Adobe Premiere Pro has the enviable status of being one of the most recognized and one of the best non-linear video editing software.
Available for Windows and Mac, if you're interested in joining clips and making a movie, chances are you've heard of it or are currently using it. It's a powerful and popular video editor with industry-standard features and effects, and of course, full integration with Creative Cloud apps.
But it is a highly competitive and dynamic market. The best video editors are constantly evolving, updating, refining, and redefining what's possible.
And Premiere Pro is certainly no exception. Since we last reviewed the editing software, Adobe has added a number of updates that keep the tool at the top of the list.
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC subscription options:
- 12 month plan - €20.99 per month (total cost €251.88)
New import goal
The latest version of Premiere Pro puts your media in focus. It shows up from the start, with a redesigned import window that puts your clips first.
Locate them, select the ones you want to work with, and click Import. A new project will be created for you. These clips will be added to your sequence. No need to fiddle with settings or anything like that.
Of course, there's nothing stopping you from changing your footage settings after the fact, which is crucial if you need to create a project for a specific social media format.
But more often than not, simply working with your clips in their native format will be what people choose to do. This removal of potentially unnecessarily complex settings is welcome.
A stellar new feature is Speech to Text. The name alone belies a range of really fantastic text-to-speech tools, including handy automatic transcription. Premiere Pro currently supports 14 different languages.
The operation is very simple: go to the Subtitles and Graphics workspace, then click on "Transcribe Stream". You have a range of fine-tuning options, such as selecting the language (an important one, that one), or even giving Premiere Pro the ability to recognize different voices, by marking it in the transcript itself.
Now, sure, it's not perfect, but it's pretty impressive. And it's easy to edit and correct the transcript, even replacing all the errors at once, if someone's name is wrong, for example.
Along with that is a link to a spell checker. So if you've made a typo, you'll be notified by the usual little red wavy line below the word problem.
But that is not all. As you play your sequence, you will be able to follow the progress of the transcription.
This means that Premiere Pro knows where the spoken words are in the sequence. Why is this important? Because there is a convenient search field at the top. Search for a word or phrase and you'll be taken directly to the recording.
From now on, if you remember someone mentioned something in an interview, you'll be able to find it in seconds, rather than desperately reading sections until you hope to find the right bit, usually by accident.
But it's even better, because with the click of a button, you can create automatic subtitles for your videos based on this transcript. Now you can make movies even more accessible to audiences.
This is a huge step forward for creators, and we're thrilled that the feature is working well.
New degree options
Speaking of text, Premiere Pro also has some interesting new styling tools. For example, you can now add multiple shadows to your text layers, creating more unique and distinctive styles.
The spell check and replace options mentioned above are present wherever text is used in your project. This also applies to various languages. Before this current version, working in multiple languages was a real hassle as you had to go to settings every time you needed to switch languages.
In the latest version of Premiere Pro, simply type in the other language and the tool will understand and comply. Left-to-right or right-to-left settings are set directly from the essential graphics panel.
Even better, you can apply different scripts on the same widgets. Inevitably, this will be a boon for multilingual filmmakers.
Let Sensei do the work.
Sensei is the name of Adobe's AI system, which is present throughout its software catalog. Here it is used to help in cool and interesting ways.
One of them is Remix. This is a tool designed to resynchronize songs so that the chosen melody matches the video perfectly. This is usually a laborious process, involving a lot of cutting, fading, and trial and error to get it to work.
We tested this with an original song, to eliminate any chance of the AI basing its knowledge on a known track, and were very impressed.
The process took a few seconds (definitely depending on your processor prowess), but the end result was excellent. Congratulations to Sensei.
Apple native silicon support
Good news for Mac creatives: Premiere Pro offers native support for Apple's proprietary silicon chip. According to Adobe's own internal testing, "with new hardware acceleration, ProRes 4k and 8K are now up to 5x faster on the MacBook Pro M1 Pro and M1 Max."
This also includes impressive hardware acceleration when working with the high resolution HEVC file format. Adobe states that HEVC exports “are faster with macOS 12 on Mac M1. Hardware encoding is now enabled for DCI 4K and 8K HEVC exports, resulting in significantly faster performance.
It's always good when the big players back a new silicon company. This is one of the reasons why the Macbook tops our list of the best laptops for video editing.
final verdict
It's not hard to see why Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the most popular editors out there. It's a stable video editing powerhouse with a long list of features designed to help you intuitively create professional-looking projects.
There is a natural learning curve to master the software. But the juice is worth it. Especially with some of the fantastic new tools, with transcription features that really stand out from the rest.
If you are serious about video editing, then you should take a close look at Adobe Premiere Pro 2022.
Pricing - Adobe Premiere Pro CC:▼