project

Each video you create in Premiere should start by creating a new project.

The project file will save all your edits and changes you've made. It's saved as a separate .prproj file that can be opened only with Premiere Pro.

The project file will contain references to the different media files you use to build your movie and the sequences on which you arrange your video clips, add audio tracks, transitions, titles, etc.

Premiere Pro New Project

When you launch Adobe Premiere Pro, a new window will appear. Click the New Project button, located on the left side of the window.

This will open a new window where you can define the basic settings of your project, including the filename and location where the project file will be saved.

In the New Project dialog box, ​ Name ​is what you'll call the project file, and Location ​ is where the project will be created.

When working in Premiere, it's best to keep both your footage and project file together on an external hard drive. So on your external hard drive, make a new folder for your project, and use ​ Browse ​ to save your project file in that new folder.

You shouldn't need to change any of the other settings on this page, but before you click OK , you should check the Scratch Disk settings.

New Project Settings Premiere Pro

Setting the Scratch Disks

Click on the ​ Scratch Disks ​ tab at the top of the New Project dialog box.

The scratch disk is the location on your computer where Premiere Pro CC 2019 will store media and other files related to your project.

By default the Scratch Disk will be set to the same folder that you set as the location for your new project. We recommend setting it to the same location, unless you have multiple hard drives.

IF YOU ARE WORKING ON A COMPUTER WITH 3 OR MORE HARD DRIVES then you can improve performance by setting "video previews" and "audio previews" to that third drive. If you only have 1 or 2 drives (your computer, and an external hard drive), you can ignore this, but for the curious, the ideal disk setup according to Adobe is as follows.

After scratch disks, you can check out the Ingest Settings. We won't change any of these settings right now, but we'll come back to them later when we start importing our media files. All of these settings can be changed after you've started your project as well, if needed.

After verifying the ingest settings, click OK ​.

Scratch Disk Settings

Editing Workspace

After you create a new project or re-open an existing project, the main workspace for Adobe Premiere will open on your screen. It is divided into four sections or panes:

  • Workspaces – ​This bar at the top shows the different workspaces available in Premiere. A workspace is just a preset for how the different panes are arranged. By default, Premiere should open in the ​ Editing workspace. This is the workspace we will be focusing on. If you ever accidentally close or can't find a window, right click the three horizontal lines next to Editing in the top bar, and click Reset to Saved Layout.
  • Project ​ – This shows the media files you have imported into your project, as well as your sequences. Within this window, there are also a number of tabs you can navigate through to access your media more easily. Two of the main tabs we will be using are Media Browser, and Effects. Media Browser shows files on your computer or external hard drive that you can import into Premiere. Effects contains different filters and transitions you can use when editing your video.
  • Source ​ – The Source pane is used to preview video clips selected from the project window. Double click a video file from the Project pane to view it in the Source pane. You can drag and drop video files from the Source or Project pane into the Timeline to begin editing. One of the main tabs within the Source pane is Effect Controls, where you can adjust effects you've added to your source video.
  • Timeline ​ – This is where you assemble your clips in a sequence, along with transitions, text boxes, audio tracks, etc. Until you create a sequence, this section will be blank. The default position is the lower right of the screen.
  • Program – This pane is where you can see a preview of the sequence you have open in the Timeline. This is the preview of your edit in progress.

Premiere Pro Workspaces

To change the layout of your workspace panes, click the Window button in the vertical bar at the top of the screen. 'Workspaces' should be the first option in the menu. Hover over it to display the available pre-selected workspace panes, and select whichever you prefer. We recommend using the ​ Editing ​layout.

Any panel can be resized by clicking and dragging at the margins between panes, or moved around the screen by clicking and dragging on the name of the pane.

Preferences

You can change a number of setting preferences in Premiere, such as doing more frequent automatic saves of your project or changing the default settings for how audio from your camera is converted into different types of audio tracks in Premiere.

To change the preferences on a Mac, in the horizontal menu at the top select ​ Premiere Pro > Preferences ​ and select the setting you want to change.

On a PC, the same menu is available from ​ Edit > Preferences

Auto Save

We recommend adjusting your Auto Save preferences to Automatically Save Every 5 minutes.

To do this, select Premiere Pro from the horizontal menu at the top of the screen. Hover over Preferences , and click Auto Save ​ from the drop-down menu.

