Let me first give you a screenshot of a project I'm working on now. This will get you familiar with the different panels inside of Premiere.
http://imgh.us/EditingScreenshot1.jpg
Let's go top left to right bottom. The Top Left panel is the project panel. This is where your files and resources go. The next panel to the right is the Effect Controls/Source panel. Effect controls manages different effects for selected clips. The Source tab manages the source files (where you can preview, etc.). Next over is the Preview panel, which is sefl-explanatory. It contains a player to preview what you have. Then go down, and the bottom-left panel is the Effects panel. This adds audio/video transitions and effects. There's also a Media Browser tab for going through your computer, as well as an Info tab for gathering more information. Then is the timeline. This is where the clips go and where we arrange our video. The bottom-right panels I have (these are changeable) is an audio mixer (for managing audio levels) and below that is the Tools panel, which allows you to select the tool you need. Let's get started:
#1. The Basics
I'm running Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. It's actually a lot different than CS3, but not too much to where you couldn't figure it out.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/1.jpg]
When we open Premiere, you can choose between New Project, Open Project, or Close. You're also shown a number of recent projects. Click "New Project". You'll be asked where to put it. Choose a folder somewhere, because this will create a project file, as well as a few folders for keeping cache and rendered bits and pieces. You'll be able to delete all this once you've exported your final project.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/2.jpg]
After that, you create a sequence. A sequence is inside the Project. You can have a number of sequences (basically separate timelines) inside of a single project. We won't do this here - it's really only used for large-scale projects where you need several different timelines that all share the same resources (the images/videos/audio that the project has tied to it).
Anyway, you'll need to choose what's best for you. Find out the aspect ratio and frame size of the clip you created and choose the option that's suitable. You'll really only need to choose from a few of these. I chose DV - NTSC (Stands for Digital Video - North America). Standard 32kHz (It's 4:3 and the audio is 32kHz). The boxes on the right side give more detailed information. NOTE: You'll be able to change frame size, among other things, later. Premiere is extremely diverse and capable.
#2. Importing and Placing on the Timeline
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/3.jpg]
Once the project opens, you'll be faced with a bunch of sections completely blank. Let's get started. Go to File >> Import (toward the bottom). Find your folder, as shown, and import your video.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/4.jpg]
It will appear in your Project panel (top left). You can change the file name by Shift-Clicking it. I'll just leave it alone, because it's the only clip I have for this. If you have multiple clips, feel free to change them as much as you want. This will not change the original filename - just how you see it in Premiere.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/5.jpg]
Once you have it imported (it takes just a second to import it), you drag it down to the timeline. Screenshots take away the mouse pointer, but it changes to a little icon while dragging. Once you get it on the timeline, pull it to the left side and it'll snap at the beginning (00;00). Once you release the click, the pointer icon changes back to normal, and you'll see this:
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/6.jpg]
You'll see two bars. The Video 1 and the Audio 1. The great thing about Premiere is that it supports multiple layers (it's either 99 or unlimited, I don't remember which... but more than we'll ever need). We start off with just three of each. Video 1 and Audio 1 should ALWAYS be left for our main video and main audio. Video 2 would have things like titles, and Audio 2 would be sound effects or music.
The box in the middle is the render box. Once the clip is on the timeline, it'll have a red bar above it, as you can see. This means it's un-rendered. You can view it, but playback will be slow or choppy, and not the right quality. Hit Enter and it'll start rendering. The time it takes is based on how many frames are in the clip.
