Video Editing in PowerDirector - Productivity Tips [Video]

I had my friend looking over my shoulder as I was doing some computer work a while ago. I was working with a graphics program.

As he was watching, he was amazed by how inefficient I was. From his perspective, everything I was doing took more time than it was necessary. The reason? I had no clue about shortcut keys and I didn't know all the functions of the program.

Then he showed me a few tricks and everything went much faster. He was shaking his head: "Dude, you're lucky you have me. You'd have gotten old hadn't I been here to show you how to do this!". The cocky little bastard was right though. :)

So instead of re-inventing the wheel have a look at the video below where you can learn a few productivity tips for editing with PowerDirector - consumer's No. 1 video editing software.



Video Transcript:

The first of my productivity tips is this one: let's loo at the timelines and take this spliter bar, move it away to the right and we can rename our video and audio tracks.

And if we're using ten or fifteen timelines then enables us to keep track of them. It's really useful. However, my real favorite is using hotkeys (shortcut key combinations). Now PowerDirector has default sets of hot keys and we can also customize our hotkeys.

Alt + H brings up Customize Hotkey Screen. And we can put put own hot keys in for our own special purposes. I have one called Tutorial for when I'm doing tutorials. And basically, this allows me to do some things very fast.

For example, if I want to highlight and group something because I need to insert, well, I can do that, Take everything to the end of the timeline, Alt + G groups them, they will remain grouped and I can insert an item here. They will remain grouped and I can bring that up to there. So hotkeys are great!

So if I position my cursor here, my scrubber, and I put in Alt + N brings up my Insert Project dialog box.

These are still grouped, remember. And I've set it so that Alt + U will ungroup them and then they just return to normal.

Hotkeys are really useful. They take a little bit of learning but once you've got them, you'll be very productive.

Ripple Editing - Inserting Projects - Repeating Transitions - Copy & Paste Keyframes

When we insert any media into an open space on the timeline, it just drops in. Inserting clips on or between others gives us a ripple editing pop-up. We can trim it to fit. At the start of another clip, we can use the crossfade feature.

Other options are Overwriting or Inserting and Moving All Clips to the right.

Here, we're combining two projects. Set the timeline marker, go to File - Insert Project, navigate to the project and there it is.

Here's an easy way to apply multiple repeated transitions. In the transitions library we can apply random or fading transitions to the whole project. Any transitions can be added to favorites and applied in the same way. We dio this by selecting from within the Favorites library.

Another great time saving feature in PowerDirector 12 is copying and pasting keyframe attributes for enhancements, effects and motion. The first clip has been keyframed from gray-scale to full color. Right click and select Copy Keyframe Attributes, then paste to another clip.

The same thing applies to effects. Here, the blur is set to fade off. Copy the Keyframe Attributes and apply. A great time saver.

Motion setting, PiP designer, works just the same.

This image is set to zoom from the center. With just a few clicks, we can apply that to any other clip or image.

Preferences - Packing Projects - Use Save As

In order to improve productivity go to the PowerDirector preferences room. To access preferences enter Alt + C on your keyboard or click on the little gear icon. Now you can set your preferred values and settings for the features that you commonly use.

These features may include frame rates, controlling pop-up messages, preferred transition type.

You can also change the very important import and export folder locations and choose your auto-save back-up options. You can even choose to opt in to the PowerDirector improvement program.

Another productivity feature in PowerDirector is the ability to pack your completed project for archiving or portability. I prefer to first create a new folder somewhere on my computer. In PowerDirector, open the File menu and then choose the Pack Project Material option. In the pop-up window browse for and highlight your new Packed Project folder and then click OK.

Now this new Packed Project folder will contain all of your timeline assets.

Another feature is to use the Save As option. Using the Save As option allows you to create a separate PDS file each time you save. By creating a series of PDS files you can now have different access points to your project that you can fall back on.

For many PowerDirector users this is preferable to using the simple Save As option as that just overrides previous saves leaving you with only one constantly overwritten PDS file.

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