Premiere Elements 7

All articles on this site are by Harry Skevington unless otherwise noted with another byline

DECEMBER 19, 2008

Premiere Elements 7
Video for all PLUS Photoshop.com
webphotovideobothboxshot Premiere Elements 7 in some ways is like Premiere Elements 4. In others it is quite different. Adobe skipped versions 5 and 6 to eliminate confusion. The basic shell seems to work the same. The addition of Instant Movie is a great way to create very acceptable movies quickly for family and friends. Integration of Photoshop.com is a very positive move forward for those who want a remote place to store and share their work.

Photoshop.com Basic is available FREE for those who want some assistance as well as minimal storage space (2 GB) on the web. If you opt for the Plus Package you get 20 GB of storage for photo and video files for $49.99 per year. This is enough for approximately 15,000 photos or four hours of DVD-quality movies or a combination of both. These memberships can have more storage if you want to spend additional bucks. Plus membership is only available to purchasers of Photoshop Elements 7 or Premiere Elements 7 as Plus integrates with the Organizer application in these products. Use Photoshop.com to show your photos and videos anywhere you can connect to the internet.

Premiere Elements 7 installed on the Lenovo ThinkPad R400 loaner without a hitch. It used just under 400 Megabytes of drive space. When opened Premiere Elements 7 starts with a screen that includes information about your Photoshop.com account on the left side. This provides a ton of tutorials on Adobe Air. (Adobe Photoshop Inspirational Browser) If you don’t understand a function these videos will get you up to speed. This is also the place to sign up as a new Photoshop.com account if you don’t have one. On the upper right side three choices for your work are displayed: Instant Movie, Open Project, and New Project. Click the one that fits and start creating.

I have worked with a number of Video editing products and never mastered any of them. That is to say I just use the basics and never go much deeper. Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is a product that gets you started fast and easy, gives you the support you need, and allows you to add features to your work as your knowledge grows. I suggest starting by creating a few BASIC Instant Movies to get familiar with the layout. Then create several Instant Movies using the added features provided for that operation. For many this will be enough to satisfy their creative needs. Those who want more will find Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is not lacking in capability. Going beyond Instant Movies will require some patience and study. Do not expect perfection the first time out. This is true with any video creation software.

Organize
In the past I have avoided the Organizer. In Premiere Elements 7 as well as in Photoshop Elements 7 it is a must for any one who wants to collect, quickly tag, and select sets of photos or clips that have common factors. Sure it is a pain when you start out. That is especially so if you have thousands of files that need to be added from old work. I am still adding items to the Organizer one set at a time. Once that is done I found setting up Albums across years, travels, families, or holidays, and such is quite easy. I have 10 or 12 sets of photos of the one year old grandson. By using the organizer tags and albums I can go to these photos and chose one or two from each of my sets that best represent that time period. Collecting these allows me to make a slideshow and then a short video from birth to present day.

Share
Uploading
Upload to Youtube, Photoshop.com, or your own website from within Premiere Elements 7. Auto uploading of photos, galleries, and videos to Photoshop.com can be accomplished using the sync capability provided by Photoshop.com. I have used it with great success. Once your photos/videos are on Photoshop.com you can elect to share some and not others by clicking in the right place.

Instant Movie
This is a way to give you a feel good start if you have little or no experience with video. I created a basic instant movie in less than 7 minutes. The key word is basic. I collected the clips, clicked where needed, and let the software do the rest.

EDIT
There are more bells and whistles in the editing area than I can cover in this article. If you want to jazz up your output this is the place to do it.

It is important to understand that some video clips require importing so they are compatible with Premiere Elements 7. For instance Adobe states that MOV files as well as a number of others will require Quicktime. When clicking the grayed out Export option on the free Quicktime player I am given the option to purchase Quicktime Pro ($29.00) to do that export. There may be free conversion programs available on the web. Below is an Adobe provided list with more information on file import/export options.

Adobe Premiere Elements import/export details:
ASF (import only), AVI, AVCHD, SWF (import), Blu-ray
Disc (export only), DV, DVD, Dolby® Digital Stereo,
H.264, HDV, JPEG, PNG (import only), PSD (import
only), MOD and TOD (JVC Everio, import only),
MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MP3, WAV, QuickTime,
Windows Media, WMA (import only), 3GP.

Import/export of some formats including AVCHD,
DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, and Dolby
Digital Stereo may require activation via an Internet
connection. Activation is fast, easy, and free. Import/
export of 3GP, 3GP2, MOV, MPEG-4, and QuickTime
requires QuickTime software.

If you are a first time photo/video editor I can assure you that the package containing both Premiere Elements 7 and Photoshop Elements 7 with Photoshop.com is a good and inexpensive way to get started. I also suggest sticking with one product. If this one does it for you just skip all upgrades unless you see a number of NEW functions that you know will improve your final product. Comfort levels are more important than version numbers.

Click here for more info on this and other Adobe products.