About Adobe Premiere Elements

1. About Adobe Premiere Elements 11
2. Adobe Premiere Elements Requirements
3. Adobe Premiere Free
4. Adobe Premiere Elements 2019

Premiere Elements 2020 is Adobe's latest low-cost video editor. Unlike its big brother Premiere Pro, you buy this software outright - and can be bought on its own, or in a twin-pack with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 image editing software. About the Adobe Premiere Elements 12 View the manual for the Adobe Premiere Elements 12 here, for free. What is the largest external hard drive you can buy. This manual comes under the category Photo/video software and has been rated by 1 people with an average of a 7.5.

Today, anyone with a smartphone or action cam is able to shoot videos in breathtaking quality. While 4K clips of your adventures might be crystal clear, they're also likely to get boring quickly if they don't tell a coherent story in a way that engages the audience. Whether you're a vlogger, filmmaker, or adrenaline junkie, you need video editing software if you want your content to attract attention and have lasting appeal.

Adobe Premiere is a video editing program that's been around since 201991. In 2004, Premiere split into two versions – the consumer-friendly Elements and the more feature-rich Pro. Both versions of the program have continued to evolve to this day, and each has its strengths & weaknesses. Are you on the fence on which version of Adobe's world-renowned video editor to get? This guide has all the answers you need to make an informed decision and choose the video editor that fits your needs the best.

If you've never tried them before, Adobe offers a 30-day free trial of Photoshop Elements 2020 and a 30-day free trial of Premiere Elements 2020. But don't wait too long before pulling the trigger.

At a glance

Ease of use

Premiere Elements 2019 caters to the consumer-level video editor, so it stands to reason that it would be easier to get into and use. This is evident on multiple levels ranging from pre-made editing options through the intuitive interface to the ease with which you can apply effects and export your creations.

There are three modes to choose from – Quick Edit, Guided Edit, and Expert. Quick Edit is fantastic for people who don't want to bother with complex transitions or light & color adjustments. When in Quick Edit mode, the program scans your computer for media and places it along the timeline in a logical order. This introduces you to the basics of a storyboard approach to video editing. You can then either tweak clip length and transitions or leave Premiere Elements' algorithms to create a presentable video for you.

Guided Edit mode is meant for users who don't have video editing skills yet but wish to learn. You get detailed explanations of each part of the interface when you boot up Guided Edit mode for the first time as well as each time you're looking to try a new effect or transition. The suggestions aren't intrusive and help you achieve a greater level of proficiency sooner.

Finally, Expert Mode assumes you have editing experience and takes the training wheels off in favor of letting you use Premiere Elements' clean interface to arrange and edit footage as you see fit. Additional resources are only a few clicks away though, so finding the help you need if you get stuck is easy.

Premiere Pro CC is a professional's tool, and it shows as soon as you open it up. There are a few tutorials that go over the basic layout and major new additions, but these presuppose some video editing knowledge. Customization is where Premiere Pro excels though. You can move or resize each of the four main windows as well as add frequently-used tool shortcuts to speed up your workflow.

Touchscreen compatibility is another of Premiere Pro's advantages. Users working on professional editing monitors can access tools by tapping on them, zoom in and out on the timeline, and arrange items on it quicker than with a mouse.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Elements 2019

Video features

Streamlining the creation process is at the core of Premiere Elements. Most of its features revolve around analyzing your videos or photos and producing memorable creations perfect for sharing with friends, family, or the public at large.

Auto Creations is the simplest form of generated content. It makes use of Sensei, Adobe's AI technology, to sift through your media and create attractive picture or video collages. These look like they've been made by a professional and can be edited by removing or swapping elements on the timeline.

Guided Edit has a wealth of video-shaping features. The most interesting of these is Smart Trim, which focuses on parts of the source video that are action-packed or feature human interaction. Running a video through Smart Trim results in more dynamic and engaging clips and gets rid of dull content. Need a good still photo of someone from a video? Use the Candid Moments feature. Want to emphasize a dramatic scene by prolonging it? Freeze Frame can help.