Auto Save

Make sure you have selected the checkbox next to Automatically save projects .

In the text field next to Automatically Save Every: enter 5 minutes.

In the text field next to Maximum Project Versions: enter 100.

This will automatically save your project more frequently, and keep a longer record of old versions of your project.

You can choose where Premiere Pro CC 2019 will store your auto saved files by setting your Scratch Disks. Hover over File in the horizontal menu at the top of the screen, go to Project Settings and click Scratch Disks . A new window called Project Settings will appear. Under Project Auto Save , you can choose where the auto saved files will be stored.

Auto Save Location

Copying Video Camera Files

Before we edit video you've shot, we need to copy it from your camera's memory card to the computer or external hard drive.

The easiest way to do this is to connect your memory card to your computer using a card reader, and drag and drop the contents into a folder that will contain both your project file and video files onto the computer or external hard drive.

Important note ​: It's best to drag the entire contents of the card onto your computer. DSLR cameras like Canon and Nikon may have individual .mp4 files that you can copy one by one, but for many cameras, especially from Panasonic and Sony you need to drag the entire folder on the card. This folder is probably called "Private" and will contain another folder called AVCHD or XAVC the video files. It's important to keep these folders together because they also contain related files such as metadata files that Premiere will need to open the videos. You should not edit the AVCHD folder or any files within this folder, or you risk corrupting the video footage.

Copying your footage to your computer or external hard drive will make the video files accessible to Premiere for import via the Media Browser, and allow you eject the memory card without breaking Premiere's connection to the video files.

Importing

It is necessary to import your media into Premiere so you can begin editing.

Click File > Import from the horizontal menu at the top of the screen. A finder window will open, and you can select the folder or individual files you want to import.

You can also use the ​ Media Browser ​pane in the lower left side of the editing workspace to navigate your computer and select media to import. The Media Browser functions similarly to Finder or Explorer, but is built into Premiere. You can view the files that are available on your computer or external hard drive and import them into Premiere.

You'll see the file directory for your hard drive displayed on the left. Navigate to the folder that has a file you want to use in your movie, and you'll see the file displayed on the right. Video files will appear as icons showing the first scene from the clip.

Make sure you click the ​ icon view ​ button at the bottom of the Media Browser to display your video and photos as icons. You can also adjust the slider at the bottom to increase the size of the icons, and click on the three horizontal lines to sort by name, filetype, etc.

You can preview a clip to make sure it's one you want to import by selecting the clip and using the small scrubber bar to scan through the clip.

Press the tilde key ( ​ ~ ​ ) on the keyboard while the Media Browser is selected to view this project pane in fullscreen view. This, in conjunction with zooming on thumbnail view, offers an easy way to scrub through your videos and preview your clips.

Double click on a file to preview it in the Source pane, located directly above the Project pane. This does not import the file, but allows you to play the clip, and scrub through it in a larger view.

To import a file, right-click on a file and select ​ Import ​ from the drop-down menu. Premiere Pro CC 2019 will import the file and it will appear in the Project pane.

Ingesting

You can also copy files from a media card to your computer and import them into Premiere in one action using the Media Browser. This will copy media from your card to your computer, and import all at once. Adobe Media Encoder must be installed to import files this way.

To start, in the top bar of the Media Browser, select the checkbox labeled Ingest .

Then click the wrench next to the Ingest checkbox to verify your settings. The Project Settings window will open to the tab called Ingest Settings.

Ingest Settings

Copy ​: means that a copy of the files will be made.

Preset: ​MD5 verification is a fancy way of saying Premiere will double check to make sure everything copied without errors.

Primary Destination: Defines the location where the files will be copied. By default, the files will be placed in the same folder as your project file.

Click OK to save your settings.

Navigate to locate your card using the Media Browser tab. Your media card should be under Local Drives. You can toggle the arrow to find the specific card you want to import files from. Right click on the file or folder you wish to import, and select Import from the menu options. The media files will be copied from the card to your project file, and imported into your project.

Another program called Adobe Media Encoder will open and show you a progress bar as the files are being copied, but you can ignore this and start editing immediately.

Undoing changes

If you make a mistake while editing your video you can use Premiere's Undo function to return to earlier versions of your project.

There are multiple ways to use the Undo function. Navigate to the horizontal menu bar at the top of the page, right click Edit and select Undo from the menu.

