Adobe Premiere Elements 2022
Powerful new tools and handy social media options make video editing fun for novices and the experienced
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PRICE £72 (£86 inc VAT) from adobe.com
Adobe Premiere Elements 2022 does its best to simplify the often complicated process of editing videos. While professionals can spend years mastering the nuances and intricacies of powerful software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, many of us just want to create and share fun and meaningful snippets of our life and loved ones. Premiere Elements excels in this regard, thanks to an accessible interface, easy-to-use tools and cool creative styling.
The three tabs on the interface — Quick, Guided and Expert — offer novices an opportunity to fix their videos quickly and learn more complex workflows, while providing more experienced users with plenty of sophisticated and powerful tools. This 2022 update adds a handful of improved features, and a couple of them are so useful that they will make family and hobby videographers smile with delight.
First up are social media features. Many videos created by consumers end up on social networks, and each network has a preferred aspect ratio for optimum viewing. Elements 2022 allows you to choose the aspect ratio of your project based on where you’ll be uploading it to. Alternatively, you can export your video based on social media preset sizes, as well as presets for different devices such as a TV or a tablet. The one network that isn’t among the setup or export options is Twitter. You must manually choose 1,280 x 720 (landscape or portrait) or 720 x 720.
When you choose to create or export a video in an aspect ratio other than the original, black borders will be automatically added to your video to avoid cropping the action. But you can choose to use the Adobe Sensei AI reframing tool to fill the frame with the central action of your video. The excess will then be cropped away.
For instance, say you want to create a vertical project from a horizontal clip. Sensei will analyse the clip and keep what it decides is the central action within the vertical crop. It sometimes cuts off important detail, because not every central action frame will fit into the chosen aspect ratio. That aside, Sensei AI reframing makes it easier to create smooth, attractive video projects that combine clips with different aspect ratios. Just bear in mind that it will work best if you shoot with a wide angle, leaving empty space around the central action.
When you open a vertical video in a new project, the project will now automatically set its aspect ratio to match the clip. In addition, in any vertical project, all assets –
“Elements 2022 allows you to choose the aspect ratio of your project based on where you’ll be uploading it to”
titles, mattes or backgrounds — will resize automatically when placed in the project. Given how many people hold their phones the wrong way when shooting videos, this new functionality is destined to be quite popular.
The Guided Edits feature in Premiere Elements 2022 helps users learn how to use key video-editing workflows. It’s a simple setup that lets you work on your own videos in the Expert tab, with pop-ups guiding you. However, while generally great for helping you master what might initially seem complex processes, the Guided Edits often skimp on explanations.
For instance, who doesn’t have a video that captures one perfect moment, but that’s either too dark or not sparkling enough? The new Adjust Shadows and Highlights Guided Edit gives step-by-step instructions to correct or improve a clip’s exposure. It takes you from opening and placing the clip into the timeline, through using the Shadows and Highlights tool, then playing the video to check the effect and, finally, exporting it. However, it doesn’t tell you how to edit your settings after you’ve applied them.
The other new Guided Edit, Animated Overlays, is far less serious: it teaches you how to apply animated butterflies, bokeh lights, snowflakes, clouds and suchlike to your video. Options include Blend Modes, opacity, uniform or non-uniform scaling, rotation and an anti-flicker filter.
As ever, Premiere Elements isn’t cheap, but at least the £86 Adobe charges is for a perpetual licence. You can also upgrade from a previous version for £71 or buy it as a bundle with Photoshop Elements 2022 for £130 (£107 for an upgrade).
Often, we say it isn’t worth upgrading from last year’s edition, but there’s enough in this update to make it a worthwhile buy for a keen videographer. And if you’re new to Premiere Elements, download the trial version and see if it’s time to take the plunge. SALLY WIENER GROTTA
REQUIREMENTS
8GB RAM 4GB graphics card VRAM Windows 10 version 2004 or newer macOS 10.15 or newer