The best Premiere Pro tutorials on everything from basic to advanced features.
(Image credit: Adobe)
Premiere Pro tutorials are often the best way to master Adobe's industry-standard editing software like a pro, whether you're making a documentary, a short film, a YouTube video or animation, Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the best cross-platform applications for editing video, with a huge set of tools that can help you create stunning content. In fact, there are so many features, that getting started with Premiere Pro involves a bit of a learning curve, and some editors use the software for years without discovering all of what it can do.
The software does come with its own very good introductory guide to get you up to speed, but you'll probably want more, whether you're a beginner looking to master the basics or an experienced user who wants to unlock the full power of the software or speed up your workflow. The best Premiere Pro tutorials are a good place to go for that, and we've rounded up 13 of them, covering everything from the basic toolbar to colour grading, visual effects and stabilisation.
Download a free trial of Premiere Pro at Adobe You can try Premiere Pro for free, including access to all the latest updates, with a seven-day trial for PC, Mac and iPad. There's no obligation to buy, but you can easily convert to a paid Creative Cloud membership after or during the trial.
13 of the best Premiere Pro tutorials
Our selection of the best Adobe Premiere Pro tutorials below covers the breadth of tools and features the program offers and should help you to either get started or to learn new techniques and save time by streamlining your workflow, saving you time. You can also see our Adobe Premiere Pro tips for more pointers.
A good place to start is by learning directly from the software's maker. Adobe offers over a hundred video tutorials on its site, and there are options for both for beginners and experienced users who are already familiar with Premiere Pro. The tutorials cover a huge range of areas, including switching to Premiere Pro from other software; importing media; working with titles and graphics; audio mixing; and adding transitions or animations.
The website has easy-to-navigate columns dividing beginner and intermediate content, and it provides a great all-round introduction (or refresher) to the editing software. There's also a range of tutorials on Adobe's YouTube page (see above for just one example).
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02. Adobe Premiere Pro 2021 Beginners Tutorial
If you have the time, this 45-minute video is one of the most complete we've seen for learning Premiere Pro as a beginner. It covers key tasks like adding video and audio clips and editing video clips. It also shows how to add transitions and music to videos.
03. Premiere Pro 2021 - Tutorial for Beginners in 12 minutes!
Less time to spare? If you want a swifter introduction, this tutorial runs through the basics of Premiere Pro in just 12 minutes. Already very brief, the tutorial is made even easier to navigate thanks to being divided into useful sections, which you can easily jump between. Watch the whole tutorial or pick your way through individual segments on topics like 'creating sequences', 'selection tool', 'track management' and 'adding text'. This tutorial is accessible and concise but also very informative.
04. 9 cuts every video editor should know
Produced by Shutterstock Tutorials, this Premiere Pro video tutorial offers a full introduction to the basic cuts video editors can use to switch between footage. Logan Baker runs through multiple cutting methods with explanations that make them easy to execute and extremely effective. The video gives examples of how the cuts look with actual footage, and Baker’s plain English descriptions help make the techniques easy to understand and apply.
05. The fastest way to edit video (three-point editing)
Nathaniel Dodson has put together a clean, succinct Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial that presents a quick way to edit videos. He shows the final result of his three-point edit and walks you through each step. What we love about this video is the inclusion of keyboard shortcuts with detailed explanations. It walks viewers through the process in real-time, which is a highly effective way to learn. Although there is some assumed knowledge, it only takes 12 minutes to complete the entire process, and it's doable even for a relative newcomer to Adobe's software.
06. 8 steps to edit a video in Premiere Pro
If you want to dip your toe a little further and learn about the workflows used by established professionals, take a look at Parker Walbeck's eight steps for editing video in Premiere Pro. Walbeck goes through the entire process, from importing and selecting footage and building the story, right the way up to colour grading, sound design, and adding titles before exporting the finished product. It’s an insightful behind-the-scenes look at how a pro approaches an editing project. It turns up some insightful tips that you’ll probably want to incorporate into your own editing workflow.
