You can also add, delete, or rename tracks by right-clicking a blank area of any track header in the Timeline. You may find it handy to give some tracks more descriptive names, to better reflect what you put in that track. Track names won’t appear in the final movie, so you can choose any name that you find useful as you edit.
Figure 8-2:
You can add up to 99 video and audio tracks to the Premiere Elements Timeline.
Do you have some empty, unused tracks in your Timeline that are just taking up space? If so, right-click a track header and choose Delete Empty Tracks from the menu that appears. Only empty tracks can be deleted. If a track won’t delete itself, scroll back and forth through the project to check the entire length of that stubborn track. Chances are there’s a clip hiding some- where on that track.
Working with the Work Area bar
As you look at the Timeline you’ll notice a yellowish bar near the top of the Timeline, just underneath the Timeline ruler. This bar is called the Work Area bar, and by default it spans the entire length of your movie project. However, you can shrink the Work Area bar so that it only covers part of your project, as shown in Figure 8-3.
When you resize the Work Area bar so that it only covers part of your project, Premiere Elements only renders effects, transitions, and other edits that are covered by the Work Area bar. You may want to shrink the Work Area bar if you only want to export a portion of your movie project, for example. As I describe in Chapters 15 through 18, when you export your movie project you can choose to export the entire project or just the area spanned by the Work Area bar. The Work Area bar is just one more little feature that helps make Premiere Elements such a powerful yet easy-to-use program.
To change the size of the Work Area bar, simply click-and-drag on either end of the Work Area bar.
Click-and-drag Work area bar
Click-and-drag
Figure 8-3:
Use the Work Area bar to select portions of a movie
project.
Using Timeline tools
Somewhere in a garage, closet, basement, or shed, you probably have a tool- box full of tools. Toolboxes are great for organizing screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, and various other implements of destruction. Software programs typically have many different tools as well, and those tools are usually orga- nized on toolbars.
Adobe Premiere Elements provides several important editing tools on a tool- bar in the upper-left corner of the Timeline, as shown in Figure 8-4. To use a tool, simply click it in the toolbar or press its keyboard shortcut. When you move the mouse pointer over the Timeline, the pointer image looks like the selected tool. Table 8-1 lists the tools, along with the keyboard shortcut and function for each.
When you perform edits in the Timeline, the mouse cursor changes to show the tool that is currently active. Sometimes you may see a red slash across the mouse pointer when you try to perform some edits. If you see a red slash on the mouse pointer, this means you cannot use the currently selected tool on whichever clip happens to be under the pointer.
Table 8-1 Premiere Elements Timeline Tools
Tool Keyboard Function
Shortcut
Selection Tool V Select clips for click-and-drag edits, as well as Ripple edits (described later in this chapter) to lengthen or shorten clips. This is the most com- monly used tool in Premiere Elements.
Time Stretch Tool X Change the playback speed of a clip. See the sec- tion on changing clip speed later in this chapter.
Razor Tool C Split clips when you click them. Oddly enough, the tool works just like a razor blade.
Selection tool Time-Stretch tool
Razor tool Figure 8-4:
Use these tools when you work in the Timeline.
Adding Clips to the Timeline
Before you start assembling stuff into the Timeline to make your movie, make sure you’ve used the Monitor window to edit clips and mark In points and Out points (Chapter 7 explains how). After you’ve completed that process, you can start editing your marked clips into the Timeline where your project is actu- ally assembled. The following sections show you how to edit clips into the Timeline. Then I help you figure out what to do with those clips after you’ve placed them in the Timeline.
Editing clips into the Timeline is easiest when you work in the Editing work- space. To open this workspace, choose Window➪Workspace➪Editing. I cover workspaces in more detail in Chapter 3.
Inserting clips
A lot of the work you do in Adobe Premiere Elements requires you to simply drag and drop items onto new locations. And so it won’t surprise you that editing clips into the Timeline requires the same technique. After you have set In and Out points for a clip in the Monitor window, the easiest way to add that clip to the Timeline is to simply drag and drop it from the Monitor directly to the Timeline. You can drag clips from the Monitor window or the Media window directly into the Timeline. As you can see in Figure 8-5, I am dragging a clip to the Timeline after marking In and Out points in the Monitor.
Why did slip, slide, and roll edits slip, slide, and roll away?
If you have used Adobe Premiere Pro or an ear- lier version of Premiere such as Premiere 6, you may be familiar with several other editing meth- ods in addition to ripple edits. Other editing methods include roll edits, slip edits, and slide edits. Unfortunately, as part of Adobe’s efforts to simplify Premiere Elements, these editing methods didn’t make the transition from Premiere Pro to Premiere Elements.
Three-point edits and four-point edits didn’t make the cut either. These editing methods are favored by many video-editing professionals who edit video on a daily basis and need advanced editing tools and features to work efficiently. I’ve always been a big fan of three-point edits myself, but I have to admit that they can be a little complicated to do at first. If you’re a video editing professional and you absolutely need to be able to do three- point edits, roll edits, and other such techniques, you’ll need to step up to Premiere Pro.
Premiere Elements provides two other methods for placing a clip in the Timeline as well. These editing methods — called insertand overlay— are usually more precise and efficient ways to place clips in the Timeline at exactly the desired location. Each type of edit is a little different:
Insert Edit: The incoming clip is inserted at the current location of the CTI (Current Time Indicator). Clips that fall after the CTI are moved over to make room. Figure 8-6 shows an insert edit. I inserted a clip of black video before the “Lava Beds” clip.
Overlay Edit: The incoming clip is inserted at the current location of the CTI, but instead of moving subsequent material over the incoming clip the new clip simply replaces the old material. Figure 8-7 shows an overlay edit. My clip of black video has replaced a portion of the “Lava Beds” clip.
Set In points and Out points here.
Drag-and-drop clips from the Monitor to the Timeline.
Figure 8-5:
Drag-and- drop clips from the Monitor to the Timeline.
An important thing to keep in mind about insert and overlay edits is that in Premiere Elements they can only insert clips into the Video 1 track. To per- form an insert or overlay edit, follow these steps: