Enhance videos in Photoshop

Put your photo-editing skills to work on moving images to maintain a naturallooking and striking aesthetic

Even though Photoshop has offered video tools for several years, many users still don’t know they exist

– and those who do may assume that Photoshop is unsuited to editing videos. But not only is it possible to edit video in Photoshop, it can also be a sensible way for photographers to work with moving images.

The great thing about using Photoshop for video is that you can take lots of the things you already know about editing photos, and apply them to video in a similar way. Your can use brilliant tools like the Camera Raw filter to tone your footage, and even add layer effects like Blending Modes to combine videos in creative ways.

All that being said, just as many of us are photographers who dabble in a bit of video shooting, Photoshop is first and foremost about editing photos. The video tools can’t match those found in a dedicated editor like Premiere Pro, and we certainly wouldn’t suggest you attempt importing and editing together hours of video footage. But for short videos that need toning or effects, Photoshop is more than up to the job. Here are a few tips and tricks to get you started…

The Timeline

The Timeline Panel (Window > Timeline) is much like timelines in other video editors. Clips appear as coloured blocks that can be lined up to form a sequence. Trim a clip by dragging the ends or using the scissors. When you first open a video clip, a new video group appears in the Layers Panel. If you drag in another clip, it’ll be included in the group and appear after the first clip.

Simple editing

You can add transitions like fades using the square icon next to the scissors. Drag transitions to either the start or the end of a clip. Audio clips can also be added, using the Audio track channel in the Timeline. Click the musical note icon to add music or sound. You can also right-click on clips in the Timeline to choose from simple preset animations like pan and zoom, which can help to liven up slideshows.

Playback and rendering

The playhead lets you choose a point in your video. If you find that playback is slow and choppy, try leaving the clip to play a couple of times, or click the cog to reduce the resolution. Once you’ve finished editing your videos in Photoshop, go to File > Export > Render Video. You can choose a format for the video, as well as a preset for the resolution.

Blending videos

Clips that appear on top of one another work in a similar way to layers in Photoshop’s Layers Panel, so you can blend them together with Blending Modes, or use Layer Masks to make parts of a clip transparent and reveal another clip on the layer below. First, drag the second clip outside the video group. Now it will sit on its own line in the Timeline. You can move it over the clip below, then choose a Blending Mode.

Toning with Adjustment Layers

Adjustment Layers can be added above videos to enhance tones. Adjustment Layers make it easy to selectively alter parts of the frame. Here, we can use the Select Sky command to isolate the area. When we add an Adjustment Layer, the active selection becomes a Layer Mask, allowing us to make a selective change to the sky.

Filters with videos

One of the best things about editing videos in Photoshop is that you can use filters on them. First, right-click the video layer and select Convert to Smart Object. Next choose any effect you like from the Filter menu. We used the Camera Raw Filter to add a colour effect and adjust the tones, then we used the Tilt-Shift filter (Filter > Blur Gallery > Tilt-Shift) to blur out the foreground.