Six Tips Before You Jump to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Peachpit by Jeff Greenberg

Spend minutes, save hours! Jeff Greenberg, coauthor of An Editor's Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro, Second Edition, cuts to the chase by pointing out what you need to know to get up to speed quickly and save time with Premiere Pro.

In a rush? Said yes to a project too fast? Realized you need to use Adobe Premiere Pro and you're just assuming you can pick it up as you go? All too often I've been there, learning tools on the fly. It's why my coauthors and I wrote An Editor's Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro, Second Edition.

I've taught thousands of people to use editorial tools. If you have five minutes to spare, reading each of the following tips can save you hours of work, because most of them deal with the big differences when trying to jump into the deep end of Premiere Pro.

This isn't a comprehensive list of things you need to know—not by a long shot! It's a few items that caused me pain when I was first learning and using Adobe Premiere Pro. Of course, I want you to see the value in An Editor's Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro, Second Edition. If you find any of the information in this article to be useful, imagine how much help the book will be for you!

Let's start with the interface, go over some basic keyboard adjustments, and end with some quick tips on importing from FCP or Avid.

Tip 1: Learn Premiere Pro's Most Important Layout Features: Workspaces, Panels, and Panel Menus

When you jump into a new piece of software, one of the biggest hurdles is that your brain immediately surveys the screen to figure out where things are. You could hunt for familiar elements, but instead I'll give you three items to learn that will help you speed up. read more...