Editing software

joel222

joel222

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Lee
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Hi, I'm a wedding photographer that shoots the odd video in my spare time, nothing serious, just of my kids etc. A full frame canon dslr is my weapon of choice as I already have it for photography.

I would like to take my videography further and maybe venture into weddings in the future. I'm already familiar with the wedding environment and have a good friend who's a wedding photographer that said I can accompany him to weddings to get experience.

As I've not taken this seriously in the past I haven't bothered with any editing software I've just messed around with movie maker. I know that I now need to invest in something better so this is what has brought me here. I only want to buy once, meaning I don't want to buy something basic them as I progress have to upgrade to something different. On the other hand I don't really want to jump in head first and spend £600 in case I decide it's not for me after 6 months.

Can somebody please recommend some editing software that is capable, but maybe not the highest end of the price range.

Thanks
 
Davinci resolve is worth a look. Works on pc as well as mac.
If you have a mac, Final Cut Pro x is fantastic and can be had for £200 with the education discount.
 
Lightworks is also an option along with Final Cut and Resolve (all of them are about the £300 mark, not sure what has happened to the FCP price, it was £198 when I last looked)

The Lightworks free version has limited outputs, but still a professional quality video editing tool at a "reasonable" price - and its British, which is always nice :)

It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, which is also nice.

Da Vinci Resolve , as Paul W suggested also has a free version, and is now reasonably priced when you want to move onto the full version. But it seems very demanding on hardware, and I haven't managed to get it to run on my modestly, but not rubbish, specced computers, it seems the graphics cards are the issue. It also runs on Windows Mac and Linux

If you are on a Mac, iMovie is surprisingly capable for a program that comes for free with the OS. Final Cut pro X is really good, don't be put off by old "angry user" reviews as Apple have dramatically improved it since it replaced the well loved version 7.

And if you have Photoshop, and a reasonably powerful computer, it already offers some very good basic video editing tools. Here is the first episode of four parts on using PS for video editing.
 
If you are on a Mac then I would suggest you look at Final Cut. Its now £299, same price as the Studio version of Resolve, but I would think the Free version is the one I would start with and see if you need the bells and whistles of the paid for version. It's not the easiest software to learn, but once you get the idea it's fairly straightforward. Big advantage is the colour grading options. Final Cut I would say is one of the easiest to get your head round. Both Final Cut and Resolve have a big advantage is that they can render output fairly quickly. The other option is Adobe's Premier. I can't say much as I've not touched it for several years. But a trial version is available, as is Apples Final Cut. One point in Apples favour, I purchased Final Cut over three years ago (£199) and have had FREE updates ever since.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm on windows. I'll look into the ones mentioned, how does premiere elements measure up with these? I know it's aimed at the consumer but wondered what the limitations were?
 
joel222 said:
Thanks for the replies. I'm on windows. I'll look into the ones mentioned, how does premiere elements measure up with these? I know it's aimed at the consumer but wondered what the limitations were?
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I can't help with this I'm afraid, never used it, or read any reviews.
 
Premier elements is fine for basic editing, which to be honest is what the majority of amateurs and hobbyists do.
But it does not support multi cam editing or 4k editing, which is going to be the future of video, so if your only shooting h.d. It may be all you require.
If your going to do weddings for cash, it may be worth getting into 4k as it has obvious advantages over h.d.
 
I would like to start using either FCP, Adobe PP or DaVinci R. Since I'm on a Mac I know that FCP is optimised for Apple. Adobe PP would be the logical one to get since I used LR and PS for my stills but it means I would either have to pay £50 a month for the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite, or just use Premier Pro for £20 a month but it means not being able to use After Effects. DaVinci Resolve is free but I'm not sure how user friendly it is to learn compared with the other two.

For the OP - maybe you can download trial versions of FCP and PP to see how you get on? DaVinci is free so no problems there :D
 
johncook said:
using premiere pro cc, £20 a month subscription, but its really good.
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So it should be for £240 a year with nothing at the end of it. Unless it is for serious video editing for commercial use Adobe Premier Elements is fine. Version 15 for under £70 and have for ever
 
paul.w said:
it may be worth getting into 4k as it has obvious advantages over h.d.
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Not really. Ultra HD - which is higher pixel count with better colours, HDR, better audio and higher framerates has an advantage. 4K has been tested by the EBU, DCI, ARIB and others and most people can't see the difference.
 
