Premiere Pro Public Beta Released – A Modern Refresh

Software Update

by Francesco AndreolaJune 22^nd, 2021

Just in time for summer, Premiere Pro gets a fresh haircut. Adobe is setting a new direction for the software’s future by modernizing the user experience. Premiere Pro Public Beta is now available and it features redesigned Import and Export panels as well as an updated Header Bar.

Let’s be honest: Premiere Pro is not famous for being a user-friendly editing software. When you open Premiere for the first time, you’re faced with a confusing Project Settings dialogue box, an empty workspace, complex Export Settings, and very few cues on what to do next.

Premiere Pro Public Beta: video creation is changing

Over the last 30 years, Adobe has been providing professional video editors with powerful tools to bring their creative visions to life. However, the world of video is drastically changing. Deadlines have become tighter and a growing number of content creators are approaching video editing. They would like to benefit from the robust tools Premiere has to offer, but oftentimes they are intimidated by the old-fashioned user interface.

Now more than ever, there’s a mushrooming of different platforms, formats, and cameras available on the market. Therefore the editing experience can get confusing, especially for those who are just starting out or are less nerdy.

Premiere Pro Public Beta: the goal

For this reason, Adobe decided to improve the end-to-end experience of their software. The goal is simple: to get you through the timeline faster! The new user interface aims to be intuitive and easy to learn for beginners, but still powerful and functional for experienced video editors.

Adobe has entered Phase One of this restyling process, which involves the Import and Export panels as well as the Header Bar. Editing tools won’t be affected for now. Let’s take a look at the new features.

New import mode

When you create a new project within this Beta version of Premiere Pro, you no longer face the old (and sometimes tedious) Project Settings panel. Instead, a new Import panel shows up, offering a more visual, modern, intuitive approach.

The idea here is that you always need some media to get started with a video editing project. Therefore, instead of challenging the user with the most technical settings, Premiere will simply ask you to select the media you need in order to start creating.

This new Import panel acts pretty much like a media browser. You can search through your files and select the desired media. A filmstrip at the bottom of the panel will be populated with the chosen clips and images, providing a visual preview of your content.

Project Name and Project Location, which are extremely for a great organization, have been moved to the bottom of the panel.

A Create new sequence option can be turned on if you want Premiere to help you setting up your sequence automatically.
By doing so, when you go ahead and create the project you will find a populated timeline rather than an empty, scary workspace. This feature is very helpful for less technical users, who just want to start creating without worrying too much about setting up a sequence.

Meanwhile, if you are an experienced video editor and still want to have control over your Project and Sequence Settings, you can simply skip all these steps. Avoid selecting any media and set up everything manually later on.
Classic ways of importing media into Premiere Pro are still available as well.

Fresh Header Bar

Even the old Workspace bar at the top of the interface has been replaced. A fresh Header Bar will allow you to quickly switch between Import, Edit, or Export Mode.

Moreover, the new Header Bar also features:

• a Home button that takes you straight to the Home screen
• the recently-introduced Quick Export button
• a new drop-down Workspace menu to replace the old Workspace bar
• a brand new Maximize Video Output button that allows you to easily enter full-screen playback (previously only accessible through a keyboard shortcut)

New Export Mode

The Export panel was redesigned with a simple question in mind: where will your video end up? Adobe simplified the export process, by providing a set of different types of destinations to choose from. In the end, you don’t necessarily need to be a nerd to export a video!

You can now either select the Media File option to export your video on a local or external drive or any of the main publishing platforms out there (such as YouTube or Vimeo) to post your video directly.
By selecting any of these destinations presets, you’re pretty much ready to go in most situations.

The cool thing is that you can now select different types of destinations at the same time and launch a batch rendering process directly from Premiere Pro, without the need to move to Adobe Media Encoder (which you can still do anyway).

Of course, if you need to dive deeper into the Export Settings, you can still access the Video, Audio, Multiplexer, Captions, Effects, Metadata, and Actions tabs. These tabs are now displayed as a stacked panel group and the settings of each tab can be turned off using a power switch.
For example, if you’ve added a time code overlay and a LUT from the Effects tab and need to remove both of them, you can simply turn off the whole Effects tab.

What about experienced editors?

In the last few years, Adobe has set a very clear direction for their software. The introduction of the Lumetri, Essential Sound, and Essential Graphics panels were meant to address tighter deadlines and to create a simpler, streamlined workflow.

Developing a more intuitive, easy-to-learn solution looks like the right way to satisfy both beginners’ and professionals’ needs. In the end, newcomers can start creating faster without worrying too much about technical settings, codecs, and all the boring stuff.

On the other hand, despite video editing involves a lot of muscle memory, experienced editors will easily adapt to the new workflow without losing any functionality. It will only take them some time to get used to the new look and maybe a couple of extra steps to get to the features they need the most.

Available now – Runs natively on Apple M1

Premiere Pro Public Beta is now available and can be downloaded from the Adobe Creative Cloud app. It also runs natively on Macs equipped with the Apple M1 processor.

You can contribute to make Premiere better

Keep in mind that this is a Beta release and some features might be different in the final product. You can also contribute to improving Premiere Pro. Indeed, Adobe is looking forward to your opinion, which you can provide directly from the Feedback button included in the new Header Bar.

Link: Adobe Blog
Featured image credit: photo by Howard Bouchevereau on Unsplash.

Are you just starting out with Premiere Pro or are you an experienced video editor? What do you think about this Beta Release? Let us know in the comments below!