Premiere Elements isn't just limited to footage selection. You can use it to enhance a clip's detail by removing haze, stabilize footage shot with action cams, and apply a host of video effects like opacity adjustment or Chroma-keying. Unique transitions are a great way of making your video more appealing, and Premiere Elements now has 20 of them, including one that simulates viewing someone through glass and multiple styles of dissolving one scene into another.

As you'd expect, Premiere Pro CC brings video editing to another level. It features more than twice as many transitions as Elements, and additional ones can be accessed via plug-ins. Professionals will be more impressed with the nuanced color adjustment options possible with Lumetri Color Tools, however. These let you select among dozens of preset film and HDR looks as well as adjust a scene's color palette exactly how you want it. You can even edit the color of parts of the video like faces or important details in the background.

Multicam support is lacking in Elements while Premiere Pro CC has full support for seamlessly blending together footage shot from different angles. 360-degree virtual reality videos are supported too, as are numerous camera-in-camera effects perfect for sports commentary or news coverage. Premiere Pro CC can capture video directly from your screen and has more in-depth options for titles and closed captions than Elements.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Audio Features

Editing audio is surprisingly versatile in Premiere Elements 2019. There are the basics like importing mp3 files and adjusting audio levels, but you also get to tinker with sound effects and shape the video's aural environment. For example, you can adjust the perceived space in which the audio was recorded to make it appear larger or smaller than it actually is. Or, you can quickly normalize an audio track's levels so that they don't stand out from other audio sources used in editing the same scene.

There's an Audio Effects section where you'll find powerful tools that let you remove unwanted background noises or hums from a track. Premiere Elements comes with lots of high-quality sound effects like explosions or the hum of an air conditioner that make your videos sound more professional. You can add musical scores from different genres too. Their length automatically adjusts to your video so there are no awkward silences or transitions.

Premiere Pro CC lets you mix audio professionally and apply changes during real-time playback. It features a rich set of bars, mixers, and effects for nuanced audio adjustment. Alternately, you can leave sound level adjustment in the hands of the automated mixer and still get great-sounding audio while cutting down on production time considerably.

There are more than 50 audio effects at your disposal in Premiere Pro CC. If you're a sound engineer, you can use the advanced settings in effects like Adaptive Noise Reduction to target specific signal thresholds and create clean audio worthy of Hollywood movies. For the rest of us, there's the Essential Sound panel. This panel offers a simplified overview of frequently-used sound effects. More importantly, it groups them into ones suitable for dialogues, ambiance, music, and SFX. This streamlines audio editing and helps you apply the correct effects for any situation.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

File management and sharing

Premiere Elements is designed to help a single user find all of her files, create a video out of them, and either post it online or optimize it for playback on a certain device. Take how it handles files as an example. The program will search connected hard drives for supported media and then organize it into a logical system that's easy to search. It makes use of metadata to let you sort footage by size and length, but also by the location or people present. Clips and photos can be automatically categorized into special events too.

Sharing videos is as easy as choosing the platform you want to publish them on like Vimeo, Facebook, or YouTube. You can do this from Premiere Elements directly by linking your account, so there's no need to leave the program and upload the video through a browser. Tailoring a video to a specific device is easy too – you just select a preset like console, computer, or mobile, and Premiere Elements will do the rest.

Premiere Pro CC has more refined sharing options than Elements. More importantly, it allows creators to collaborate on a video through Team and Shared Projects. Shared Projects give access to a video to multiple users on the same network. This lets each user make changes and leave notes to others to speed up workflow and share ideas as they emerge.

Shared projects can be locked. This means that one user can restrict others to have read-only access. Users with this access level can access playback controls, export the project in multiple file formats, and even copy assets for use in other projects. However, only one person can make changes to them.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

System Requirements

Video editing is a resource-heavy task, so you'll want to have a multi-core processor and a lot of RAM to use video editing software effectively. The following are the minimum required specs for Premiere Elements and Pro. Even though the minimum specs are enough to handle all video editing features, it is recommended that you invest in a more powerful computer for better stability and faster rendering times.