Alternatively, if you are using a Mac, you can use a keyboard shortcut and simultaneously press Command + Z . If you are using a PC, press CTRL + Z .

Previewing Your Clips

In order to edit the footage you imported, navigate out of the Media Browser, to the Project tab in the Project pane.

Double check that you are working in the Project pane and not the Media Browser. Clips in either window can be previewed in similar ways (like scrubbing through the footage), but it's only the Project pane that shows you the imported media that's ready to edit.

Previewing Clips

You can change how you view your footage- in a list or as icons you can scrub through -by selecting between two buttons in the bottom left of the Project pane. You can view clips in the Source pane for a larger preview. Double click on a clip, or click and drag it onto the source monitor to preview.

Once a clip has been loaded in the Source pane, you can use the buttons on the bottom, or the space bar on your keyboard to playback or pause the video. The blue pointer is called the ​ Playhead , ​and shows your position in the video. You can drag it left or right to scrub forward or backward in the clip.

You can control playback with the keys ​ J , K ​and ​ L ​. J will rewind, K will pause, and L will play the clip forward. Clicking J or L multiple times will speed up playback forwards or backwards.

Creating a Sequence

Before you start editing, you need to create a sequence. A sequence is a container for all of your edits. Sequences are organized and accessed in the Project pane and edited in the Timeline. You can have multiple sequences in one project, or do all of your editing inside one sequence, it just depends on how you work.

To create a new sequence, navigate to the horizontal menu at the top of the screen. Click File > New > Sequence . Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Command + N on a Mac, or CTRL + N on a PC.

Once you've created the sequence, a ​ New Sequence ​ window will open. Here, you can choose settings for your project's sequence, which will be applied to the video you are creating.

You can change settings here to match the video format for the camera you used for this project. You then can save the changes as a custom setting to reuse later (this is helpful if you're repeatedly using the same video camera). For example, the main video camera we use at Berkeley AMI is the ​Sony X70​.

In the ​ Sequence Presets ​ tab, navigate to the ​ XDCAMHD 422 ​ folder, under Available Presets. Within this folder, open the 1080p folder, and select XDCAM HD422 1080p24 . This setting matches the resolution and frame rate we use with the Sony x70 camera.

If you are shooting on a Nikon or Canon, you'll want to use the ​ Digital SLR ​ setting.

To create custom settings, open the Settings tab, located to the right of the Sequence Presets tab. Click the Save Preset button in the bottom left of the window. A new window will open, prompting you to name your preset. Name the preset and click OK . Your preset will be available in the Sequence Presets tab, within the Custom folder at the bottom of the list of Available Presets.

Sequence Presets

You can use your custom preset for future projects where you are editing video from the same camera.

If you're unsure of the video settings on your camera, Premiere can automatically match the sequence settings for you. Premiere Pro CC 2019 will do this automatically when you drag a video clip from your Project pane into the Timeline.

Later, when you drag and drop a clip into the Timeline, a dialog box will appear asking if you want to ​ Change sequence to match the clip's settings ​. To do so, select ​ Change sequence settings , ​and the settings will be adjusted to match those of your video clip.

NOTE: If you copy and paste a clip into the Timeline, you may not get this warning. It may only appear after you drag a clip into the Timeline from the project window or source monitor.

Moving Clips to the Timeline

You can add a clip to a sequence in the Timeline by dragging it from Source pane on the top left of the screen, down to the Timeline pane on the lower right. Alternatively, you can drag and drop video footage from the Project pane directly into the timeline.

Moving Clips To Timeline

Drag the clip to the V1 video track on the timeline and release.

If there is audio with the clip you're moving to the timeline, that will automatically be added as one or two new tracks of audio located on A1 and A2 below the video track.

If necessary, you can drag ​ only the audio portion ​ of a clip to the timeline. Drag the icon that looks like an audio waveform, which appears just below the preview on the Source pane, to the audio tracks in the timeline.

You can also drag ​ only the video portion ​ (without audio) to the timeline. Grab the icons just below the preview on the Source pane that appears like a film strip, and drag it to the video track of the timeline.

You can also highlight a portion of the video as you preview it in the Source pane, to drag a selection into the timeline, rather than an entire video clip.

