Working with transitions and color

Adding transitions and adjusting the color of clips are two ways of adding visual interest and enhancing the quality of a video clip. Premiere Rush makes it easy to work with transitions and color in a video project.

Before getting started with the lesson

Before starting this lesson, you'll need to complete the following steps:

1. Download the exercise files for this lesson and extract them to your desktop, if you haven't already done so.
2. Create a new project named Transitions and Color, and import the following exercise files from the RushBasics_Transitions folder following the steps outlined in the lesson Starting a project and importing media:
   • cat-with-toy.mp4
   • playful-cat.mp4

Working with transitions

Transitions are a type of visual effect that can help make the change from one clip to the next a little smoother and less abrupt. They can be added using the Effects panel, and we have many different transition options to choose from.

Adding and adjusting transitions

Adding a transition between two clips on the timeline is simple — just drag the transition you want to use to the beginning or end of a clip. Once a transition has been added, you can adjust its duration — in other words, how long it takes to transition from one clip to the next.

Let's add a Dissolve transition between the first and second clips on the timeline. After it's added, we'll adjust the duration of the transition.

Removing a transition

If you decide you no longer want to use a transition, or want to switch to a different type of transition, you can remove it easily. Let's practice this by removing the transition we just added.

Adjusting a clip's color

We can make adjustments to the color of a clip in order to enhance its appearance or to set a specific mood for a video. These adjustments can be made using the Color panel.

Working with presets

The Color panel provides us with a selection of presets that will adjust the appearance of a clip's colors, based on the individual settings in a specific preset. Applying a preset involves selecting a clip, then selecting the preset we want to apply. Let's see how this works by applying the Cinematic preset to the first clip on the timeline.

Manually editing a clip's color

If desired, we can manually adjust the colors of a clip to suit our needs. This can be done using the Edit options in the Color panel:

We can adjust a variety of settings here by simply pressing and dragging the slider for a specific adjustment until our clip looks the way we want it to. You can also use these settings to customize the look of a preset if desired — simply apply the preset to the clip, then open the Edit options and make the desired changes.

Let's see how this works by adjusting the color temperature and vibrance of the second video clip.

Creating a color preset

After making adjustments to a clip's colors, you can save the changes as a preset and reuse them without needing to manually adjust the settings every time you want a specific look for a clip. This can be helpful if you've made some tweaks to one of the built-in presets and want to save them, or if you've made some manual adjustments and would like to use them again. Once a preset is saved, it can be used in other projects made on the computer you created the preset on.

Let's save the adjustments we made to the second clip as a preset. 

At this point, we can close the project and move to the next lesson.