Adobe Premiere 2019 has forgiving system requirements. It needs a 2.0GHz dual-core processor or better along with just 4GB of RAM to run on a PC. Mac users must have a 64-bit multi-core processor though. A graphics card is recommended but not needed to run it. The program takes up 6 GB of disk space.

Premiere Pro CC is much more resource-intensive. Your computer needs to have a 6th-gen multi-core Intel or AMD FX processor. 8GB of disk space are required to install the program and as many GB of RAM to run it, although it is strongly recommended that the computer have 16GB of RAM. Lastly, Premiere Pro CC requires a GPU with 4GB of RAM.

Both programs can run on Mac and PC with the oldest supported operating systems being MacOS 10.12 and Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. You'll also need a DVD burner if you plan to create physical media with either program.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Elements 2019

Pricing

Premiere Elements 2019 is appealing because of its single-payment system. Paying a one-time fee of $99 gives you lifetime access to it. You can bundle Premiere Elements with Photoshop Elements for $149 as well and save $50. The license grants you access to automated video editing and asset organization options as well as video sharing. The downside is that you only get updates while this version of the program is supported, i.e., you need to buy a new license if you want to use features added to subsequent releases. This will cost you an additional $80.

The pricing structure for Premiere Pro CC varies depending on the user. All payment options are subscription based. A standard single-user license costs $21/month or $240 annually. Teachers and students get the best deal as they can use the entire Adobe Creative Suite for $20/month. Schools & universities pay $15/month per registered user, while businesses pay $34/month per license.

While more expensive, the payment plan for Premiere Pro CC is also more generous. All users get both large and small updates at no additional cost. They can also use 100GB of storage space and have access to 24/7 customer support. There are even more benefits based on license type. For example, teachers & students can use additional fonts and adobe Spark while businesses get to take advantage of advanced file sharing and synchronization options, so Premiere Pro CC is worth investing into even if it is considerably more expensive.

+1 for Adobe Premiere Elements 2019

Conclusion

Even though Premiere Pro CC has more advanced features and allows you to do much more than Elements, it's important to note that these two programs are meant to cater to different markets. Elements is a godsend for anyone who wants to put together a video in minutes without worrying how to do it, and it is the perfect training ground to introduce interested users to concepts like storyboarding, workflow, and effects editing.

Professional users will find that there's little Premiere Pro CC can't do. Its superior compatibility and customization options, as well as a plethora of editing features, ensure that creativity is the only thing that limits you as an artist. Whether you're a filmmaking student, a freelance video editor, or part of a collaborative effort, Premiere Pro CC is a set of tools you can depend on to produce professional-grade, polished results.

Quick Summary

Adobe Premiere Elements is the scaled-down version of Adobe Premiere Pro, designed for the casual home user instead of movie-making professionals. It does an excellent job of guiding new users into the world of video editing, with a helpful series of built-in tutorials and introductory options that make it easy to start editing videos. There is an excellent set of tools for editing the content of existing videos, and a library of graphics, titles and other media available for adding an extra bit of style to your project. Rendering speed of your final output is fairly average compared to other video editors, so keep that in mind if you plan to work on large projects.

The support available for Premiere Elements is initially good, but you might run into trouble if you have more technical issues because Adobe relies heavily on community support forums to answer almost all their questions. I ran into a fairly serious bug with importing media directly from mobile devices, and I was unable to get a satisfactory answer about why.

• Very User-friendly
• Built-in Tutorials
• Keyframing for Animation
• 4K / 60 FPS Support
• Social Media Uploading

• Adobe Account Required
• Limited Device Support
• Relatively Slow Rendering
• Limited Social Media Export Presets

Adobe Premiere Elements

Quick Navigation

// Why You Should Trust Me
// What Is Adobe Premiere Elements?
// A Closer Look at Premiere Elements
// The Reasons Behind My Ratings
// Premiere Elements Alternatives
// Conclusion

Why You Should Trust Me

Hi, my name is Thomas Boldt, and I'm a graphic designer with experience in motion graphic design as well as a photography instructor, both of which have required me to work with video editing software. Creating video tutorials is essential for teaching some of the more complicated digital editing techniques, and high-quality video editing is a necessity for making the learning process as smooth as possible.