Click where you would like to begin the selection using the blue playhead. Choose the selection using the open bracket tool {, or clicking I on your keyboard. Scrub forward in your video preview to your chosen endpoint and click the closed bracket tool }, or press O on your keyboard. The area you have selected will be highlighted in the Source pane. Drag and drop the selection into the Timeline pane to edit.

Working with the Timeline

The timeline is where you will do your editing and build your final video.

Video clips appear as horizontal bars in the timeline. Those in the upper half (Lines marked V1, V2, V3 etc.) are video content. Those in the lower half (A1, A2, A3 etc) are audio content.

Timeline

The thin vertical blue line is the playhead, and it shows your position in the timeline. When the playhead is over a video clip, the video will appear in the program pane above. If you have multiple tracks or clips in the timeline, the playhead will view them from the ​top-down​. For example, one video track will cover another. Think of all your tracks as if they're stacked up, and the playhead is viewing them from above.

Timeline Zoom IN

You can only view the top video clip in the Program pane.

You can move the playhead by dragging it right or left, or you can press the spacebar on your keyboard and use the keys ​ J,K, and L ​ to navigate. They play backwards, pause, and forward, respectively.

You can also zoom in or out in time on the timeline using the ​ + and – ​keys, or by clicking and dragging the circles on the horizontal bar under the timeline from left to right. Zooming in and out on the clip allows you to view the seconds or minutes more closely, and edit your footage more precisely.

Zoomed Out:

Zoomed In: This is the same clip as above, but we're seeing only a few seconds of it below.

Editing Clips in the Timeline

You can move video clips around in the timeline by clicking and dragging them up, down, left or right.

Editing clips in timeline

You can shorten clips by clicking on the edge of a clip and dragging it in. When you hover your cursor over the clip, a red arrow will appear. Click and drag inward to shorten the clip to the desired length.

You can also lengthen a clip by clicking on the edge and dragging it out to the right.

If you have a clip with both video and audio tracks, and you want to change one track without affecting the other (such as deleting the audio track), you can unlink them.

To separate audio from video, click the Linked Selection button, which has an image of a mouse cursor over two bars. When the button is highlighted blue, your audio and video are linked within the clip, when it's white, the selection is unlinked. Alternatively, you can right click on the clip and select ​ Unlink ​ in the drop-down menu. You now can move the video and audio track clips independently of each other.

By holding ​ Option ​ or ​ Alt ​, you can also make any of your edits only target the clip you're clicking on. For example, holding Alt will let you click and only select one audio track from a linked pair.

By default, the Timeline is set up so that adjacent clips "snap" to each other, which makes it easy to align them without having one clip accidentally overlap the other or leaving empty space between clips.

If needed, you can turn off snapping by clicking on the ​ Snap ​ icon, which is in the top left of the Timeline, above the labels for the video tracks. The Snap icon looks like a U-shaped magnet, and should be highlighted blue if it is on, and white when it is turned off. If you pass your mouse cursor over the icon the word ​ Snap ​ will appear. You can also click S on your keyboard to turn it on and off.

If you want to delete a clip on the Timeline, select the desired clip and press ​ Delete ​ on your keyboard.

Razor Tool for Splitting or Deleting Part of a Clip

If you want to split a video or audio clip in two, or remove a segment in the middle of a clip (such as eliminating a sound gap in your audio), you can use the ​ Razor ​tool to split or slice out a segment of the clip.

The razor tools is ideal for editing longer clips, like interview segments. You can bring the entire clip into the timeline and use the razor tool to make cuts to the clip.

Razor ToolIt's called a razor because in the traditional film editing process a tape was literally sliced with a razor blade to remove unwanted pieces of the film or rearrange segments of a film.

To do these cuts in Premiere Pro 2019, in the ​ Tool palette ​ click on the ​ Razor ​ tool, which looks like a razor blade. For a shortcut, you can also press C on your keyboard. Your cursor will change to a small razor icon while you are using this tool.

Click on the video clip at the point where you want to cut it. Or cut the clip multiple times to create a segment in the middle that you can remove. Then click on the ​ Selection ​ tool in the tool palette (the keyboard shortcut is the ​ V key​) so you can select one of the segments to move or delete it. Delete the selection you've made by clicking it and pressing Delete on your keyboard.

Editing Clips in the Source Pane

You can make shorter selections from video clips while they are displayed in the Source pane to simplify editing before you bring clips into the timeline. You can select only the best parts of the clip to bring into the timeline, so you can edit out any unnecessary footage.

