Intro to Adobe Premiere Pro for Beginners

Learn how to get started learning video editing in 15 minutes with this Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial for beginners. Learn the basics like how to start a project, what is in each workspace, and what you’ll need when editing recipe videos. Watch the video below or keep reading to learn more.

If you’re just getting started with video editing, you might open up Premiere Pro for the first time and feel super overwhelmed. I’m going to take you on a little tour through the workspace, show you where everything is, and hopefully make you feel more comfortable working there.

Whether you’re new to this or have been editing for a while and just haven’t taken the time to figure out where everything is, I think this is going to be really helpful for you.

Starting a Project in Adobe Premiere Pro

When you first open up Premiere, you’ll get the option to open up a recent project, browse for a project, or start a new project. We’re going to start a new project.

You don’t need to worry about too much on the new project screen, just give your project a name and click OK.

If your workspace looks different than mine it might be because you are in a different workspace. Up at the top there are options for changing your workspace that include Editing, Color, Effects, and more.

If you can’t figure out how to get to the workspace you want you can always go up to your menus and choose Window —> Workspaces. You can also completely customize your workspace by clicking on the different panels and moving them to where you want.

This is especially helpful if you’re operating on two monitors. You may want to move your Program Monitor over to your right side monitor for better viewing.

The Editing Workspace

The Project Panel

On the bottom left we have the Project Panel. It is labeled with the title of your project, and there are a few other options for things to do in here. I mostly just use the project itself as well as the effects within this panel.

You can easily get to them by clicking on them in the top, using the double carrot menu, or using quick keys. SHIFT + 1 will take you to the project and SHIFT + 7 will take you to effects.

Inside the project panel is where we’re going to organize all the assets we’re going to use in our project. This includes footage, music, graphics, voice over, or anything else you might include in your video.

I have another post about how to use bins to organize your project as well as how to set up a template project, both of which will dive a little deeper into how to use this space to it’s fullest potential.

We can create a new bin by choosing the little file folder in the bottom of the panel. We’re going to use this bin for our footage, so rename it Footage, then go to File—> Import (or press COMMAND + I) to import your footage into the bin.

Now that we have our footage in our footage bin, if I double click on it it will open up in the Source Monitor.

The Source Monitor

The Source Monitor is located in the top left of the editing workspace. Here is where we’re going to do some rough editing and select the clips that we want to include in our project. 

You can click and drag the mouse to scrub through the footage in the source monitor, or I like to use J, K, and L to shuttle through the footage. Be sure to see my post on using quick keys to edit recipe videos for more on how these keys work.

You can set an in and out point in your footage by using the options at the bottom of this panel, or use the I and O keys on your keyboard.

To get the clip into your timeline, you can click and drag from the video down to the timeline, or if you just want the video but no audio you can click and drag from the little filmstrip icon below the video.

Alternatively, if you’re adding a lot of clips it can be faster to use the period key (.) to drop footage into the timeline to wherever you have the playhead (the blue line) set.

The Timeline

Adding a clip to the timeline creates a sequence. I recommend you go into the project panel and give your sequence a name (probably the name of the recipe you’re editing).

You can open up more than one sequence in the timeline if you’re working on multiple videos or versions of the same video. This will allow you to copy and paste between the two sequences. 

You can do the same thing with projects in the project panel by opening multiple projects. This is useful for bringing complicated assets from one project to another.

In the timeline we have video tracks on top and audio tracks on the bottom. You can expand these tracks by clicking in between them and dragging. Expanding the video tracks allows you to see what is in the clips, and expanding the audio tracks allows you to see the waveform in greater detail as well as select keyframes (see my post on how to adjust audio for more information on how and when to use audio keyframes).

You can also move your audio or video to a different track just by clicking and dragging.

If you’re working on a project and for some reason can’t see or hear your video when you would expect to, make sure you haven’t hidden or muted the track. This is to the right of where it says V1 or A1. To mute or unmute a track, click on the eye icon for video or the M for audio.

Between the timeline and the project panel we have a little menu with some important tools for editing your video. Most of the time you will be in the selection tool (the arrow), but you’ll also want to be aware of the razor tool which lets you cut anywhere in your timeline.

I have other posts and videos covering many of these other tools, so be sure to check those out on my YouTube channel or blog page.

The Program Monitor

The program monitor will show us what’s happening in our sequence in the timeline. You probably won’t need to do too much in here, but one thing that can be helpful is the option to export a frame. 

Look for the little camera icon below the video. Clicking on this will export whatever frame you are sitting at in your timeline. This is great for creating process shots to use in your blog posts.

The Color Workspace

If you select the color workspace you’ll get some new menus on the right side to help with color correction and color grading.

These menus can be opened and closed by clicking on them, and as mentioned previously I have other videos on how to color correct in premiere pro, how to use lumetri scopes and curves, as well as how to change a single color in your video.

On the left of the workspace you still have access to your effects controls, which you may need to perfect the coloring, and the source monitor.

The Effects Workspace

Inside the effects workspace, you’ll have access to the same effects you had in the project panel, but now they’ll be in the upper right. On the left are your effect controls, which give you access to all the effects applied to your clip.

The effects I use most often for recipe videos are cross dissolve (found under video transitions), position, scale, and rotation.

If you’re having trouble with the effects or color grading not applying to your video, make sure you have clicked on your clip before making changes.

The Audio Workspace

I don’t usually need to do much in the audio workspace for overhead recipe videos. One thing I do like to do is lower the audio level on purchased music by lowering the slider associated with the track it is on.

The Graphics Workspace

This workspace, also known as the essential graphics panel, has several templates set up that you can choose from. You can also create your own by selecting the type tool (T) from the mini menu to the left of the program monitor.

Once you’ve added a title, look at the top of the essential graphics panel and make sure “Edit” is selected to go through and change the position, size, font, and more.

You can check out my post on how to create titles in Premiere Pro for more information, and to learn why I prefer to use legacy titles in recipe videos.

Legacy titles can be created by going to File —> New —> Legacy Title. You’ll get a little window popping up that will allow you to create a title similar to the essential graphics panel.

Exporting

Once you’re all done editing your video, you’ll want to export it. Set an out point by placing the playhead beyond the last clip, then press the up arrow, then the back arrow, and O. You’ll want to press each of these individually instead of all together like some of the other quick keys.

To export the sequence, click once on the sequence name in the project panel and choose File —> Export, or COMMAND + M. You can export directly from Premiere or choose to send it to the Queue for encoding in Media Encoder.

Hopefully you’re feeling more confident in navigating Adobe Premiere Pro to start your video editing projects. If you have any questions, head over to the Facebook group to start a conversation there, and don’t forget to check out my other videos to dive deeper into everything you learned here and take your Premiere Pro knowledge beyond the basics.