Editing videos for the first time is never easy, and most beginners struggle to come to grips with it. But although there is a steep learning curve involved in video editing, there are some ways that you can ease into it a lot more smoothly.
To be more specific, the best ways for beginners to start editing videos are to:
- Split videos to trim and arrange video footage
One of the most basic yet frequently used tools when editing videos is to split video clips into segments. In most video editors it is as simple as positioning a marker and then clicking on a button to split the video at that point.
By splitting a clip into segments, you can isolate parts of it and then trim them from the video to remove them. On top of that you can rearrange the sequence of segments within your video, allowing you greater control when you compile it.
- Crop videos to adjust the frame
Another simple yet potent tool is the crop feature that essentially removes part of the frame of your video. It will allow you to adjust the frame directly, and in doing so improve it and the composition of the video at the same time.
In some cases you may want to crop videos to simply adjust the aspect ratio. However more often than not it is used to improve the composition, in conjunction with techniques such as the rule of thirds.
- Stabilize shaky video footage
A lot of videos suffer from shaky video footage due to issues with keeping the camera steady while recording. If your video footage is shaky in any way, stabilizing it can make an immediate difference.
More importantly stabilizing shaky video footage tends to be easy, and most video editors have a relatively automated feature that you can apply to your video. Sometimes you may need to adjust the tolerance level depending on how shaky the video is, but that should be the sum of it.
- Adjust the white balance and color settings
Adjusting the color settings in a video may seem daunting at first, and you may have no idea what the contrast, brightness, exposure, shadows, highlights, hue, saturation and other parameters really do. The good news is that you don’t need to meddle with them – and can use the automated white balance feature that is present in most video editors.
It would help to start to experiment with manually adjusting the color settings however – as it can help you to correct and grade colors much better.
The ways to edit videos described above can be performed by practically any video editing software, and you could try them with Movavi Video Editor for example. Each one of them is a good place to start editing your videos, and will let you make improvement where they matter most quickly and easily.
As you start to edit videos more frequently, you can explore some of the other features in the editor that you’re using and experiment with them as well.