I also have extensive experience working with all types of PC software from small open source programs to industry standard software suites, so I can easily recognize a well-designed program. I've put Premiere Elements through several tests designed to explore its range of video editing and exporting features, and I've explored the various technical support options available to its users.

Disclaimer: I have not received any kind of compensation or consideration from Adobe to write this review, and they've had no editorial or content input of any kind.

What Is Adobe Premiere Elements?

Premiere Elements 2018 is the latest version of Adobe's video editing software marketed to the average home user and video enthusiast. It offers a range of solid editing tools and the ability to easily export finished videos for sharing to social media sites including Youtube and Facebook.

Is Adobe Premiere Elements Free?

No, it is not free software, although there is a 30-day free trial available. The trial version allows you to test the full functionality offered by the software, but any videos you output while using the free trial are watermarked with the text ‘Created with Adobe Premiere Elements trial version' across the center of the frame (as you'll see in later screenshots).

If you wish to purchase the program, you can do so from the Adobe store for a one-time cost of $99.99 USD. If you're upgrading from a previous version of Premiere Elements, you'll receive a slight discount to $79.99.

There's also the option to purchase Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements together for $149.99, which gives you a bit more flexibility when it comes to creating your own graphics and other elements for your movies. Upgrading from a previous Elements package costs $119.99.

Premiere Elements vs. Premiere Pro

Premiere Elements is a video editor designed for the general public with no previous experience in video editing, while Premiere Pro is a professional-level program that expects users to understand the ins and outs of video production before starting to use it.

Premiere Pro has been used to edit Hollywood blockbusters including Avatar and Deadpool, while Premiere Elements is more suited to editing home videos, gameplay footage and Youtube content. You can read our Adobe Premiere Pro review here.

Adobe Premiere Elements Tutorials

The product contains an excellent array of tutorials built into the program, including the eLive area that is constantly updated with new Elements tutorials and inspiration.

If you're looking for more basic and structured tutorials, the Guided mode will walk you through the process of performing basic tasks until you get familiar with the process.

But there's even more out there for those of you who want a more thorough grounding in how Premiere Elements functions:

And for those who want an offline reference, there's also a book available from Amazon.com – The Muvipix.com Guide to Adobe Premiere Elements 15.

A Closer Look at Premiere Elements

Note: the program is designed for the home user, but it still has more tools and capabilities than we have time to test in this review. Instead, I'll focus on the more general aspects of the program and how it performs.

Please also note that the screenshots below are taken from Premiere Elements 15 for the PC (Windows 10 64-bit), so if you're using Premiere Elements for Mac the interfaces will look slightly different.

User Interface

The interface for Premiere Elements is very user-friendly, and offers a number of different ways to use the software. The primary UI options are available at the top navigation: eLive, Quick, Guided and Expert. eLive provides up-to-date tutorials and inspirational pieces designed to help you expand your techniques, and the Quick mode is a stripped-down version of the interface designed for quick and simple video edits. The Guided mode walks you through the process of working with video for the first time and introduces you to Expert mode, which gives you a bit more information and control over the way your movie is put together.

You can also use one of the wizards in the ‘Create' menu to create a Video Story, an Instant Movie or a Video Collage, three quick ways to turn your videos and photos into a movie without having to learn too much about editing by simply answering questions about the content. If you don't want to focus too much on a custom video but you want something nice quickly, these options can save you some time.

Working with Media

Working with Premiere is quite easy, whether or not you've taken the time to go through some introductory videos or tutorials. If you have any experience working with other video editing applications, the process will be immediately clear to you. If not, you can follow one of the guided processes to help learn how the program works.

