Best Editing Software: Adobe Production Premium Creative Suite 6 – Editing Suite

Adobe you know, what you’re waiting on is CS6 and rightly so, it will be a very strong presence in the video editing world for good reason, such as a clean and easy to use interface and good utilization of 64-bit processing. The suite combines big names like Premiere, Audition, Photoshop and After Effects with many more for a package that gives video professionals and enthusiasts an extensive group of tools.

Their emphasis this time around is to speed up your editing, allowing for hover scrubbing within windows, better/more intuitive performance in Audition and uninterrupted playback in Premiere. Another welcome expansion will be found in multicam editing and color correcting. There’s plenty more new features to discover, and as for pricing, we can’t be sure, but to get into the ballpark, CS5.5 is $1,700 and upgrades are about $400.

Every so often, a problem arises with the footage you are editing. whether the problem is low audio, missing dialogue, or a jump cut, every editor knows a trick or two that will save them in a pinch. If done correctly, the viewing audience will never even know it was wrong to begin with.

If you find that you’ve turned a clip’s audio level as high as it will go and your audio is still too quiet, there is something else you can try. By copying the audio clip and pasting it directly in the audio track below, you can increase the loudness of the sound. Even consider locking the horizontal movement of your clips so that there’s no chance the audio will shift forward or backward. This will allow you to localize which clips you are boosting since you are refraining from using a global audio gain. You can continue pasting copies until it’s at an audible level.

However, keep in mind the more you duplicate the clip, the louder every sound will be. So if you have a slight hum in the audio, it could become quite obvious. Be sure to also ensure you have enough audio tracks available and stay organized, you may want to group or link the audio clips together once they’ve reached an audible level, otherwise shifting 10 or so audio clips with one piece of video will be difficult. Now you can save that crucial interview or help a quiet actor through your audio editing.

There is a trick for almost anything. If you pay close attention to movies and television shows you’ll see that even the professionals use editing tricks. By learning the tricks already out there, and stumbling upon some of your own, you’ll find that challenges in the editing room won’t be so difficult to overcome.

To learn more editing tricks check out Editing Dirty Little Tricks.

Last week we looked at one new tool for tidying up your videos in post-production.  The Fix it in Post DVD is Videomaker’s answer to the eternal question, “Oh no, this footage is messed up! What do I do now?”  We like to think that the Fix it in Post DVD will help answer any post-production mess that you could encounter, from washed out colors to shaky camera work.

But we know that’s not really the case: There’s always going to be some new problem that you’ve never encountered before, that we didn’t have the time or foresight to cover.  What then?  What if you need more help?

We were worried about just that situation, so we put our heads together and came up with something brilliant. It’s the Fix it in Post Ultimate Toolkit.  It’s got all the same great info about fixing static-muddled audio, ramping up bland colors, deinterlacnig footage, steadying nausea-inducing shakes, changing frame rates,  and subtly erasing unwanted objects  — plus a ton more that we weren’t able to cram onto a single DVD. This is the package for when you come back with footage that you just know will need A LOT of help.  It’s the big guns of post-production fix-its. In fact, it’s more than that. It’s the big TANK of post-production fix-its.

The Fix it in Post Ultimate Toolkit has all the best goodies for assuaging your post-production worries:

Edit Like the Pros #1 (eDoc)

Get your act together! Everyone wants to “edit like a pro”. But what does that really mean? Learn how to use your space and time effectively.

Edit Like the Pros #2 (eDoc)

Beginning editors concentrate on how to do the tasks of editing well. The professionals change their perspective. Learn how to shift your perspective from simply “how to do things” to how things should be done.

Fix It In Post (eDoc)

If the footage you just shot has problems, all is not lost. You can fix it! Ever get a sinking feeling when you review your footage and discover problems? Maybe it’s a sound you do not want or a camera shot that was too jittery. A lot of things go overlooked while shooting, only to show up as problems during the editing process. The good news is that your footage is probably salvageable with the proper techniques.

Scoping Out Your Video (eDoc)

Many editing software programs offer a variety of colorful scopes to help enhance the hue, color, and brilliance, among other editing tweaks. But how do they work?

Fix it in Post (DVD)

This DVD covers all the constant bugaboos of video creators: Washed-out color, shaky camera work, hisses and hums and annoying electrical noises, even the dreaded visible boom mic. But the worst part? No matter how careful you are, you’re sure to meet them time and again over the course of your video career. Learn how to stop them! Adobe software is used as demonstration software, but this DVD teaches theory and techniques that can be used in most current editing programs.

Rotoscoping  (Multimedia)

Do you want to make your hero fly? Stand your talent behind a virtual news desk? There’s nothing you can’t do with the right tools and skill-set. This tutorial teaches you how to realistically do this using rotoscoping tricks with Adobe After Effects.

Color Correction (VOD)

We look at how to read color scopes and monitors, use color correction tools to fix your footage and use secondary color correction to make sure your footage looks its best.

Compression Connection (Multimedia)

If you want your video to sound professional, you need to use compressors. This tutorial explains the process and how to compress your audio for the best sound results. This is a segment from Editing, part of our popular multimedia tutorial DVD-ROM series.

