Insert or overlay clips from the Project window

Source Turn on Project window thumbnails.

By default, the Project window thumbnails are turned off. However, turning them on gives you a quick look at your footage and helps you view an In point. After you have captured your clips, and they are all listed in the Project window, click the Project window menu and scroll to Thumbnails. Make sure that there is a checkmark next to Large. If not, choose Large to maximize the size of the footage thumbnail. Then, click the menu and choose Thumbnails again. If there is a check next to Off, choose it to deactiviate it. If you want to preview your video, click the play button next to the preview thumbnail or drag the slider below the thumbnail.

Set an In point. You can now perform a basic trim in the Project window. First, click the Project window menu and choose Edit Columns. In the Edit Columns dialog box, make sure that Video In Point is selected. In the Project window, select your target clip. Locate the Preview thumbnail in the upper left corner of the Project window and make sure that the slider beneath the thumbnail is all the way to the left. Then, click the Poster Frame button. Drag the scroll bar at the bottom of the Project window until you see the Video In Point column appear. Then, when you release the underlined Video In Point value, the footage thumbnail updates to a new In point for your footage. Note that the poster frame you set is considered the beginning of the footage. For example, if you set the poster point to be 10 seconds into the footage, then when you drag the Video In Point value, the displayed time for that value is measured from the location of the poster frame, not the actual beginning of the footage. Set the poster frame as the first frame of the footage in order for the In point value to be accurate in relation to the actual beginning of the footage. Insert or overlay the clip in the Timeline window. To insert the clip and subsequently ripple all the clips in the sequence, hold down Ctrl and drag the clip to the sequence. To overlay the clip, drag it over a section in the sequence. While still holding the mouse button, note the Program view of the Monitor window. In it, you see two images. These images show the range of frames in the sequence that you will replace when you release the mouse button and overlay the clip. When you are satisfied with the placement, release the mouse button. In the Program view, you see the two frames between which you will be inserting the dragged clip. Drag the clip until you find the exact point where you want to place it, and release the mouse button. Repeat either method for each clip you want to overlay or insert.

Preview and refine your sequence. After inserting or overlaying the clips, define a work area and preview your edit. To quickly define a work area, drag the current-time indicator to the point in the sequence where you want the work area to begin and press Alt + [ . Then, drag the current-time indicator to your desired Out point, and press Alt + ] . Press Enter to begin the preview. When setting your source clip’s In and Out points in the Source view, you can still use the Program view to preview their placement in the sequence if you drag or Ctrl-drag the clip from the Source view. You can further refine your edits by dragging the head or tail of the clips in the Timeline window or by using the Trim view. See the Adobe Premiere Pro User Guide for information on trimming in the Timeline window and using the Source and Trim views.

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Correct color in video

Source Optimize your workspace.

Optimize Adobe Premiere Pro to work with color-correction tools by choosing Window > Workspace > Color Correction. This command docks the Effects and Effect Controls windows in the Project window and opens a Reference Monitor window next to the Program view. Open an existing project that contains clips that need color correction. Sync the Reference Monitor and Program view. The Reference Monitor window allows you to view the waveform monitor or vectorscope and clips simultaneously. Choose Gang To Program Monitor from the Reference Monitor menu so that both windows show the same frame in the timeline. Then, choose Waveform from the same menu. To navigate between frames, use the playback controls in the Reference Monitor window to keep this window in front of the Monitor window. Apply the Color Corrector effect to a clip. Click the Effects tab in the Project window and type color corrector in the Contains text box. When the Color Corrector effect appears, drag the effect icon to the clip in the Timeline window. Move the current-time indicator to a frame in the clip and then select the clip in the Timeline window. Click the Effect Controls tab in the Project window to show all effects associated with the selected clip and then expand the Color Corrector effect to view the controls. Adjust the black, white, and gray points. The waveform monitor in the Reference Monitor window shows a graph that corresponds to your video image. The horizontal axis corresponds to the width of your video scan lines and the vertical axis corresponds to the amplitude of the signal, measured in IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) units. Dark values are on the bottom and light values are at the top. If your video exceeds 100 IRE for white or 7.5 IRE for black, you’ll need to correct your footage to prevent loss of detail and to stay within U.S. broadcast requirements. To alter the luminance, use the Black/White Balance control. Drag the Black Point eyedropper to an area of the image in the Program view that represents true black. This value should cause the graph to meet the green line that represents 7.5 IRE. Release the mouse to select the color. Repeat this procedure to set the white point to a value of 100 IRE. If you reduce the graph below 100 IRE, your image will lose highlights and appear dull. To remove an overall color cast in your footage, set the gray point by dragging the Gray Point eyedropper to a color in the video that represents a neutral gray. You can also use the HSL Hue Offset color wheels to remove color casts from specific tonal ranges such as highlights, midtones, and shadows. View tonal ranges in your video. While your entire image may need correcting, often you need to change only the highlights, midtones, or shadows. For example, you may need to remove blue from shadows in a snow scene without turning the highlights yellow. To see which areas of your image are defined as highlight, midtone, and shadow, select the preview option in the Tonal Range controls. Shadows are shown as black, midtones as gray, and highlights as white. While Adobe Premiere Pro uses default ranges to define tone, you can adjust these ranges if your image leans toward excessive shadows or highlights. Alter colors for highlights, midtones, or shadows. Expand the HLS controls and choose the tonal range you want to adjust from the pop-up menu. To view your adjustments, choose Vectorscope from the Reference Monitor window. Hue is indicated by the angular orientation; color values range from 0 to 360° in a counter-clockwise direction. The strength of the color, or saturation, is shown as the distance from the center of the display. Blacks, grays, and whites appear at the center and vivid colors appear towards the outside of the display. Adjust hue and saturation values by dragging the values or entering new ones. To prevent vivid colors from appearing smeared on NTSC monitors, lower the saturation values. Limit your video footage. If your clip still exceeds acceptable luminance or saturation values, select the Enable Limiter option and enter maximum and minimum values for chrominance and luminance to match your broadcaster’s requirements. Preview video footage on a television monitor. Be sure to preview your corrected clip on a television monitor using the same hardware you’ll use to export your final sequence. Adobe Premiere Pro includes other effects that you can use for color correction, including Color Match, Broadcast Colors, and Gamma.