In the Project pane, double click on the clip you want to edit to display it in the Source pane.

Play the clip using the play controls at the bottom of the Source pane, or by pressing the ​ spacebar ​ on your keyboard (press the spacebar once to play and then again to pause the clip).

You also can use ​ J, K, L, and the spacebar on your keyboard to play the clip – L to speed up, J to rewind, K to pause, and the spacebar to play the clip at normal speed and pause.

You can also scrub through a clip by clicking on the blue playhead just under the clip and dragging it to the right or left.

Select the part of the clip you want to move to the timeline by setting in and out points on the clip while it's in the Source pane. Move the playhead to the point where you want your clip to start, and press I ​ on your keyboard, or clicking the { left bracket button, to set the in point. At the point where you want your clip to end, press ​ O on your keyboard, or click the } right bracket button, to set the out point. You will see a highlighted blue area in the scrubber bar below the clip showing the selected area.

The in and out points can be adjusted by clicking and dragging on either edge of the blue section of the scrub bar.

Once you've set the section of the clip you want in the In and Out points, you're ready to copy the clip to the Timeline.

Overwrite and Insert Edits

If you want to put a new clip at a point in the timeline where it will overlap with an existing clip, you have two options:

  • Overwrite Edit ​: the portion of the new clip that overlaps the old clip will replace the contents of the old clip. Thus you might have part of a video interview with someone that you want to overwrite with some "b-roll" footage of what the person is talking about.
  •  ​ Insert Edit ​: the old clip will be split at the insertion point for the new clip and part of the old clip will be moved to the right on the Timeline to make room for the new clip. You might want to split up a video clip of a scene by inserting a new scene in the middle of it.

You can do Overwrite or Insert edits by moving a new clip to the same track in the Timeline as the existing clip or by putting the new clip on a new video track above the existing clip.

If you do an Insert edit on a new track, it will still split the original clip on the track below. If you do an Overwrite edit on a new track, it will not change the original clip on the track below, but you won't see that video because the new video is on a track above it.

The ​ Overwrite edit ​ is the default in Premiere Pro 2019. When you drag a clip to the timeline, Premiere will automatically overwrite the overlapping portion of the existing clip with the new clip. This will be indicated by an arrow pointing down.

Overwrite Edit

To do an ​ Insert edit ​, press and hold down the ​ Command key ​ on the Mac keyboard and then click and drag the clip to the timeline. That will split the existing clip on the Timeline and move the rest of the clip further to the right on the timeline to make room for the new clip. This is indicated by an arrow pointing to the right.

In the Project pane, click to highlight the video clip you want to insert into the timeline. Below are the buttons for ​ Insert ​and ​ Overwrite ​. They also have keyboard shortcuts: ​ , ​ and ​ .

If you use the keyboard shortcuts or the buttons, Premiere Pro 2019 will place the clip where your playhead (the vertical blue line) is located in your timeline.

Track Targeting

You can control where clips go when you add them from the source monitor, or when you copy and paste them.

The rows with blue highlighted letters, to the left side of the Timeline pane, control where video clips are placed. The far left side refers to what is in your source window. It's called source targeting.

The below image is saying I have a clip loaded that has one video track and two audio tracks, and that if I drag it into the timeline, it would be placed on video track V1 and audio tracks A1 and A2. You can move these targets around to change where clips will be placed.

In the below image you can see that the source targeting has been moved to video track V3 and audio tracks A3 and A4. When clips are added from the source window, this is where they will be placed.

The right column of highlighted boxes is also "targeting," but specifically for when you copy and paste clips. This is called Track Targeting. So if you copy a clip, by default it will paste into video track V1, but you could change that by clicking the highlighted video and audio tracks to turn targeting on or off.

By default, clips will paste into the innermost targeted track. So right now, if I copied and pasted a clip, it would appear in video track V3 and audio tracks A3 and A4.

Working with Multiple Tracks

By default, Premiere Pro 2019 provides three tracks of video and six tracks of audio in the timeline. You can create additional tracks by dragging clips above or below the outermost tracks.

You can also create additional tracks in the horizontal menu at the top of the screen. Click ​ Sequence ​ > ​ Add Tracks.