#3. Making some changes
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/7.jpg]
Now that it's rendered, it turns to a green bar. You can see in the preview window (right side) that it's very zoomed in. That's because the original clip was 1280 x 1024. And the sequence I created is only 720 x 480. What do we do? Resize the clip inside of the timeline. Make sure the clip on the timeline is selected (it'll be darker, as shown) and look up to the Effect Controls panel. You'll see another little bar that looks like a timeline (ignore this for now). To the left, you see Video and Audio Effects. These are basic effects like changing size/rotation, opacity/transparency, and time remapping (slow motion). Click the little arrow next to Motion to see the effects we need to adjust.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/8.jpg]
The listed effects are Position (the position in the frame, whether it be to the left side or right side, top or bottom; default is center and filling the frame), Scale (the size of the clip in the frame, this is what we'll be adjusting), Rotation (self-explanatory), Anchor Point (changes the anchor point for manual adjustments; again not important), and Anti-flicker (removes sharp lines/edges; not important). Like I said, we're only adjusting the Scale. It's default 100%, but obviously that's too big for the frame size we chose. As you can see, I changed it to 47%, and that makes it fit nicely in the frame to the right.
#4. Trimming and Moving Clips
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/9.jpg]
This is a screenshot of our tools box. The main tool is the Pointer (currently enabled; default button is "V"). But I like to also use the Razor tool (highlighted; default "C"). The Pointer tool moves clips around and can shorten/lengthen by dragging on the edges of clips. The Razor Tool places a slit in a clip, which can then be separated by using the Pointer tool. It might sound complicated now, but once you do it, it makes sense. For instance, if there's a clip on the timeline, you can move it around using your Pointer tool. Take the Razor tool, and make a slit in the middle of the clip. Now switch back to the pointer tool, and move one side. It cut the clip in two, and now they are separate entities. You can make as many slits/cuts as you want and cut a clip into as many pieces as you want. Because I only have one actual video file for this project, I'll be using this a lot to cut it into a bunch of little pieces that I can then arrange. In short, you can take one LONG video recording, and then later use the razor tool to cut out the un-interesting parts.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/10.jpg]
Look there. I made a cut at the beginning of the clip, after the first few seconds, because it's just me standing there. In this video, I'll be killing a bunch of wolves. I'll cut out all the parts where I'm running between them, etc. So you'll only see me fighting them.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/11.jpg]
This is what my timeline looks like after I made all my cuts (and then used the Pointer tool to select the useless clips and delete them with the delete key). There are a bunch of gaps in between. That long gap in the middle was where I was getting my butt kicked by a wolf and I'd rather not keep that in. ;) I can now use my pointer tool to take each clip, and slide them together. They'll snap together once they're close enough.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/12.jpg]
And here we have all of the clips smushed together at the beginning of the timeline. Once you play through, they'll all be in order. Or you can switch the order, if you want. Move the individual spliced clips around as you please. If you notice, I have the red bar again for some reason, meaning I have to render again. Because this is just a test, I don't really care how it turns out, so I don't need to preview it a bunch of times with full quality.
#5. Adding Music and Editing the Audio
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/13.jpg]
If you want, you can go clip by clip and right click >> Un-Link. This separates the video and audio. You can then remove the audio from each clip individually. This is, of course, assuming you don't want the Mabinogi sound and are planning on adding music. This way would be easier: As shown in the screenshot, look at the Audio 1 highlighted box and see the little megaphone icon with sound waves coming out? Click that (my mouse pointer doesn't show up, again, but hovering over it shows that "Toggle Track Output" tooltip. This basically prevents audio from being heard on this track. It's there if you need it for some reason, but you won't hear any of it. This is where layers come in. We can add any music we need on Audio 2 layer and just disable Audio 1, saving us a couple minutes of clicking and removing invidual audio tracks. Do you follow?
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/14.jpg]
Import your music the same way you imported the video clip. It'll show up in the same box. If you have a lot going on, you can create invidual "bins", which are basically folders inside of your project, for sorting your resources (audio, video, images, etc.). Keep in mind that any filename-changing or bin-creating only affects this project, and doesn't change any of your original files on your computer. It's simply for organizational purposes. Anyway, you can see I pulled my song onto Audio 2 layer (because Audio 1 is disabled). You'll also notice the song goes way past the length of my video clips. Use your pointer tool to click and hold on the end edge of the audio, and pull it back. You can leave it a few seconds after the video clips and fade it out, or make it snap at the very end of the last clip (making a sharp, hard cut to end the video).
