Since returning to the Mac platform with
version 10, Premiere Elements has proven itself to be a worthy member of the
Adobe family, offering much of the functionality of the flagship Premiere Pro,
or at least the parts that regular users need. The marketplace has changed
since Apple rewrote Final Cut Pro for version X and dropped its price to $318,
leaving Premiere Elements with a price tag much closer to FCP than to Premiere
Pro. Given Apple’s radical workflow changes as also seen in iMovie, the
Premiere family now represents a more conventional take on the editing process.
That’s not a criticism: many people prefer its tried-and-tested approach.
Premiere
Elements has proven itself to be a worthy member of the Adobe family
Premiere Elements 11 is now 64-bit, which
is great news for owners of any recent Mac, as it means the app can take
advantage of more memory than before. It needs OS X 10.6 or higher and 2GB of
RAM plus a decent internet connection to download additional content, of which
more later. Adobe doesn’t specify a CPU speed, but does say multi-core Intel 64
bit, which is any recent Mac. As ever when working with digital video, the
faster the cores and the more cores you have, the better. General operation is
nice and snappy, but it’s when you come to render that there’s no substitute
for raw speed. On the upside it feels like the software uses Adobe’s
high-performance rendering engine, which is adept at fully loading all cores
for maximum performance when crunching video.
There are two main modes: Quick Edit and
Expert. Quick Edit mode lets you drop videos into a single track, audio into
another and record narration into a third. Expert provides multiple video and
audio tracks (up to a total of 99 each), and more advanced features such as key
framing of audio levels and markers. It also has an expanded contextual menu,
revealed by right-clicking on clips, that gives you access to lots of editing
tools.
Instant Movie provides an even simpler way
to make movies. This tool lets you choose a theme, at which point the
associated assets will be downloaded from Adobe’s servers, then lets you add
optional titles, music and other content as well as specifying ‘auto edit’ and
‘speed and intensity’. When you hit Apply, Premiere builds a movie for you from
the folder of clips you’ve pointed it at. It does this by analyzing the
content, and the results are okay. However, as you might imagine, completely
removing the human from the decision-making process means you’re not likely to
end up with anything particularly Oscar-worthy. It’s an interesting addition,
although Quick Edit mode isn’t exactly hard to use and offers much more
control.
You manage your media via an app called
Organizer, and this is a sort of central repository for all your stuff. Drag
media in or import from a camera, memory card, the Finder or from iPhoto. With
iPhones and iPads able to shoot in HD as well as the plethora of other cameras
on the market, it’s good to have a wide range of codecs and formats supported.
You can add metadata to clips here, and tag
media using People, Places and Events, similar to the approach taken in iMovie.
Media imported from an iPhone had its ge-olocation data picked up by Premiere
in our tests, and the idea is that it makes it easy to quickly find clips based
on common criteria.
There’s
extensive support for exporting and uploading to different formats, with both
PAL and NTSC options
Along the bottom of Premiere’s window are
options for working with clips. The first is called Tools, which lets you
access features such as pan and zoom; an automatic audio mixer; Smart Trim,
which identifies blurry or superfluous areas and lets you remove them; an audio
mixer; freeze frame; narration; and Time Remapping. This last feature is new
and lets you paint in speed changes, which can look pretty good and is easier
for beginners than key framing clip speed.
MOVING ON, YOU get a range of transitions and titles, a small preset music library
and some downloadable animated objects. There are also effects that can be
dragged and dropped onto clips, including new FilmLooks. These range from
predictably cheesy through to genuinely useful, such as grading effects.
Footage shot on phones or camcorders can betray its origins due to washed-out
colours, but these effects can really help make clips look more filmic. There’s
also clip analysis, auto-stabilisation and extensive colour manipulation
capability, as well as tools to move, shatter, twist and bend video.
When you’ve finished a project, you might
look under File > Export and see it greyed out, only to realise that
exporting seems to be handled by the Publish and Share menu instead. Happily,
there are a variety of presets for both novices and those who have specific
formatting requirements. Export presets are grouped into five main categories:
Web DVD, Disc, Online, Computer and Mobile Devices, covering pretty much all
bases. There’s native support for Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo, with PAL and
NTSC options, and various screen size and quality choices. The same goes for
the Mobile Devices section, where you can choose target devices and quality;
and Computer, which can produce bigger files.
Premiere Elements 11 has more tools and
tricks than you might imagine, and incorporates many of the most useful parts
of Premiere Pro, while clothing them in a more simplistic interface. It’s
arguably beyond iMovie in its capabilities so the question becomes whether it’s
actually a competitor for Final Cut Pro X, given their respective prices.
Despite having great features for novice and intermediate users, there’s too
much ‘one click’ stuff here to make it feel like a pro app although, in
fairness, Adobe doesn’t claim that it is.
What it does offer is great device support,
good effects and editing tools, clever media management and comprehensive
export options. Crucially, it uses a standard time-line, which many people
prefer to Apple’s newer ‘magnetic’ system. In Expert mode, many people could
happily cut projects on Premiere Elements without missing any features. Avoid
the cheesier transitions and effects, and the results can look great.
|
Information
Ratings: 4/5
Price: $76.25
From: adobe.com
|
