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Monday, July 8, 2013
ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS 3
Adobe is still
making its mind up as to what a good interface for the consumer video editing
market consists of. Premiere Elements 2 looked significantly different to the
first incarnation, and version 3 is yet another radical departure. The
similarities with the Premiere Pro parent product are getting more and more
distant.
The new interface
retains the docked windows of the Premiere Elements 2, but the arrangement has
been changed considerably, with a much greater focus on tasks. Premiere
Elements 1 also took a task-based approach, but this imposed annoying
restrictions on the more seasoned editor – such as the separation between
Effects mode and Advanced Effects mode. In contrast, Premiere Elements 2 put
everything onscreen all the time, which was handy for experts but too busy for
beginners.
With Elements 3,
Adobe has taken one step back to go two steps forward. Four icons down the left
of the interface switch between the project’s media library, footage
acquisition, effects, and titling. But this only changes the contents of the
associated window, not the rest of the interface, which keeps things simple.
Another new feature for the beginner is the Sceneline view, which is now the
default. Again, this storyboard approach, where clips and transitions are
represented by single icons, is simpler for those unfamiliar with desktop video
editing.
There are also tabs
along the top, which offer the same functions as before but have been grouped
together. Overall, the new look addresses the biggest problem with the previous
version of Premiere Elements – that it was hard for absolute beginners to get
to grips with compared to the Ulead or Pinnacle alternatives. However, we did
find that when you want windows to float above the rest of the interface, such
as the capture applet, it’s too easy to accidentally dock them alongside other
windows, and hard to pull them out again afterwards.
Nevertheless,
version 3 is a big improvement for novices. But what about new features for
existing users? The most obvious addition is HDV support, which may not have
been a major omission for the majority in the past, but it did give the
competition a lead. Now you can capture from HDV camcorders, although we found
the automatic scene detection didn’t work with our Sony HVR-A1E. The Media Downloader
has also been redesigned, and now has a simplified Standard Dialog as well as
the Advanced Dialog, which corresponds to the original version. There’s an
Internet option as well, but this doesn’t take you to a Web-based clip library
as you might expect, but instead presents you with a gallery of editing ideas
in Flash video format on Adobe’s website.
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