NOTE: This part may be a little confusing to those who have never edited video/audio before. I'll try my best to explain it, but it's much easier to show in person.[b]
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/15.jpg]
This is how you fade out the audio at the end. Make your audio clip a few seconds longer than your last video clip, as shown. #1 box (with the mountains) is basically a zoom slider. Zoom yourself in to a decent level so you can see what you're doing. #2 box shows what is called a "keyframe". It's the little egg-shaped thing. Make sure your audio clip is selected on the timeline, or the keyframe will be grayed out.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/16.jpg]
Put your timeline viewer thing (the red vertical line) at the end of the audio clip and click the keyframe. As you can see, I've added one at the very end, and a few seconds before the end. What you do then is click and hold on the one at the end, and drag it down to the bottom. This lowers the audio level down to 0. Because we have another keyframe a few seconds before it, it creates a kind of ramp downard that creates a fading effect. If we didn't have keyframes and we pulled that audio level down, it would make the whole clip 0. The keyframes allow us to change values in different parts of the clip. If you do it as shown, you will have a fading out effect. This keyframe technique can really be used for anything. You can ramp up or down the opacity of the clip and do yourself a manual "fade to black" transition this way (of course, you'd be editing the video clip, not an audio clip). But that's a whole other lesson.
[b]#6. Adding Transitions
I'll go through this quickly. It's very easy, and I won't be using very many in my video.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/17.jpg]
It's the bottom-left box. Make sure you're on the Effects tab. You see Presets, Audio Effects/Transitions, and Video Effects/Transitions. Click the arrow next to Video Transitions (highlighted in the screenshot).
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/18.jpg]
There are a bunch of folders of transitions. The most common ones are held in "Dissolve". There you see your classic "Cross Dissolve", as well as "Dip to Black/White". I'm a huge fan of fading to and from black, so that's what I'll put in my video.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/19.jpg]
Click and drag the transition you want to any clip you have on the timeline. Make sure you put it at the beginning/end of the clip, or at any slice between clips. Because my video is just me killing stuff, I don't need to transition between the kills. Cuts are fine. However, I would like my video to fade from black into the action. So I dragged "Dip to Black" to the beginning of my first clip. Normally, I like to put five seconds of pure black before any video starts, but because this is a test, it doesn't matter.
NOTE: This is for advanced users and isn't necessary for basic videos:
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/20.jpg]
If you click (just once) the transition at the beginning/end/middle of the clips; the purple part, this will open up in the Effect Controls at the top. You can basically change the duration or length of the transition and tailor it exactly as you need. However, the default settings are fine for most videos.
#7. Adding Titles
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/21.jpg]
Adding Titles is pretty easy, once you get through all the steps. Just go up to the top and click Title >> New Title >> Default Still. Default Still is just a regular title. Roll and Crawl are moving titles (Roll is vertical, like credits, Crawl is horizontal).
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/22.jpg]
This pops up. It may look confusing at first, but it's easy. To the left we have our tools, like the pointer and text tool. We also have shape tools. In the middle, we have our preview. Make sure you're at the point in your timeline where you want to have the title show up, because that's what the preview shows. This is at the very beginning of my video, right after the fade from black. On the right side we have the options for editing and adjusting text. They're grayed out now, but will show up once we have text in the frame. The bottom part is just preset styles for text; I usually ignore these.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/23.jpg]
Make sure the Text tool (on the left) is selected and click anywhere in the preview frame. You can start typing over the picture. You can move the text after you're done typing with the Pointer tool. As you can see, once you've typed something and highlighted it, all of the options on the right show up. I'm not going to get into each one, but you can change the size/rotation easily here. Under the Properties section, you can change the font (I chose Mistral for whatever reason) as well as the size of the font (100% seems to work fine here). Beneath that, under Fill, you can change the color. Below that, you can add strokes/shadows if you want.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/24.jpg]
Here is my finished text. I resized some of the windows (so my preview frame is larger). And I changed the text to red. After you're satisfied, just click the red X at the top right. It'll save itself and appear in your resources with your video and audio. If you need to change it, double-click the icon next to the name in your resources. It'll open right back up. Just drag it onto your timeline now.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/25.jpg]
Again, like I said earlier, use Video 2 layer for your titles. I have it appear right after the fade. This may take some getting used-to, if you've never used a non-linear system before. But the layers work much like in Photoshop. The top layers go over the bottom layers. Thus, anything on Video 2 will show up over Video 1. And Video 3 over Video 2 and 2. And so on forever. This is why text goes on Video 2, because it shows up over Video 1. If you want, you can add a transition to your text (usually a Cross fade) to make it appear nicely. Also note that on the timeline, it appears for just five seconds. If you want to shorten or extend that, just use your Pointer tool and click and drag the edges to make it longer or shorter as needed. It'll automatically snap anytime you drag it by an edge of a clip, but you can make it do whatever you want.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/26.jpg]
This is the preview frame for what I've got. You can play through and view your clip with the new titles.
