The BEST Editing WORKFLOW in Adobe Premiere Pro

Published on May 11, 2021

Interface, Tools

adjustment layer, editing workflow, pancake editing, Sound design, soundmix

what is the best editing workflow to use in Adobe Premiere Pro?

Well let me give you some tips on how to get a super efficient workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro.

The first step is actually really simple and helps you get organized right from the start of your project. Before importing any type of footage make sure to create bins inside your project panel. Name each bin accordingly to the type of files that is going to be imported inside it. Then import every file into the right bin.

The second tip is to make two sequences. One to make a rough selection of all the footage and a second one to make the final edit. This technique is called pancake editing and is used a lot. Place the sequences above eachother and drag the footage from the footage sequence to the edit sequence.

Organisation is key when it comes to editing so make sure that your timeline is also organised and structured. Renaming tracks, giving color labels to certain type of clips and working with different tracks is highly recommended. Placing all the a-roll (interview shots) on track number 1, b-roll on track 2, overlays on track 3 and so on.

Something that is also very important and that will help you at the end of your project is preview rendering. Right click on your sequence and select the sequence settings. Then set the file format to Quicktime and the codec to Apple ProRess 422. Everytime you render your timeline Premiere Pro will export it in the background as a ProRess file.

Whenever you are working with footage that needs to be brought over to After Effects, duplicate it so that you always have the original clip as well. If something goes wrong or you want to change or delete something it’s easier to have access to the original clip.

Color grading and sound design

If you have some long takes, like for instance interview shots or if you have taken a lot of shots in the same lighting, don’t color correct each one seperataly. Instead place the color correction on the master track of that file. Then to color grade you can place an adjustment layer above all the clips to color grade them all at once.

Sound designing is very important and people often underestimate it. It creates more depth, suspense and realism to your projects. Download a bunch of sounds and place these into the timeline. Once again make sure to use different tracks for different types of sounds or music.

• Ambient sounds or atmospheric sounds are sounds that create the environment, like city noises or the sounds of a forrest.
• Essential sounds are sounds that are clearly visible on screen, like birds, bikes, machines or people.
• Extra sound elements like whooshes, risers, whips and others are extras that create suspense or transitions in your project.

Don’t forget to also place effects like reverb or equalizers on your sound effects. And mix everything so that some sounds are louder than others.

Finalizing your project

When you are done editing go over to the edit menu and select remove unused. This will delete all the files that you haven’t used in your edit and that will make your project faster and less heavy.

And finally it’s time to export the video. Set the format to H.264 if you want to upload on social media and set the preset either to one of the given presets for that social media platform or choose match source – high bitrate. Then turn on the use previews checkbox, this will use the ProRess render previews for the export which will make the final export way faster.