Editing Tools:  

After you have imported your video project, Premiere Elements 8 lets you choose to view it in either a timeline or storyboard format. In a timeline view you will see the project displayed as a vertically stacked arrangement of video and audio tracks, whereas a storyboard (or sceneline) is a series of images that represents each clip in a project.

Regardless of which view you choose for your projects you will have access to a variety of editing tools including split/trim, text tools, video stabilization and color correction.

Almost everything in Premiere Elements 8 supports the drag and drop feature. This allows you to do everything from importing video and audio tracks, apply transitions and effects, clipping and trimming, and even publish your project, all from the main user interface.

Export/Production:  

No other product in the video editing software category offers more export/production options than Premiere Elements 8. Whether you are exporting to Divx, MPEG 4, AVCHD or MOV, this solution can handle it.

If formatting is a language you are not very familiar with, that’s okay. When you are ready to publish a project simply click on the share tab in Premiere Elements 8. After selecting the “online” category in this tab you can choose from Photoshop.com, YouTube, Podbean or “My Website” as the destination for your project. These are preconfigured publishing options that automatically convert your project into the correct file type, frame size and frame rate. This also applies compatible audio settings for the chosen format. This feature is extremely helpful because it takes the guess work out of sharing your content online.

Just in case you are curious, Photoshop.com uses H.264 and a 640x480 pixel frame size, YouTube uses FLV/F4V and a 320x240 pixel frame size, Podbean uses MP3 because it is used to publish audio Podcasts and “My Website” offers a variety of NTSC presets to upload video to your website FTP server.

Editing Effects/Transitions:  

Premiere Elements 8 comes loaded with a large selection of effects and transitions. Additionally, Plus subscribers are granted access to a constant stream of newly developed effects, transitions and templates.

There are several new editing features in this release including motion tracking and smart trim.

Motion Tracking allows you to attach images and effects to specific portions of a clip. For example, you can highlight the area surrounding a person’s head and insert an animated butterfly. The software will then track the highlighted area throughout the clip making it appear as though the animated butterfly is following the person in your video. This can also be used to insert thought clouds, blurred objects and other fun effects.

Smart Trim automatically analyzes your video and identifies quality factors such as brightness, blur, shaky and contrast as well as interest factors like faces, motion and dialog and makes suggestions about what to trim from the shots. With minimal effort you can quickly accept or reject these suggestions.

This program also supports green screen editing. Chroma Key Color Transition, also known as green or blue screen editing is generally used to create illusions. When a person is filmed in front of a solid colored screen (blue and green are most common) a video editor can be used to remove that color and replace it with a video clip or still image. This can be used to create the effect of being somewhere you have never actually been, like on the deck of the Titanic or standing in front of the Pyramids in Egypt. This tool can be used to create some fun projects and is actually easier to use in Premiere Elements 8 than in most other applications in this category.