#8. Exporting
I think I've covered most of the features you'd need. We went over adding video. Then adding music. Then transitions. Then titles. All that's left is to export a final product. Exporting for CS3 and CS4 is much different. Remember that I'm using CS4, and CS4 uses an external program (Adobe Media Encoder) to export and render files. Whereas CS3 would do it internally. CS3 was quicker and easier, but the addition and integration of Media Encoder in CS4 gives you a plethora of other options. So here's what we do:
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/27.jpg]
Make sure you click in your timeline so that you export your sequence. If you've accidentally clicked somewhere else, you might export the wrong thing. You'll know by the orange/yellow lines surrounding your active section. Then click File >> Export >> Media. A new box will open up.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/28.jpg]
This is where it will get (or at least seem) complicated for most people. The addition of Media Encoder adds so many more options, which is great for people like me, but not necessarily for people who just need to export something with default or preset settings. Anyway, here's what an average video should be -
Under Export Settings, click the box next to "Format:". I've chosen the selection H.264, which creates an .mp4 file. There are many other options. To run through a few popular ones: "Microsoft AVI" is a huge audio/video file with great quality. Don't choose this, because it creates a basically "perfect" video, which we don't need for Youtube (it hikes up the file size). "QuickTime" creates a .mov file. This is okay, I guess, but it's below the standard of quality we're capable of putting out. "MPEG2" creates a .mpg file. These are nice, but still too big for Youtube. That would be better for a DVD. "Windows Media" creates a .wmv. This is good, too, but I still think H.264 is the best option we can have. So make sure that one is checked.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/29.jpg]
Now, right below that, click the box next to "Preset:". NTSC DV High Quality is fine. There are a billion options, as you see. They basically range from top being what we want, through the High-Definition options, then to different platforms (iPods, PSPs, Web formats, and then mobile/cell phone formats). Just make sure the top one is checked.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/30.jpg]
Don't change anything else. You can see below that the different tabs (Video/Audio/Filters/etc.) but you don't need to do anything at all with those. If you have some idea of what you're doing, you can look through them and make sure everything is in order (frame size, framerate, etc.), but it's usually fine how it is. Below where we were before is "Output Name:" and this tells us where the file goes. Click the shortened URL they have listed and it will open your directory. I'm just gonna throw it on my desktop and name it "Mabinogi Video". Again, you see that it will export it as a .mp4, which is best for uploading to Youtube.
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/31.jpg]
Now it will open Adobe Media Encoder. It'll show a queue (list) of your files. We only have one. It'll tell you all of the settings, and you can add/duplicate/remove items on the list. We don't need to do that. Just click "Start Queue".
[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/numbah91/Mabinogi%20Premiere%20Pro%20Guide%20-%20MrShandavio/32.jpg]
It'll start rendering. This can take some time. It'll show a progress bar at the bottom, as well as individual frames as it goes through your video. The longer the video (the more frames), the longer it takes. It also shows more information on the left side as well. Wait until it's all finished. The item on the list will change to "Finished" once it's all done.
From there, just find it on your computer and upload it to wherever. Congrats, you just edited a video on a professional-level non-linear editing software!
Oh, and here's my finished video on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfzAT1R-zAQ