Importing media can be handled in several ways, whether you want to use the Elements Organizer, add files directly from your computer, or from a variety of video devices including webcams, smartphones and camcorders. I did have a few issues with importing, some more serious than others.

I ran into a bit of a hiccup on my very first media import, when the Videomerge feature mistakenly thought my clip was used a chroma key (aka ‘green-screened'), but a simple ‘no' was enough to get me right back to my project.

Not quite right, Premiere! I assume it was tricked by the solid black edge of the TV stand that Juniper is playing under, as you can see below.

Once your media is imported, working with it is extremely easy. Imported media gets added into your ‘Project Assets', which is essentially a working library of everything you've imported or used in your movie. This makes it easy to re-use graphical objects or text set in a particular style, saving you from having to recreate them each time you want to use them.

Adding effects, transitions and graphic overlays is as simple as dragging and dropping from the appropriate panel on the right onto the appropriate clip or section of the timeline. The ‘Fix' section contains a number of useful tools allowing you to tweak the various aspects of your media elements, and it is context-sensitive. If you've got a movie clip selected in the timeline, it will show you tools for adjusting your video including color adjustments, shake reduction, and smart fixes which automatically adjust your video for contrast and lighting. If you've got a title or text selected, it gives you options for customizing it, and so on.

There is also a fairly large selection of graphics, titles and effects that can be added to your movie, and of course you can create your own graphics and titles to include. The only issue with these is that some of them are a bit on the ugly side (or at least outdated, if you want to be nicer) compared with some of the built-in assets in other programs, and they need to be downloaded for the first time before they can be used. This helps to keep the initial program download on the smaller side, but you'll need to have an internet connection the first time you try to use them.

When it comes to working with audio, Premiere Elements is a bit more limited than other video editors. There don't appear to be any noise cancellation tools or options, which are extremely useful for videos shot outdoors when it's even remotely windy, although you can perform basic corrections like volume normalization and equalizer adjustments.

About Adobe Premiere Elements 11

Those of you who are constantly shooting videos and photos will be happy to know that Premiere Elements comes with the Elements Organizer, a piece of software designed to help you manage your media library. It allows you to tag, rate and sort through all your content, and quickly add any element you need to your current project assets.

Guided Mode

For those who are totally new to video editing, Premiere Elements offers a very helpful ‘Guided' method of working through the various steps involved in working with video.

The guide information appears in the top-left of the screen, but it's not just prompts – it's actually interactive, waiting to ensure you follow the steps properly before moving onward.

This is one of Premiere Element's biggest strengths – you can go from no experience at all to editing your own videos without help in under 15 minutes. It even takes you all the way through the finalization process into the export section, so that your video will be ready to share or send to any device.

Supported Devices

My first attempt at using the video importer to import video from my Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone was a dramatic failure. It first didn't detect my device, then when I attempted to refresh the device list, Premiere Elements crashed. This happened repeatedly, leading me to conclude that their device support might need a bit more work. As far as I can tell, the number of supported devices is extremely small and none of my mobile devices were on the list, but that still shouldn't be enough to crash the program entirely.

I can just copy the files from my phone to my computer first, but I can't understand why such a simple operation would cause Premiere Elements to crash. The option to import photos got a little bit further, but was no more effective. It didn't crash, but instead simply stopped responding at the screen you see below.

I could open my S7's folder directly when using the standard file browser to import both photos and videos, but it wouldn't actually import anything, and no matter what I did it would always crash when trying to import video directly from the device using the import wizards.

After searching through Google and the Adobe online help, I resorted to making a post in the support forums. As of this writing there are no answers to the question, but I'll keep you updated as things progress. Until then, you can just copy files to your computer first before importing them into your project.

Exporting & Sharing

The final stage of any creative process is getting it out in the world, and Premiere Elements makes it extremely easy to turn your work into the next viral video. You can use quick export presets for a number of different situations from 4K televisions to burning a Blu-Ray to sharing online, or you can create your own custom presets if you have more specific requirements.

