8 Tips to Speed Up Premiere Pro Workflow

Hi, friend! Watch this tutorial if you want to edit like a pro 😍

We've prepared the most important tips on how to organize your work, use these kind of instruments, and what are the most effective techniques and hotkeys to edit faster. Here come the best methods to speed up your working process in Premiere pro in several times:

Method 1. Structure your work material

In this kind of display, it is difficult to figure out where and what material you have located. Most likely you`ll spend a long time looking for what you need.

By pressing the Icon View button we change the way the material is displayed. It becomes much more convenient to look through the source files. 

If you have more files and need to sort and select them, it is better to use the Assembly tab. All windows here are adjusted to work with source files.

For convenience you can place the files in the order you need or sort them by groups. By double clicking on the file and pressing the space bar it is displayed on the source monitor. And by swiping left or right on the file we see the content inside. 

How to create a folder for your files in Premiere Pro? Right-click in the project window > New Bin > Give it a name. And now it is possible to sort files by folders.

Method 2. Use hotkeys

Using hot keys greatly speeds up the editing process. Let`s see it on the example of transferring material to the Timeline. 

We select the file and set the entry and exit points - Press I and O. Then to transfer this area to the Timeline press </>.  And that's it! Just three buttons and you're done.

Method 3. Adjustment layer

How to create an adjustment layer in Premiere Pro?

Right-click in the Project window > New Item > Adjustment layer.

We check that its parameters match the working sequence parameters. 

Now it is convenient to apply effects, color correction to several elements or videos at the same time. Select an adjustment layer and apply a LUT to it. Now this color scheme has been applied to all the elements below our layer. You can do the same with effects. 

Let's take crop for demonstration. Drag it to the adjustment layer. All settings applied to it are visible in the Effect controls window. By applying the settings to the adjustment layer, we can see the changes in all segments.

Method 4. Fast work on the Timeline

Practice working on the Timeline with hotkeys. How to crop a video in Premiere Pro? You can quickly crop a view with two buttons. Lock all layers except the ones you want to crop. 

To trim the left side with offset, press the Q key. To do the same with the right side, press W. To play the video, press the L key. And with each next press, the speed is doubled. You can stop playback with the K key. And you can play the video in reverse order with the K key. It also works with acceleration. Use the arrows on your keyboard to navigate.

Method 5. Use ready-made graphics

Working with graphics is one of the most difficult and time consuming process in video editing. Take titles for example. We can select the Text tool, create titles manually, change the font, make animation for them. All these things take a long time. 

Animation presets speed up the process significantly. In this tutorial, I use a plugin from EasyEdit studio. With one click titles are placed on our Timeline. In the Essential Graphics window. Change the text, font, color and more. 

Don't forget to render areas where the Timeline is red. Select the entry and exit point of the area to render with hot keys and press enter. Now this area is calculated and displayed correctly without freezing.

Method 6. Adjust Premiere Pro settings

To work quickly in Premiere Pro, it is important to make some specific settings. Let's go to the Settings > Preferences > Memory.

There are three options: common memory, memory for other applications and memory for Premiere Pro. If you do not use other programs at the same time, you can set the maximum amount of memory for Premiere Pro. 

It happens very often while using animation - the playback starts to slow down. To avoid this change the playback quality from full to something smaller. 

Turn Off High Quality playback. And change the paused resolution to another value.

 ️📌 If the image continues to lag, render that part. Select an in and out point and press enter. 

Now there are no problems with playback.

Method 7. Scene edit detection

The latest update for Premiere Pro has a very useful feature. Take, for example, a short video a minute long, right-click on it and select Scene edit detection.

The first point cuts our video in the places where it was glued on the edit. And the second item places them in a separate folder in the Project Window. The program automatically cut our video in the places where it was glued. Works very accurately, all glues are at the junction of different footages. 

Great! We're glad to share this week's tutorial with you. Hope it was very useful and we'll see you pretty soon again😊

Looking for other ways to optimize Premiere Pro workflow? Here are some of our advises.Editing in After Effects too? Here are some tips you'd like to know.