Add tracks

A new window will appear called Add Tracks . Enter the number of video and audio tracks you would like to add, and choose where they will be placed. Click OK to add the tracks.

If you have multiple tracks of video, whatever video is on the top track in the timeline will be shown when the sequence is played, and any other video clips underneath will not be seen.

If you have multiple audio tracks then all the audio will play simultaneously no matter which is above or below the others on the timeline.

To hide the video from a particular track in the timeline:

  • Turn off the video for a particular track in the timeline by clicking on the ​ eye ​ icon button to the far left of the track to hide it. The eye icon is labeled Toggle Track Output, when you hover over it. After clicking the eye icon, it will be highlighted blue with a cross through it. Click it again to view the footage on the track.

To turn off audio for a particular track in the timeline:

  • Turn off the audio for a particular track in the timeline by clicking on the ​ M ​ button to the far left of the track. The button will turn green when the track is muted.
  • To only play the audio from one specific track, click the ​ S ​ icon (for Solo). The button will turn yellow when the track is "Soloed."

Markers

You can set markers on clips in the Source, Timeline or Program panes to help keep track of clips when editing video and audio.

The marker creates a snap-point on a clip or the timeline that the playhead will lock onto.

This can be helpful when you're editing audio and you want a video track to begin on the downbeat of a song. You can set a marker during audio editing at the downbeat so you then can position a video clip to begin at precisely that point.

You create a marker in a clip in the Source, Timeline or Sequence panes by moving the playhead to the desired point on the clip and pressing the ​ M key . ​The marker will appear as a tiny green icon just above the playhead.

To delete a marker right click on it and select ​ Clear Selected Marker ​ in the drop-down menu.

When using multiple markers, it can be helpful to change the color of a marker and give it a name. To edit, right click on the selected marker, and choose Edit Marker… from the dropdown menu. You can change the name and color of the marker in the window that opens, and click OK .

Audio

Audio tracks, both those associated with your video or independent tracks that are just audio, are displayed below the video tracks on your timeline.

Adjusting Volume for an Individual Clip

To adjust the audio levels for a track, first click and drag on the edge of the track to expand it, or click ​Option/Alt + = ​ until a line appears in the middle of the track.

Audio

The waveform is a visual representation of your audio that shows it's high and low points. In Premiere, there is a horizontal line through the waveform that represents the base audio level. You can drag this line up or down to adjust the volume of the clip. You can't boost the sound level very much, but you can reduce it to negative infinity (which essentially mutes it).

Adjusting Volume at Multiple Points in a Clip

You also can raise or lower the audio at multiple points within a clip to create fade ins and fade outs with your audio.

You can create keyframes by holding down the ​ Command ​ key on the Mac keyboard while clicking on the white audio level line with your cursor. Do this at the points where you want the audio to change.

Another way to do add keyframes is by selecting the Pen from the tool palette, and clicking on the white line.

When you move your cursor over a keyframe you'll notice a little diamond icon appear to the lower right of the cursor. This indicates you can change the audio level by clicking, holding down your mouse and dragging the keyframe higher to increase the audio or lower to decrease audio.

The audio level line will change accordingly. If the audio level line slopes up from one keyframe to the next, the audio will fade in. If the audio level line slopes down from one keyframe to the next, the audio will fade out.

You also can drag a keyframe to the left or right to adjust where fade ins and fade outs begin and end.

To delete a keyframe, select it and press ​ Delete on your keyboard​.

Transitions

To add a transition between clips, like a cross dissolve (so the first clip gradually fades out as a second clip fades in) go to the ​ Effects tab within the ​ Project ​ pane​. Open the ​ Video Transitions ​ folder to access a set of folders with a number of different transitions you can use.

One of the most commonly used transitions is the cross dissolve. Open the ​ Dissolve ​ folder and you'll see the ​ Cross Dissolve ​ transition listed there. You can also use the search bar to locate a specific transition you want to use.

Transitions

To add the transition between two clips in your timeline, position your playhead between the clips, then select the transition you want to use. Click and drag the transition from the folder to the timeline, and release it when it's positioned between the two clips.

The transition is shown as a gray bar connecting the clips.

A faster way to add a cross dissolve between two clips is to use a keyboard shortcut. Click the edit point between the two clips so it is highlighted red, then press Shift + D key​ on your keyboard. The Cross Dissolve transition will be added here, as well as Constant Power, which fades in and out audio between clips. You can remove any of these elements by clicking the gray bar and pressing Delete on your keyboard.

