Editing video with AfterEffects

[Michael Szalapski]

There is no quality compromise. There is just a TON of time lost.

Once you understand how to edit in Premiere Pro (for example, the Q and W key shortcuts), you will be able to edit 10-20x faster.

[Walter Soyka]

Premiere can play back a lot more in real-time, you have all kinds of trimming and rippling tools, so many keyboard shortcuts for editing, better organizational tools…

There’s no technical compromise in final render quality, but you can work much, much faster in Premiere for most editorial tasks. That means you can iterate more, and that means you can improve the quality of your video (from a creative/editorial perspective, not just a technical pixels perspective).

I’ve been encouraging people on my team to move more of their work into Premiere for exactly this reason. We do shots in Ae, and sequences in Premiere whenever possible.

I’d heartily encourage you to spend a few days digging into Premiere and getting comfortable with the tools if you spend any time editing at all.

[Hilary Tsai]

Thank you for this valuable advice (both Walter and Michael)! I hadn’t realized how much of a difference it would make to work in Premiere. I’m just now starting to deep dive into the software, and hope to get up to speed soon enough.

[Henry Garrou]

I agree with all the above comments, although, like you, I often do some editing in AE in spite of non-realtime performance. It works for me when I want to take three shots or more and transition more seemlessly, like with more advanced action wipes, or a string of fake camera moves into the TV in one shot, then the Car mirror in the next, etc… In these more complex camera moves, it just makes more sense to make them one shot/scene in AE.

Also, don’t forget about roundtripping from Pproj to AE and back. It really burs the line between which software you are using, and greatly speeds the inclusion of AE in your edits.

Hope this helps.

[Eric Santiago]

Well, there is “editing” videos in After Effects which is not the same as “video editing” in Premiere 🙂

[Paul Carlin]

You are not the only one. After Effects allows more granular control over the video format whereas Premiere assumes you know nothing about video formats and hides everything under the hood. For this reason, I find myself editing in After Effects often. I find it ironic that the “Pro” was added to Premiere and not After Effects. However, for creative editing, you are better off using Premiere/Resolve/Avid. Keep in mind that Premiere allows you to take a shot on the timeline and make it into an After Effects comp.

[Hilary Tsai]

This is helpful to know! It does seem that AE has more options for manual adjustment–that’s something I really like about it. I will look into making an AE comp out of a Premiere shot. Thanks!!

[Hilary Tsai]

Thanks Henry! I will look into round tripping from P to AE since this is the first I’m hearing of it.

[Stacey Dunleavy]

I’m also trying to figure out a good workflow between the two. I did a short video; stitched my two shots together in Premiere, but exported to AE and added my intro and transition and outro, from which I rendered in its final format… Would it have been better to add the AE elements in Premiere?

[Eric Santiago]

Back in the day, it was clear cut.

You had the NLE, a titler, motion graphics, and audio.

There is more than one way to a final output if you are a one-man-band.

It’s when you have to play with others is when workflow matters.

On that note, my recent experience with Adobe’s Dynamic Linking has been positive so try anything that works for you.