Joel222 go to PM for my help. What I sent may work I used to use it before I got a later version
 
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st599 said:
Not really. Ultra HD - which is higher pixel count with better colours, HDR, better audio and higher framerates has an advantage. 4K has been tested by the EBU, DCI, ARIB and others and most people can't see the difference.
Click to expand...
If you watch 4k on a 4k screen, I can assure you there is a massive difference, I mean huge, enormous, fantastic, gigantic difference. Don't believe me? Next time your in the West Midlands feel free to inbox me and I'll invite you round and demo standard definition, 720i HD, 1080i HD and 4k. And if you can't see a difference I'll personally drive you to spec Savers!
 
realspeed said:
So it should be for £240 a year with nothing at the end of it. Unless it is for serious video editing for commercial use Adobe Premier Elements is fine. Version 15 for under £70 and have for ever
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say nothing, you have the use of an excellent piece of software with lots of features!

Shooting 4k and very happy with PP. just my 2p worth.
 
myotis said:
Lightworks is also an option along with Final Cut and Resolve (all of them are about the £300 mark, not sure what has happened to the FCP price, it was £198 when I last looked)

The Lightworks free version has limited

outputs, but still a professional quality video editing tool at a "reasonable" price - and its British, which is always nice :)

It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, which is also nice.

Da Vinci Resolve , as Paul W suggested also has a free version, and is now reasonably priced when you want to move onto the full version. But it seems very demanding on hardware, and I haven't managed to get it to run on my modestly, but not rubbish, specced computers, it seems the graphics cards are the issue. It also runs on Windows Mac and Linux

If you are on a Mac, iMovie is surprisingly capable for a program that comes for free with the OS. Final Cut pro X is really good, don't be put off by old "angry user" reviews as Apple have dramatically improved it since it replaced the well loved version 7.

And if you have Photoshop, and a reasonably powerful computer, it already offers some very good basic video editing tools. Here is the first episode of four parts on using PS for video editing.
Click to expand...


I had to rebuild my PC so i could run PS, LR oh yes and Battlefield 4 & 1, ha

I would advise any of nvidia 960 graphics cards and upwards range is what you need.
Then I have overclocked my graphics card and i7 cpu as well.
The reduring is pretty quick, though even with 16gb ram some projects do take a quite a few seconds to process.
And thats the difference between my rig and a mates. Who is running an older pc spec.
I use solid state drives for windows operating system and another for just programmes.
PC spec is a consideration now for raw and log files in post editing.
 
Tysonator said:
I had to rebuild my PC so i could run PS, LR oh yes and Battlefield 4 & 1, ha

I would advise any of nvidia 960 graphics cards and upwards range is what you need.
Then I have overclocked my graphics card and i7 cpu as well.
The reduring is pretty quick, though even with 16gb ram some projects do take a quite a few seconds to process.
And thats the difference between my rig and a mates. Who is running an older pc spec.
I use solid state drives for windows operating system and another for just programmes.
PC spec is a consideration now for raw and log files in post editing.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but my main computer is a Mac Mini, so I am kind of stuck with what they have given me. My windows laptop however has an Nvidia card with 2gb of on board RAM, plus 16gb RAM and it was useless as well. PS and Final Cut pro work fine on the Mac, LR is slow, but I don't use it, as I long gave it up for Capture One.

The new version of Resolve is meant to be less demanding on Video requirements so I may try it again.
 
A mate of mine brought the htc vibe at £800ish, then he has to purchase new hard ware for his PC including a new graphics card which i think was £250ish !

This is the problem now with reduring software is very hardware demanding.
This use to be the realm of PC gamers who needed to up date PC gear to play the latest games at a decent fps rate. Today it also includes any one doing video or photo reduring.
The next issue is storgae as files size has gone skyward !
I have 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB back drive.
I really need a NAS drive for the future as I copy all my CD's to mp3 as well !
The price for being an Abobe user !
 