For the same effect, you can also right click, and select Apply Default Transitions. Premiere's default transition is Cross Dissolve.

By default transitions are one second long. If you want to change the duration or move the transition slightly to the left or right, first zoom in on the timeline by pressing + on your keyboard .

Once zoomed in, you can click on the edge of the transition and drag to extend or shorten the transition. You can hold the Shift key to move one edge of the transition at a time.

Titles and Text

You can add titles and text to your sequence, such as a box with explanatory text or a "lower third" toward the bottom of a clip to identify the person in the video.

First, position your playhead over the approximate area in your Timeline sequence where you want the title to start.

Text & Titles

Select the Text tool from the toolbar (shortcut ​ T ​).

With the text tool selected, you can drag and draw a text box in the Program window (upper right) and start typing. The title will appear as a clip in the timeline, which you can extend or move just like video footage.

You can switch back to the pointer tool (shortcut V ) to move the title around the image, or move it on the timeline. Double click the text box to switch back to the text tool to edit the contents.

To edit the titles in-depth, open the Effect Controls tab in the Source pane (top left). Here you can adjust font, size, style, etc.

To change the color of the text, click on the colored square called Fill. The text color is set to white by default.

A title clip can contain multiple pieces of text. With the title selected in the timeline, you can use the Type key to make new text boxes.

You can add shapes to a title by clicking and holding on the Pen tool and selecting one of the shape tools.

Pen Tool

You can then use the shape tools (rectangle, ellipse, or pen) to create shapes in your motion graphics clip. Just like text, shapes can also be edited in the motion graphics window, under Effect Controls.

If you want to use the title you've created in other Premiere Pro 2019 projects, right click on the title in the timeline and select Export As Motion Graphics Template…

You can also create more complex templates in Adobe After Effects and import them into Premiere Pro 2019.

Effect Controls

There are many other tools you can use within Effect Controls. Some of the most commonly used effects are under the Video Effects subsection. You can add motion to any graphics, or directly to your video footage. This is most often used to adjust the Position and Scale of your video.

Adjust the Scale of your image (to zoom in or out) with the Scale slider. Expand the carrot to the left of Scale, and slide the circle that appears below, along the line to the left or right. This will zoom your image in or out.

Once you've adjusted for scale, you'll want to reposition your image. Located directly above Scale in the Video Effects tab, you can change the number values to move your video to the left or right of the screen. Hover your cursor over the number in the left column to move the image to the left or right. You can hover your cursor over the number in the right column to move the image up or down.

Video Effects

Color Correction

For basic color correction, search for Fast Color Corrector in the Effects search bar located to the right of your workspace. If the Effects search bar is not visible, select Effects from the vertical bar at the top of your workspace.

Color Correction

Once Fast Color Corrector is revealed, drag and place it on top of the video footage you want to alter. The Effect Controls window will open in the top left Source window in your workspace. A large multi-colored circle will appear, where you can begin editing your color.

Color

One of the most commonly needed color adjustments is White Balance. Select the dropper tool next to the white box labeled White Balance, and click on the whitest area in your video located in the top right box of your workspace. Use your best judgement and adjust as necessary to reach the ideal color for your video.

Rendering

When you add an effect like a transition or a title to your sequence, it may need to be rendered so it displays properly on your computer screen.

Rendering means having the effect processed by the computer so it is permanently added to your sequence of clips. If you see red or yellow lines above your Timeline, those are areas of your sequence that need to be rendered, usually because you have added effects there.

Rendering your video as you're editing can help with any playback issues you might be experiencing.

To render all the effects in your entire sequence, in the horizontal menu at the top select of the screen ​ Sequence > Render Entire Work Area ​. A window will open, showing the rendering progress, and your sequence will play automatically once rendering is complete.

The work area is the gray bar with the blue end points that sits above all the tracks in your sequence. You can reposition the work area, and hence the portion of your sequence being rendered, by dragging the blue end points to the left or right.

It will take some time for the rendering to be completed depending on how complex the effects were that you added to your sequence.

Transferring Projects

When working in a collaborative situation, you can transfer an entire Premiere Pro CC 2019 project from one team member to another.