The online sharing worked easily and flawlessly, which is a nice change compared to some other video editors I've worked with. Some of the social media presets are a bit outdated, but I noticed the first time I opened the Export & Share wizard, Premiere Elements checked with Adobe and made sure the presets were up-to-date. Hopefully, they'll be including some more varied options soon that take advantage of Youtube's new 60FPS and 4K support, but you can still export at those settings and upload them manually.

The Reasons Behind My Ratings

Adobe Premiere Elements Requirements

Effectiveness: 4/5

• Adobe Account Required
• Limited Device Support
• Relatively Slow Rendering
• Limited Social Media Export Presets

Adobe Premiere Elements

Quick Navigation

// Why You Should Trust Me
// What Is Adobe Premiere Elements?
// A Closer Look at Premiere Elements
// The Reasons Behind My Ratings
// Premiere Elements Alternatives
// Conclusion

Why You Should Trust Me

Hi, my name is Thomas Boldt, and I'm a graphic designer with experience in motion graphic design as well as a photography instructor, both of which have required me to work with video editing software. Creating video tutorials is essential for teaching some of the more complicated digital editing techniques, and high-quality video editing is a necessity for making the learning process as smooth as possible.

I also have extensive experience working with all types of PC software from small open source programs to industry standard software suites, so I can easily recognize a well-designed program. I've put Premiere Elements through several tests designed to explore its range of video editing and exporting features, and I've explored the various technical support options available to its users.

Disclaimer: I have not received any kind of compensation or consideration from Adobe to write this review, and they've had no editorial or content input of any kind.

What Is Adobe Premiere Elements?

Premiere Elements 2018 is the latest version of Adobe's video editing software marketed to the average home user and video enthusiast. It offers a range of solid editing tools and the ability to easily export finished videos for sharing to social media sites including Youtube and Facebook.

Is Adobe Premiere Elements Free?

No, it is not free software, although there is a 30-day free trial available. The trial version allows you to test the full functionality offered by the software, but any videos you output while using the free trial are watermarked with the text ‘Created with Adobe Premiere Elements trial version' across the center of the frame (as you'll see in later screenshots).

If you wish to purchase the program, you can do so from the Adobe store for a one-time cost of $99.99 USD. If you're upgrading from a previous version of Premiere Elements, you'll receive a slight discount to $79.99.

There's also the option to purchase Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements together for $149.99, which gives you a bit more flexibility when it comes to creating your own graphics and other elements for your movies. Upgrading from a previous Elements package costs $119.99.

Premiere Elements vs. Premiere Pro

Premiere Elements is a video editor designed for the general public with no previous experience in video editing, while Premiere Pro is a professional-level program that expects users to understand the ins and outs of video production before starting to use it.

Premiere Pro has been used to edit Hollywood blockbusters including Avatar and Deadpool, while Premiere Elements is more suited to editing home videos, gameplay footage and Youtube content. You can read our Adobe Premiere Pro review here.

Adobe Premiere Elements Tutorials

The product contains an excellent array of tutorials built into the program, including the eLive area that is constantly updated with new Elements tutorials and inspiration.

If you're looking for more basic and structured tutorials, the Guided mode will walk you through the process of performing basic tasks until you get familiar with the process.

But there's even more out there for those of you who want a more thorough grounding in how Premiere Elements functions:

And for those who want an offline reference, there's also a book available from Amazon.com – The Muvipix.com Guide to Adobe Premiere Elements 15.

A Closer Look at Premiere Elements

Note: the program is designed for the home user, but it still has more tools and capabilities than we have time to test in this review. Instead, I'll focus on the more general aspects of the program and how it performs.

Please also note that the screenshots below are taken from Premiere Elements 15 for the PC (Windows 10 64-bit), so if you're using Premiere Elements for Mac the interfaces will look slightly different.

User Interface

The interface for Premiere Elements is very user-friendly, and offers a number of different ways to use the software. The primary UI options are available at the top navigation: eLive, Quick, Guided and Expert. eLive provides up-to-date tutorials and inspirational pieces designed to help you expand your techniques, and the Quick mode is a stripped-down version of the interface designed for quick and simple video edits. The Guided mode walks you through the process of working with video for the first time and introduces you to Expert mode, which gives you a bit more information and control over the way your movie is put together.