07. Learn Premiere Pro in 30 minutes
This comprehensive introduction to Adobe Premiere Pro makes the bold claim of being able to teach Premiere Pro in 30 minutes, and it does that very well. Josh Olufemii and Kirk Cedric walk through every basic operation, from launching the software, setting up your project options and organising your media, to basic operations like using the play head, importing footage to the timeline, and adding effects and transitions. It's a brilliantly informative, and also highly entertaining, alternative guide to using the software, with plenty of handy tips scattered throughout.
08. Premiere Pro tool bar explained
Getting to grips with the basic tool functions in Premiere Pro will allow you to build a strong foundational knowledge and make your editing workflow much faster. This is especially true if you learn the keyboard shortcuts for each tool, since it will save you from having to keep referring back to the toolbar, as David O’Dwyer explains here. O’Dwyer doesn’t just discuss but also demos the most commonly used features in the toolbar that you’ll come back to time and again, showing how you can save yourself a lot of time.
09. 5 Advanced Premiere Pro Editing Techniques Every Editor Should Know
Think you know it all? Even if you're already a regular user of the software, we reckon you'll find something new to learn from this advanced Premiere Pro tutorial. It covers five essential advanced tips, including time-saving techniques like automated sequence editing and multi-camera editing. Your flow might just become a lot smoother if you incorporate these tips into your process.
10. Colour grading in Premiere Pro CC
This tutorial drops straight into a crash course in colour grading in Adobe Premiere Pro using the built-in Lumetri colour tools. After a brief overview of the layout of Lumetri, Denver Riddle delves into colour grading footage through using Lookup Tables and manual fine-tuned adjustments to various colour parameters. There’s a fair amount of assumed knowledge (see our colour theory post for more on colour), but this Premiere Pro tutorial is a brilliant introduction to altering footage colour and stylising it to make videos your own.
11. Smooth professional text animation in Premiere Pro
Once you’ve mastered the basics of adding titles to videos, maybe it's time to think about animating them? That might sound a little daunting for anyone just starting out, but Ignace Aleya makes the world of title animations very clear, helping to reduce the panic. Aleya demonstrates exactly how he creates his own text animations, including where to go in Premiere Pro and which buttons to press. With a little practice, you too should be able to create awesome title animations that will help your videos to stand out.
12. 5 fast & easy visual effects in Premiere Pro
If you’ve ever wondered how to create the cool visual effects seen in things like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak or the selective colour trick in Sin City, this tutorial is for you. Jordy Vandeput demonstrates five ways to add neat visual effects to video with a mix of basic and intermediate techniques that combine filming and editing tricks in Premiere Pro for quality results. Follow along to learn how to cast your own lightning or even change clothes in an instant with the aid of a simple cut.
13. How to fix shaky video in Premiere Pro with warp stabilizer effect
Even the most skilled editor will sometimes find themselves faced with footage that seems just too shaky to use. However, as Justin Odisho points out in his video, Premiere Pro has a tool to stabilise that shaky video and turn it into something that's not only useable but actually looks very smooth. The tutorial only takes five minutes to watch, but the knowledge here will help aspiring video editors for years to come.
Managing editor, ecommerce, Space and Live Science
Jase Parnell-Brookes is the Managing Editor for e-commerce for Space and Live Science. Previously the Channel Editor for Cameras and Skywatching at Space, Jase has been an editor and contributing expert across a wide range of publications since 2010. Based in the UK, they are also an award-winning photographer and educator winning the Gold Prize award in the Nikon Photo Contest 2018/19 and named Digital Photographer of the Year in 2014.
After completing their Masters degree in 2011 and qualifying as a teacher in 2012, Jase has spent the last two decades studying and working in photography and publishing in multiple areas, and specialises in low light optics and camera systems.
