Effects basics

About effects

After you’ve assembled a movie (arranging, deleting, and trimming clips), you can add polish to it by applying effects to clips. For example, an effect can alter the exposure or color of footage, manipulate sound, distort images, or add an artistic feel. All effects are preset to default settings so you can see the results of the effect as soon as you apply it. You can change these settings when you apply an effect to suit your needs.

You can also use effects to rotate and animate a clip, or adjust its size and position within the frame. Premiere Elements also includes several preset effects that you can use to quickly alter your footage. Most effects have adjustable properties. However, some effects, such as Black & White, do not have adjustable properties.

When you apply themes or create an instant movie project, Adobe Premiere Elements automatically applies effects to your clips.

Standard versus fixed effects

Standard effects appear in the Effects panel. You can apply any number or combination of standard effects from the Effects panel to each media file in the Quick view timeline or the Expert view timeline. These effects add special characteristics to your image or audio, or they correct a problem, such as low light levels in video clips or hiss in audio clips.

Fixed effects are automatically applied to every clip in the Quick view timeline or the Expert view timeline. They can’t be removed or reordered, and they don’t affect a clip until you change the effect properties. The following are fixed effects:

Motion

Lets you reposition, scale, anchor, and rotate video clips, and remove flicker from them.

Opacity

Lets you create fades and dissolves for special effects or transitions.

Volume

Lets you control the volume of audio clips.

Balance

Lets you adjust the balance of audio clips.

note: Balance is not available in projects with 5.1 channel.

Third-party effects

In addition to the dozens of effects included with Premiere Elements, you can use effects from other sources. You can purchase effects (in the form of plug‑ins) from the Adobe Store on the Adobe website and from third‑party vendors.

Virtual Studio Technology (VST) effects let you add interesting qualities to audio clips. If you own third‑party VST effects, you can apply and edit them just like standard audio and video effects. Premiere Elements detects any compatible VST plug‑ins that you have installed and adds them to the Effects panel.

Some third‑party VST effects provide unique control interfaces. The control layout and processed audio are the responsibilities of the plug‑in developer. Premiere Elements simply presents the effect controls and results.