Every self-respecting professional tries to impress the whole world with his work. For this, the entire arsenal of skills, knowledge, abilities, ideas, etc. known to mankind is used. The work is improved, optimized, sharpened, accelerated, and whatever else is done for the sake of the result.
Some things may be easier to do, others more difficult. So why not start with five easy steps to speed up your video editing in Premiere Pro?
Tip 1. Close all extra windows
A simple, perhaps even banal advice, but believe me, it is quite effective. The fewer unnecessary things on the monitor screen, the easier it is to work. The video editor’s attention should be focused on the process. Video editing is a delicate job. It can be compared to creating jewelry. All actions must be refined, accurate, and correct. Then it will be impossible to take your eyes off the result. The same goes for video editing.
Back to the advice. Premiere Pro provides many windows to work with. Many of them are useful and widely used in work. Each window is involved in a certain stage of video creation. For example, the functionality of the Lumetri Color and Lumetri Scopes windows is used when coloring videos; the Audio Track Mixer window is used when working with audio, and so on.
You see many windows when you open Premiere Pro for the first time. Many of them can be closed immediately. Close all the windows without regret. Close until you are left with those, which you will switch between 2-5 minutes apart. We close everything else.
Professional work approach
Experienced video editors have already created window profiles to use their time efficiently. They can be divided into 4 stages: work with video, work with audio, stage of color correction, and stage of work with titles. 4 profiles are created, where a certain list of windows is stored, which is necessary at each stage. When one stage of work is completed and the turn goes to another, the editor switches to another profile.
This is done to avoid opening all windows at once. Or not to open and close them every time a certain window will or will not be needed.
That’s why tip №1 is to close all unnecessary windows and optimize your work!
Tip 2. Reduce the playback quality of the player
This is done in order not to load the computer also by viewing frames. Usually, the video editor works with a lot of material. Many work with a certain number of Tracks. Plus credits, plus effects, plus color, etc. All this loads the computer. And a situation may arise that the video either freezes or is played with jerks. And this greatly slows down the work, because video viewing is an integral process of the editor’s work. To work without it is to work blindly.
To speed up work or move it from place, you can reduce the quality of video playback. It does not affect exports in any way. Video quality is reduced only on the player for viewing.
How to do it
In the Program window, under the video, there is an option where Full is selected by default. It is located near the wrench button. Click on it and choose ½ or ¼ depending on how you want it to play. If the video starts to play well with the ½ parameter, then we leave it at that. If not – the video still plays jerkily, then reduce it to ¼.
Tip 3. Use proxy files during editing
This is another tip to speed up video editing. Thanks to this advice, you can avoid the previous one.
Creating and working with proxy files makes the load on the computer much easier, because proxy files are smaller in size and worse in quality, respectively. These are simple files that load quickly and play quickly. Working with them progresses faster. In the end, during the export, the main thing is not to forget to replace it with the original files.
Tip 4. Use hotkeys
I will never tire of talking about it. If you’re not using hotkeys yet, start now! Yes, at first it will be difficult and a little long. But after a week or two, you will notice how you started to do the same work twice or even three times faster.
The benefits of using hotkeys are endless. The only drawback is the small number of keys on the keyboard.
So if you haven’t set up hotkeys in your Premiere Pro yet, do it today!
Tip 5. We use presets
The same situation as with hotkeys. Let’s imagine the situation in which we are doing the first, second, third, and so on projects. Certain work processes are the same. So why not make yourself presets so that you don’t have to set everything up from scratch every time? I see no reason not to do it.
So create presets to work with video, create presets to work with audio, create presets to work with color or titles, etc.
Stop wasting your time. Better use these 5 tips and upgrade your video editing!