Adobe Premiere Elements

Adobe Premiere Elements is designed for beginners in video editing. This can be seen from the clear user interface and the different modes. The “assistant”, for example, will explain all the steps you need to take to edit a beautiful video. There’s even a feature that lets the video editor, after selecting a template, automatically edit a video for you, or at least automatically enhance your video.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2018 Review

Once again, a new video editing program, the successor to Adobe Premiere Elements 15, is coming onto the market. The new Adobe Premiere Elements 2018 software offers some new features that we will now take a look at. The programme is mainly aimed at beginners or families who want to turn their holiday videos into unforgettable memories.

Surface

At first glance, you see very little. Just a timeline, a preview monitor, and a sidebar. The surface is kept very simple. The great thing – there is a menu at the top where you can choose between three different surfaces (Quick, Wizard and Expert). With “Fast” there is no real timeline, only four tracks for title, video, audio and voice comments. Thus, one can edit fast videos in a few steps without being bothered by a confusing design. The clear administration is the same for all. So you can drag&drop files from your own files into the timeline without any problems. If something is unclear or you have questions, the “assistant” helps. There you choose the one you need help with and you get a guide that explains the functions and necessary steps in the program.
If you click on “Expert” at the top, the interface looks very similar to that of “fast” video editing, except that you now get a real timeline with several tracks.

The menu on the right does not change either. There you can choose between many different editing options with which you can optimize your videos. What bothers me a little is the menu from which you can select the effects. If you click on effects, for example, an endlessly long window appears in which you have to scroll for a very long time to find the appropriate effect. Of course it’s great that there are so many effects, but the overview still needs to be improved. If you have been using Adobe Premiere Elements for some time and know the names of the individual effects, you can search for them using the magnifying glass symbol. This makes the whole thing considerably easier and is super fast.

Here you can see another table with the three or two different editing interfaces:

Fast	Assistant	Expert

What’s new?

Administration

Never before has video management been so easy. There is now a colored overview from which you can select the videos you need for editing. These are automatically sorted by data. Finding individual videos has also become easier, as you can now filter folders by location or event. You’ll find everything much faster that way.
If one clicks on “Add media” and then on “Files and folders”, one gets in a separate window to one’s own files, from which one can easily select files and insert them into the video editing program.

There are also some new features such as automatic video editing or the creation of photos from scenes in the video. As always with new versions, many new effects have been added.

Functions of the video editing software

Surely you have already noticed that the picture gets worse when the camera is moved rapidly. Beside some new title animations and color effects there is now the possibility to improve action shots optimally, e.g. by color changes. The image stabilization included in the program is also great for blurred videos. It removes light jerks from shots that are difficult to avoid when filming.

For those who have little time or don’t want to take so much time to cut, there is the “automated” way to improve a video. The video editing program takes over the color and exposure correction and optimizes the sound. Post-processing is virtually automatic.

New features include “Videostory” and “InstantMovie”, which allow Premiere Elements to automatically edit a video for you. All you have to do is select a template such as birthday and the videos you want your movie to consist of. Then the video editing program edits a video with cuts and transitions that fit a birthday.

When the movie is ready, you can burn it to DVD and create a nice menu for it.

Of course there are more functions. However, these are now already included in almost all video editing programs.

For whom is Premiere Elements 2018 suitable?

The video editing program Premiere Elements is aimed at beginners and perhaps even more advanced users, which is especially noticeable in the now simplified administration. It offers a lot of functions that are certainly quite useful for one or the other, such as automatic video editing, which was not yet available in the predecessor programs.

The price of almost 100€ is relatively high for a beginner program. Of course, there are many functions and also the possibility to create DVDs with menus. However, there are video editing programs like the Powerdirector, which contain the same functions, but are not quite as expensive.

Bottom line