From Gretchen Siegchrist,
Your Guide to Desktop Video.
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If you are just getting started with video editing, or if you want to move up from free editors like Movie Maker and expand your skills, Adobe Premiere Elements 3 is an ideal program.

Premiere Elements allows users to easily create simple DVDs and home movies, or edit more involved projects with multiple video and audio tracks, and customized effects.

Overview

Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 has most all the features that beginning or intermediate hobbyist editors are looking for in a software program. Even if you’ve never edited video before, the logical interface, clear tutorials and helpful help section make it easy to get started and get editing. And as your skills and ambitions grow, you’ll be happy to see that Premiere Elements has the features necessary to let you create more complex projects.

The software runs on PCs only, so if you’ve been fooling around with Movie Maker but want something a little heftier, this is the logical next step. And, retailing at less than $100, it’s a small investment for a large return. Add to that the fact that Premiere Elements comes with DVD authoring software and multiple pre-made DVD menus, and you have a program that will allow you to easily create and share high-quality video productions

Bring in the Video

Premiere Elements is designed to work with most modern video formats, from cell phone video to high definition. This convenience means that you’re not limited to only “professional” or “consumer” quality video, but can use whatever you need for your project. It also means that you won’t need to worry about updating your editing software if you upgrade (or downgrade) or video camera.

The video import interface is clean and easy to work with, giving you step-by-step instructions for importing whatever kind of video you need. Another great feature of Premiere Elements is that if you are importing video that is already saved on your computer, the program will only create reference files, instead of actually creating new video files. This means that the files import quickly, and you save space on your hard drive by not having duplicate copies of the video files.

Get Organized

Premiere Elements has some handy tools for managing large projects. The ability to create folders to separate and categorize clips is a blessing for editors working with a lot of video footage. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of clips, you can go directly to folders to find clips that you’re looking for. It may take some time to organize the clips, but you’ll save yourself the hassle of searching and sifting later on when you get deeper into the editing.

I also liked the checkbox feature that tells you which clips have been used in your project. This makes it easy to keep your project organized, and can prevent you from forgetting to use or disregarding important clips.