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Tysonator said:
ring.
The next issue is storgae as files has gone skyward !
I have 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB back drive.
I really need a NAS drive for the future as I copy all my CD's to mp3 as well !
The price for being an Abobe user !
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure you can blame adobe, Pro Res video files are pretty big, I work from an 8Tb raid 0 for the speed, everything from this drive is backed up to Backblaze. "Working files" from are backed up locally to an external 4Tb drive, and then again to a NAS, but I my NAS is only 2TB, and I need to upgrade the HDs to round off my back up and storage set up
 
myotis said:
I'm not entirely sure you can blame adobe, Pro Res video files are pretty big, I work from an 8Tb raid 0 for the speed, everything from this drive is backed up to Backblaze. "Working files" from are backed up locally to an external 4Tb drive, and then again to a NAS, but I my NAS is only 2TB, and I need to upgrade the HDs to round off my back up and storage set up
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What is 'Backblaze' ! ?
 
Tysonator said:
What is 'Backblaze' ! ?
Click to expand...

Its a cloud based backup service https://www.backblaze.com/

$5 a month with unlimited storage. Runs in the background and backups, internal HDs, and external HDs. It won't backup NASs.

I have a slow connection so my initial backup took almost a year !! But since then it trundles away in the background fairly quickly. I think I now have over 2Tb with them.

They only keep deleted files for 30 days. You can log on and download individual files, or they will copy the whole lot onto an HD, and courier it to you (for an additional fee). I had an issue when it would lose the connection with one of my external drives, and technical support were very good. The main thing is that, with the exception just mentioned, its been a set up and forget it service, and should the worse happen and all my computer kit is stolen or destroyed in a fire/flood/plague of locusts, I know I can recover it all "next day delivery" from BackBlaze.

They also as aside publish their server hard drive statistics, in terms of which makes fail and how often they fail, which makes for interesting reading if you are looking for a new HD
 
Tysonator said:
Hi myotis,

that is a pretty good service.
I am going to build my own NAS drive later in the year hopefully.
My aim to paste photos & videos on to the NAS drive when I am on holiday where ever that may be ( if I have WiFi connection ) in the world
Click to expand...

I did a fair bit of research before going with BackBlaze, and they seemed to get universally good comments. However, it was really done for my consultancy documents, rather than my photographs.

The only bad thing is that they work at a "single computer" level, and won't back up from NASs as they are likely to be storing data from multiple computers. My NAS, as I assume most do, also has an in the cloud storage feature, and other things I have never explored, but I assume I could probably do the same as you are planning to do. But probably won't :)
 
myotis said:
I did a fair bit of research before going with BackBlaze, and they seemed to get universally good comments. However, it was really done for my consultancy documents, rather than my photographs.

The only bad thing is that they work at a "single computer" level, and won't back up from NASs as they are likely to be storing data from multiple computers. My NAS, as I assume most do, also has an in the cloud storage feature, and other things I have never explored, but I assume I could probably do the same as you are planning to do. But probably won't :)
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Yes you can access the NAS from a web browser any were you have a internet connection.
Though I do believe the security needs to be set as an IT chap told me people can see the NAS drive on the web and access it
 
paul.w said:
If you watch 4k on a 4k screen, I can assure you there is a massive difference, I mean huge, enormous, fantastic, gigantic difference. Don't believe me? Next time your in the West Midlands feel free to inbox me and I'll invite you round and demo standard definition, 720i HD, 1080i HD and 4k. And if you can't see a difference I'll personally drive you to spec Savers!
Click to expand...

Not according to the scientifically robust tests looking at 4k vs HD transmission taken by a statistically significant number of viewers under BT.500 double stimulus continuous quality scale conditions at three of the most technically proficient organisations working in the field.

Using a good 4k camera (Alexa, F55 etc.) you can create a 4k BT.709 raster or an HD BT.709 raster and send that. Then when viewed 4k vs. upconverted HD in a blind test at a normal viewing difference, people can't tell the difference.

Concentrate on the other aspects of UHD.
 
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