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Create a looping soundtrack

		Source Import video into Adobe Audition. Launch Adobe Audition and choose View > Multitrack View. (If this is the first time you are launching Adobe Audition, Multitrack mode opens first, with initial loop files. If this happens, choose File > New Session and do not save the initial session.) In Multitrack mode, you can mix up to 128 different audio tracks, including tracks from video files you have. Select Track 1 by clicking in any empty space on that track, and choose Insert > Video From File. Choose the video file you want to augment with music and click Open. Adobe Audition places the video on Track 1 and places the audio on Track 2. You also see a window that displays your video so that you can watch the video as you edit the audio. You can include footage from only one video per session, but you can mix the audio from several videos in a session, up to the 128-track limit. To mix the audio from several videos, select an empty track and choose Insert > Audio from Video File.
		Import an audio file to loop. Looping a sampled audio file is the quickest way to create a seamless music soundtrack, and Adobe Audition makes it easy to combine several files of this type. A short audio file works best for loops. To import a file for looping, right-click the next empty track below the video track and choose Insert > Wave From File. Adobe Audition imports the file at the location of the cursor on the track. Right-click and drag the imported file to the location where you want it to begin playing, in relation to the audio track in your imported video file. To import one of the installed Adobe Audition files, navigate to the program directory and choose a .CEL file from the Audition Theme folder. A .CEL file is an .MP3 file with modifications to it that make it suitable for looping. Adobe Audition includes several such royalty-free .CEL files. In addition, there are roughly 2,000 other loop-ready files on the supplemental CD included with the product.
		Prepare the file for looping. Select the imported file and choose View > Loop Properties. In the Wave Block Looping dialog box, make sure that Enable Looping is selected. (If you imported a .CEL file, it is already enabled for looping.) Set the time ruler to display in bars and beats by choosing View > Display Time Format > Bars And Beats. Aligning your looped audio files is easier when you choose Bars And Beats as your time format. This allows you to time your music according to the number of beats the passages have. See Adobe Audition Help for information on using the Bars And Beats time format. Loop the file. Once you have enabled the file for looping, a series of diagonal lines appear in the bottom right corner of the loop. Position the cursor over these lines and drag to loop the file. Vertical dotted lines appear at each segment of the completed loop. Continue dragging to encompass the area where you want the loop to play. If you import a .CEL file, it also includes an icon in the bottom left corner of the clip that signifies that the file is a loop file. Preview the loop. After dragging the loop, you can now hear how it sounds with your video file while you watch the video. To make sure that the preview plays from the beginning, press the Home key. Then, press the spacebar to begin the preview. To stop the preview, click the Stop button or press the spacebar again. To begin the preview from a point in the track other than the beginning, position the cursor where you want the preview to begin, then press the spacebar. Once you have listened to it, you can adjust the volume of the track or add effects to further refine it. See Adobe Audition Help for information on adjusting the volume of a track or adding effects to it. As mentioned earlier, you can add up to 128 tracks. To add and adjust more audio tracks, repeat steps 2 through 5. Import the video into Adobe Premiere Pro. Once you are satisfied with the mix, choose File > Save Mixdown To Video As. Navigate to a location to save your file, name it, and click Save. You can save the file only as an .AVI file. Then, import the file into your Adobe Premiere Pro project and drag it to the Timeline window. The file appears as you mixed it in Adobe Audition. If you need to remix the file, select it in the Timeline window and choose Edit > Edit Original to open it again in Adobe Audition. Modify the file, save it, and it will update in Adobe Premiere Pro. You can extend the functionality of the Edit Original command by configuring Adobe Audition to link mixdown files with related session files. Simply choose Options > Settings, click the Data tab, and select Embed Project Link Data For Edit Original Functionality. Then, when you save mixdown files, select Save Extra Non-audio Information.

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