This would allow one person to work on a rough cut of a sequence, and then transfer the project to a second person to do the final edits.

Alternatively, one person could work on the beginning of a sequence, another person could work on the end of a sequence, and then they could be merged into a single sequence.

To transfer a project, i​n the menu at the top of the screen, select File > Project Manager ​.

In the dialog box that appears make these selections:

1)  Select the checkbox next to the sequences you want to share.

2)  Under Resulting Project, select the option ​ Collect Files and Copy to New Location .

3)  Under Options, select the the checkbox for ​ Exclude Unused Clips ​ (optional but recommended).

Note: Choosing this option will only transfer the clips that are in a sequence, and any movie file or clip that you have not used will not be transferred. This is recommended to reduce the overall file size of the project you are sharing. If you want to include every clip that you have imported into you project folder, then uncheck this box and everything will be transferred.

4)  Check the 3 boxes labeled ​ Include Preview Files ​, ​ Include Audio Conform Files, ​and ​ Rename Media Files to Match Clip Names.

5)  Under Destination Path, click the Browse button to choose a destination to which this project and all its files will be copied. In most situations it will be an external hard drive of the person with whom you are sharing the project.

Then click ​ OK ​ to complete the transfer of the project and its files.

The person receiving the files must then connect the external drive to their computer and open the project. All the relevant media files will be in that new project.

If two people want to merge two sequences into one (like the beginning half of a sequence and the end), the person receiving the files again must connect the external drive to their computer. They then must open their existing project, select ​ File > Import ​, navigate to the project they transferred from the other team member, and click ​ Import .​ In the dialog box check ​ Import Selected Sequences ​.

A folder will appear in your Project pane with the name of the project you imported. Open that folder, click on the sequence inside, and copy the clips into the timeline.

Finally, open the sequence in the existing project and copy the clips from the imported sequence into the timeline.

Exporting

Before exporting, first you'll want to select the part of your timeline that you want to turn into a finished video. You can select this area by marking an ​ In ​and ​ Out ​point in the timeline the same way you would in the source monitor (with the buttons on the toolbar, or with the ​ I ​and ​ O ​keys).

To export a sequence in Premiere Pro 2019 for viewing on the web, in the menu at the top click on File > Export > Media ​.

That will bring up an ​ Export Settings ​ box where you can select what in your sequence you want to export and to adjust the settings for your exported movie, like the ​ Format ​ and ​ Preset ​ settings.

First review the ​ Source Range ​ selection in the lower left to make sure you're exporting all of the sequence that you want. Make sure it is set to ​ Entire Sequence ​ to export everything on your timeline.

Video Exporting

Be sure to check that you didn't leave any leftover clips on the end of your timeline that you don't want included in your movie.

We recommend particular settings for exporting a video you can upload to YouTube and then embed on a web page:

Under Export Settings, click on the ​ Format ​ drop-down menu and select ​ H.264.

Click on the ​ Preset ​ drop-down menu and select ​ YouTube HD 1080p Full HD.

For maximum quality, under ​ Bitrate Settings, ​ select ​ VBR 2 Pass ​ and set the Maximum Bitrate to around twice the Target Bitrate. ​Note: VBR 2 will double your export time, but will improve quality.

Exporting Bitrate Settings

Target Bitrate is the setting that has the biggest effect on both file size and quality. For general settings, 10 is good for social media, 16 is recommended for YouTube, but if you've shot on a good camera and you want maximum quality, use 25. Higher than that you probably won't notice the difference.

If you are having trouble with the your videos color looking different after exporting, try checking the "render at maximum depth" box, but otherwise leave the rest of the settings alone.

Under Export Settings, click the blue highlighted file name located next to ​ Output Name, ​ to rename your video file and select a destination folder on your computer where the video file will be exported (such as to an exports folder on your computer).

Click the ​ Export ​ button at the bottom right.

Key Differences between Premiere Pro 2019 and 2020

If you've updated to Premiere Pro 14.0 or Creative Cloud 2020, you may be wondering about the changes made between the updated version and the 2019 version.  A brief explanation of key differences as described by freelance video editor, Piotr ToczyƄski, What's New in Premiere Pro 2020?

About this Tutorial

This tutorial was written for the Berkeley Advanced Media Institute by faculty and staff at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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How to Cut Audio File in Adobe Premiere

Source: https://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/adobe-premiere-pro/