You can also use one of the wizards in the ‘Create' menu to create a Video Story, an Instant Movie or a Video Collage, three quick ways to turn your videos and photos into a movie without having to learn too much about editing by simply answering questions about the content. If you don't want to focus too much on a custom video but you want something nice quickly, these options can save you some time.

Working with Media

Working with Premiere is quite easy, whether or not you've taken the time to go through some introductory videos or tutorials. If you have any experience working with other video editing applications, the process will be immediately clear to you. If not, you can follow one of the guided processes to help learn how the program works.

Importing media can be handled in several ways, whether you want to use the Elements Organizer, add files directly from your computer, or from a variety of video devices including webcams, smartphones and camcorders. I did have a few issues with importing, some more serious than others.

I ran into a bit of a hiccup on my very first media import, when the Videomerge feature mistakenly thought my clip was used a chroma key (aka ‘green-screened'), but a simple ‘no' was enough to get me right back to my project.

Not quite right, Premiere! I assume it was tricked by the solid black edge of the TV stand that Juniper is playing under, as you can see below.

Once your media is imported, working with it is extremely easy. Imported media gets added into your ‘Project Assets', which is essentially a working library of everything you've imported or used in your movie. This makes it easy to re-use graphical objects or text set in a particular style, saving you from having to recreate them each time you want to use them.

Adding effects, transitions and graphic overlays is as simple as dragging and dropping from the appropriate panel on the right onto the appropriate clip or section of the timeline. The ‘Fix' section contains a number of useful tools allowing you to tweak the various aspects of your media elements, and it is context-sensitive. If you've got a movie clip selected in the timeline, it will show you tools for adjusting your video including color adjustments, shake reduction, and smart fixes which automatically adjust your video for contrast and lighting. If you've got a title or text selected, it gives you options for customizing it, and so on.

There is also a fairly large selection of graphics, titles and effects that can be added to your movie, and of course you can create your own graphics and titles to include. The only issue with these is that some of them are a bit on the ugly side (or at least outdated, if you want to be nicer) compared with some of the built-in assets in other programs, and they need to be downloaded for the first time before they can be used. This helps to keep the initial program download on the smaller side, but you'll need to have an internet connection the first time you try to use them.

When it comes to working with audio, Premiere Elements is a bit more limited than other video editors. There don't appear to be any noise cancellation tools or options, which are extremely useful for videos shot outdoors when it's even remotely windy, although you can perform basic corrections like volume normalization and equalizer adjustments.

About Adobe Premiere Elements 11

Those of you who are constantly shooting videos and photos will be happy to know that Premiere Elements comes with the Elements Organizer, a piece of software designed to help you manage your media library. It allows you to tag, rate and sort through all your content, and quickly add any element you need to your current project assets.

Guided Mode

For those who are totally new to video editing, Premiere Elements offers a very helpful ‘Guided' method of working through the various steps involved in working with video.

The guide information appears in the top-left of the screen, but it's not just prompts – it's actually interactive, waiting to ensure you follow the steps properly before moving onward.

This is one of Premiere Element's biggest strengths – you can go from no experience at all to editing your own videos without help in under 15 minutes. It even takes you all the way through the finalization process into the export section, so that your video will be ready to share or send to any device.

Supported Devices

My first attempt at using the video importer to import video from my Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone was a dramatic failure. It first didn't detect my device, then when I attempted to refresh the device list, Premiere Elements crashed. This happened repeatedly, leading me to conclude that their device support might need a bit more work. As far as I can tell, the number of supported devices is extremely small and none of my mobile devices were on the list, but that still shouldn't be enough to crash the program entirely.

I can just copy the files from my phone to my computer first, but I can't understand why such a simple operation would cause Premiere Elements to crash. The option to import photos got a little bit further, but was no more effective. It didn't crash, but instead simply stopped responding at the screen you see below.

