16 Adobe Premiere Pro/After Effects Tips That Don’t Each Need An 8 Minute Youtube Tutorial
Very little content on the internet is as notoriously roundabout as recipes. Nonetheless, Youtube tutorials come pretty close : a minute of intro, a minute of outro, a sponsorship message. Most of the time, all you’re looking for could be explained within 30 seconds, which leads to frustration. Just imagine it: you’re sitting down with a cup of coffee on a Sunday night and — just kidding. Here are the tips:
Disclaimer: I’m using Creative Cloud 2019 on Windows. I’m not confident these are the best ways to achieve these goals but they have worked well for me. I understand the value in videos is that they are easier to follow, but I hope the frustration of needlessly stretched out videos is agreed upon.
Premiere Pro
How to add text:
Use the Essential Graphics tab (on the right if you have the default workspace), go to the Edit tab, and click on the new graphic icon. Add text and modify its properties in the panels that appear.
How to make keyframes less linear:
Adobe After Effects has Easy ease to make keyframes happen smoother (slower at the ends, faster in the middle). A similar effect can be done in Premiere Pro by right clicking the first keyframe, applying Ease Out to that, and applying Ease In to the second keyframe.
How to change the audio volume of footage easily:
Hit G while having a clip selected, and press a quantity (ex: +5.6 or -20) to change the gain by that much. You can also change volume by 1 decibel at a time by selecting the audio and using [ and ] (thanks Learn How To Edit Stuff)
How to reduce background noise:
Open the Essential Sound tab (on the right if you have the default workspace). Select Repair, Reduce Noise, and move the slider. Higher values affect the entire audio so experiment with it.
How to delete only audio or video:
Might be a better way to do this: I lock the layer that I don’t want deleted (left side of the timeline), use Razor tool (C Key) to cut, select with V and backspace to delete.
How to deal with footage that isn’t in focus:
Apply the Unsharp Mask effect. Set amount to 150, radius to 1, and mess around with those two until you’re satisfied. Some smoothness is sacrificed but if you toggle the effect (fx button) you’ll notice the difference.
How to make a wavy daydream/flashback transition:
Use the Wave Warp effect on both clips involved. Some good values are 600 for Wave Width, Wave Height of 0 to 110, and 110 to 0 for the entering daydream and daydream respectively. Direction should be 90, Wave Type should be Sine, but play Wave Speed to get the desired effect.
How can I create a straight line after creating a curved one with the pen tool (masksing)?
After creating a curved line (point 1 and point2), you will see two handles. Click and drag the handle that is closest to the direction you want your next line to be in (point 3), and drag it as close as possible to point 2, and then create point 3. Alternatively, click the handle, hold alt and drag it in the direction you want, and then create point 3.
After Effects
How to center the anchor point for a clip:
Hold Control + Double click the “Pan Behind (Anchor Tool)” button in the toolbar. Make sure you have the clip selected before doing this.
How to center the clip around your anchor point:
Hold Shift + Double click the “Pan Behind (Anchor Tool)” button in the toolbar.
How to center both the clip and its anchor point in your composition:
Hold Alt + Double click the “Pan Behind (Anchor Tool)” button in the toolbar.
How to make keyframes less linear:
This process is crucial for making animation less boring.
Select the keyframes, right click them, keyframe assistant, easy ease. If you want a shortcut, select keyframes and press F9. To accentuate the effect, after selecting keyframes and pressing F9, open the graph editor (top right of the layers panel) and select “Edit Speed Graph” in the second menu at the bottom of the graph editor. Then, drag the round handlebars towards the middle or a side to make the keyframes faster in the middle or faster at the beginning or end. Experimentation is probably the best way to see what this does.
What are the two rectangles for when I do motion tracking?
The inner rectangle is for the feature that you’re tracking, the outer rectangle is the area where it will be looked for in the next frame. You’ll want to choose a feature(inner rectangle) that stays relatively constant in terms of lighting in your footage.
How can I make one video inherit keyframes from another video?
The symbol shown is the pick whip. If you select some property’s (ex: position) pick whip and drag it onto another video’s position property, the first will mimic the second. In some cases, copying and pasting the keyframes will work too.
How can I cut the clip to where the playhead is?
Alt + [ or Alt + ] will do this while leaving your keyframes alone, while usig only [ and ] will move your keyframes (not as useful in my opinion).
How can I create a straight line after creating a curved one with the pen tool?
After creating a curved line (point 1 and point2), you will see two handles. Click and drag the handle that is closest to the direction you want your next line to be in (point 3), and drag it as close as possible to point 2, and then create point 3. Alternatively, click the handle, hold alt and drag it in the direction you want, and then create point 3.
In Photoshop, this can be done by alt+clicking the second point, but for whatever reason it’s not consistent in PP and AE.
I hope some of these tips were helpful. I’m not sure how many people will find this while browsing Medium and how many will come while looking for a specific problem, but if I helped you out I would really appreciate if you subscribed to me on Youtube. I make mostly gaming videos.