Color Correction 101 (eDoc)

A few simple steps can save an improperly-shot scene or improve one that is less than brilliant.

Color Correction 201 (eDoc)

Ever want to enhance a washed-out sky or push the color on a less-than-vibrant hill of grass? This eDoc covers working with Secondary Color Correction aspects such as Filters, Style and Color Enhancement.

Not to toot our own horn, but we’re really happy to finally be able to offer this toolkit.  Fix it in Post DVD is a great tool, but, if you’re like me, you know that you need a lot of post production help.  Some video creators have a sharp eye for detail; they like to carefully and meticulously dot every i and cross every t. If that’s your personality, you’ll still make some mistakes — it’s inevitable — but you’ll be able to catch most of them before you make them.  But if you’re a shoot-from-the-hip rebel who’s more attuned to worrying about the big picture…well, you might need a little extra help in post-production.  (Don’t feel bad if that sounds like you — I always get so excited during shooting that I end up with a bunch of problems that need fixing in post!)

Learn more about the Fix it in Post Ultimate Toolkit.

Have you decided to start editing video, but don’t know where to begin? The Videomaker Basic Editing Webinar is aimed at answering your hardware and software questions, as well as providing information on how to use pacing, transitions, motivated edits, and more in order to start editing great videos. By learning the techniques and information taught in our Basic Editing Webinar, you’ll be well on your way to creating the videos you want to present.

Following the webinar, all registrants will receive a copy of a special report. In addition to valuable information and a free special report, Time Control. Our Basic Editing Webinar will also include live Q&A; our team answering your questions. Videomaker’s Basic Editing Webinar starts at 11:00 AM (PST) on Wednesday, February 22, so be sure to sign up soon!

Not interested in an introduction to editing? Videomaker’s weekly Webinar Training Series is taught by our experts and features a wide variety of video production and post production topics including Advanced Editing, Green Screen and Special Effects, Advanced Shooting, Lighting for Video, and much more.

Every so often, a project falls into your lap that is less than ideal. Perhaps you weren’t behind the camera, but a friend asks if you could edit a short video of their holiday party.  You accepted, of course, but within moments of viewing the poorly-lit, grainy footage, you wish you hadn’t. As an editor, you’re not always in control of the video you work with. Fortunately, you and your computer can salvage footage that is seemingly beyond help.

One of the reasons dark and grainy video looks bad is because the colors lack saturation. This leaves the images looking muddy. By removing the color information from the video, you are removing part of the problem. You can do this by using a black-and-white filter, or by using the color correction tool to remove the color saturation. This will help in minimizing the grainy look, as well as give the video a old-movie feel. If you can’t afford to go black and white, reducing color saturation will still aid your visuals. You can build upon the old-movie theme by using a strobe effect, which will add a flicker to the video.

As for the sound of your given footage, this may be the most important part to fix. Clean audio can save the day, and that’s exactly what you’ll want to do, clean up the audio. Most editing programs have low-cut or high-pass filters, and these can be used to automatically adjust the tones in the video. To adjust specific sounds, look for digital noise reduction. The process here is honing in on a sample of sound that you do not want, then the feature will recognize that frequency within the clip and lower it. The difference in your waveforms should be like the ones in the image above.

Don’t give up hope on bad footage just yet. Bad footage doesn’t mean your project is doomed. With the proper editing techniques and some creativity, you can turn a hopeless project into a video that doesn’t disappoint.

For more tips on how to work with bad footage check out Fix It in Post.

“We’ll just fix it in post!” Oh, those dreaded words! Every editor knows there is only so much magic that can happen during post-production. Editing can soothe a lot of problems, but it’s never better than doing it right in the first place. However, despite efforts to get footage right during production, problems still go unnoticed.

One problem that generally goes unnoticed is with audio plosives and ‘S’ pops. A plosive occurs when a person pronounces their P’s with extra gusto, allowing more air hit the mic, thus resulting in a ‘popping’ noise. An ‘S’ Pop is essentially the same, but is a result of words containing the letter S, causing sentences to sound similar to seven snakes hissing.

Fortunately, there is a relatively easy fix (rather, a band-aid approach) that can help soothe the pronounced plosives and ‘S’ pops. Within many editing applications there are audio filters you can easily apply to your footage that will help improve the state of your dialog. A Depopper filter will help minimize the pop of plosives, whereas a DeEsser filter will help minimize the hiss of an over pronounced S. These filters are easy to use. Just select your problematic clip and apply the filter. However, despite the fact that they’re easy to use and can be helpful, there is no substitute for capturing great audio from the start.

Whether you’re working with footage with known problems or discovering new problems while editing, being prepared to make fixes in post-production will help ensure your success as a video editor. Videomaker’s Fix It in Post eDoc describes the some of the problems and solutions you will be expected to know as an editor in post production. Not only will you be able to save projects from complete disaster, but your videos will be more polished and professional as well.

Interested in more tips on video editing? Sign up for Videomaker’s free Video Editing Course. This free tip series is designed to help you improve your video production skills, fast. Learn More.