I could open my S7's folder directly when using the standard file browser to import both photos and videos, but it wouldn't actually import anything, and no matter what I did it would always crash when trying to import video directly from the device using the import wizards.

After searching through Google and the Adobe online help, I resorted to making a post in the support forums. As of this writing there are no answers to the question, but I'll keep you updated as things progress. Until then, you can just copy files to your computer first before importing them into your project.

Exporting & Sharing

The final stage of any creative process is getting it out in the world, and Premiere Elements makes it extremely easy to turn your work into the next viral video. You can use quick export presets for a number of different situations from 4K televisions to burning a Blu-Ray to sharing online, or you can create your own custom presets if you have more specific requirements.

The online sharing worked easily and flawlessly, which is a nice change compared to some other video editors I've worked with. Some of the social media presets are a bit outdated, but I noticed the first time I opened the Export & Share wizard, Premiere Elements checked with Adobe and made sure the presets were up-to-date. Hopefully, they'll be including some more varied options soon that take advantage of Youtube's new 60FPS and 4K support, but you can still export at those settings and upload them manually.

The Reasons Behind My Ratings

Adobe Premiere Elements Requirements

Effectiveness: 4/5

The program has almost all the features that you'll need for casual video editing, whether you're making home movies or content for your social media channels. It's not a good idea to try to use this for professional video unless you're working on fairly simple projects, especially since the rendering performance isn't the best out there. The support for importing media from mobile devices is also limited, although it's possible to simply copy files to your computer before importing them to your project.

Price: 4/5

$99.99 isn't a completely unreasonable price for a good video editor, but it's possible to get an editor that matches most of the features from Premiere Elements at a lower price. Alternatively, you can spend the same amount of money and get something with more features and better rendering speed – as long as you're using a PC.

Ease of Use: 5/5

Ease of use is where Premiere Elements really shines. If you've never used a video editor before, you can find yourself creating, editing and sharing videos faster than you might expect. There are plenty of built-in, guided tutorials to help you learn how the program works, and the eLive feature offers additional tutorials and inspiration to make your video creativity shine.

Support: 4/5

Premiere Elements has a strange support structure which is based very heavily on the Adobe community support forums. This may be different for users who purchased the full version of the software, but I was unable to find an effective solution to the issue I experienced while attempting to import media from my smartphone. Despite that, the community forum is usually active and helpful, and there is an excellent knowledge base online that answers a number of more common support issues.

Premiere Elements Alternatives

Adobe Premiere Pro (Windows / MacOS)

Adobe Premiere Free

If you're looking for some more powerful editing options, look no further than Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe's original video editor that has a few Hollywood movies to its credit. It is definitely not user-friendly in the slightest, but that's the trade-off for more powerful editing options. It's only available as a monthly Creative Cloud subscription, either alone for $19.99 USD or as part of the whole Creative Cloud suite for $49.99 per month.

Cyberlink PowerDirector (Windows only)

PowerDirector isn't quite as user-friendly as Premiere Elements, but it has more features like 360-degree video editing and H.265 codec support. It's also one of the fastest renderers available, so if you're going to be doing much video work you could boost your productivity a bit. The Ultra version costs $99.99 USD, and the Ultimate version costs $129.99. We reviewed PowerDirector here.

Wondershare Filmora (Windows / MacOS)

Filmora is almost as easy to use as Premiere Elements, although it doesn't have the same level of built-in help. It uses a more attractive modern style for its graphical elements and presets, but it has some issues working with social media accounts. It's also much more affordable than these other options at just $59.99 USD for a lifetime license. Read our full Filmora review here.

Conclusion

Adobe Premiere Elements 2019

Adobe Premiere Elements is a great program for users who are new to the world of video editing. It has excellent introductory tutorials and step-by-step creation wizards to quickly turn media into polished videos, but it's also powerful enough that you can customize almost every aspect of your video production. The device support is fairly limited, but this issue is simple enough to work around as long as you're comfortable copying files between your devices manually.