Organizing assets in the Project panel

The Project panel can include bins, which you can use to organize project contents in much the same way as folders in Windows® Explorer or Mac OS® Finder. Bins can contain source files, sequences, and other bins.

As your project grows, you can make new bins to contain those items. While it is not absolutely necessary to create and use bins (especially with short-form projects), most editors find them indispensable for staying organized.

You may want to use bins in the following ways:

• To store offline clips for batch capture.

• To store main sequences and backup sequences.
  

• To organize files by type, such as video, still images, and audio files.

These are the default behaviors of bins in the Project panel. You can change the last three bin default behaviors by editing bin behavior in general preferences.

To learn more about working with bins, see the video tutorial, Enhanced Bins In Premiere Pro CS3, on the Creative COW website.

• To add a bin, click the New Bin button at the bottom of the Project panel. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Control+/ (Windows) or Command+/ (MacOS).
  
• To delete one or more bins, select the bins and click the Delete icon at the bottom of the Project panel. You can also delete bins by selecting one or more bins, and then pressing the Delete key.
  

See the entire series of video tutorials about the Project panel by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website.
Project Panel 1 - Organizing, Automating, and Searching in the Project Panel
Project Panel 2 - New Items and Templates
Project Panel 4 - Importing Footage

While working in a project, you will sometimes want to change the way you view your bins. In  standard layout, you can see the hierarchy of your entire project, which is useful. However, sometimes you want to open a bin in its own tab, or open in a new panel. That way, you can focus on the clips in a particular bin, sort clips in storyboard order in icon mode, or search for clips within a bin by typing in the search field.

Some editors like the bin window overlapping the interface, while others prefer to see bins open in place, or in new tabs.

To open a bin in its own floating panel, in place, or in a new tab, do the following:

• To open a bin in its own floating panel, double-click the bin. This panel can be docked or grouped like any other panel.
• To open a bin in place, Ctrl-double-click (Windows) or Command-double-click (Mac OS) the bin.
• To open a bin in a new tab, Alt-double-click (Windows) or Option-double-click (Mac OS) the bin.

You can change the default behaviors of Project panel bins by editing the Bins preferences.

• To move an item into a bin, drag the item to the Bin icon. You can move bins into other bins to nest them. Dropping an item into a bin does not automatically open the bin.
• To display the contents of a bin, in List view, click the triangle beside the Bin icon to expand it, or double-click the bin.
• To show the contents of an enclosing (parent) bin when you’re viewing only the contents of a nested bin, click the Parent Bin button in the Project panel. You can continue to click this button until the top-level contents of the Project panel appear.
• To open or close more than one bin at a time, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) multiple selected bins.
  

Labels are colors that help you identify and associate assets. You assign and view labels in the Project panel. Label colors mark assets in the Project panel’s Label column and in a Timeline panel.

• To assign a label to an asset, select a clip in the Project panel, choose Edit > Label, and choose a color.
• To select all assets with the same label, select an asset that uses the label and choose Edit > Label > Select Label Group.
• To edit label names or colors, choose Edit > Preferences > Label Colors (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Label Colors (Mac OS). Click a color swatch to edit a color.
• To set default labels for a media type, choose Edit > Preferences > Label Defaults (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Label Defaults (Mac OS).

All files in your project are stored on your hard disk as individual files. Only a reference to each file is added to the Project panel in Premiere Pro. Whenever you rename a clip in Premiere Pro, the original file and filename remain untouched on your hard disk.

You can change the name for a clip. Premiere Pro stores the clip name with the other clip properties in the project file. Changing the name of a clip does not change the filename of the source file for the clip.

For more detailed searches, you can locate any assets in your project that meet criteria you specify. For example, you can search for a video clip that has a certain word in its Name column and a phrase in its Comment column.

You can find clips containing faces if you first use Face Detection to identify them.

Identify clips that contain faces, so that you can later filter the Project panel for clips containing faces.

You can filter the Project panel to show only clips containing faces. First identify the clips that contain faces using Face Detection.

The Project panel displays all clips.

You can remove assets you don’t need from the Project panel without removing them from your hard disk.

You can remove assets you haven’t used in a Timeline panel from the Project panel.

In Premiere Pro CS5 and CS5.5, you can change the poster frame of clips in Icon view. By default, the first frame of a clip appears in the thumbnail viewer and in other places in the project where the thumbnail is displayed. You can override the default thumbnail by designating any clip frame as a poster frame.

In Premiere Pro CS6, you can change the poster frame of a clip in Icon view. See Working in Icon view for details.

You can edit the data in the editable cells, whether for clip properties or XMP metadata, for any clip in the Project panel. Premiere Pro stores data written to XMP metadata cells in the source files. However, it stores data written to clip properties cells in the project file, not into the source files. Clip properties data do not travel with the source files, and they are readable only by Premiere Pro.

By default, the Project panel displays only the clip properties. To write data that Premiere Pro stores in the source files, first add metadata columns to the Project panel display. See Customize List view columns.

Premiere Pro includes clip analysis tools that you can use to evaluate a file in any supported format stored inside or outside a project. For example, after producing a video clip to be streamed from a web server, you can use clip analysis tools to determine whether a clip you exported has an appropriate data rate for Internet distribution.

The Properties panel provides detailed information about any clip. For video files, analyzed properties can include the file size, number of audio channels, duration, frame rate, audio sample rate, average data rate, and codecs. The Properties panel will not show all these properties for every clip. The data shown in the Properties panel is determined by the file format of the clip being examined.

In Premiere Pro CS6, you can determine the field order for a clip in the Preview Area of the Project panel. In the Preview Area, and next to the clip, you can view information about the clip. Next to the timecode information, the field order is listed.

• LFF indicates a lower-field first field order for the clip.
• UFF indicates a upper-field first field order for the clip.

In Premiere Pro CS6, you can determine if a clip has interlaced or progressive scanning in the Preview Area of the Project panel. In the Preview Area, and next to the clip, you can view information about the clip. Next to the timecode information, an indicator for interlaced or progressive scanning can be seen.

• "i" indicates the clip has interlaced scanning
• "p" indicates the clip has progressive scanning
  

You can use the Interpret Footage command to change the frame rate that Premiere Pro assumes for a clip. When changing the frame rate of a clip, audio is changed, in addition to the video. Changing the frame rate changes the original duration proportionally. For example, if you set a 10-second, 24-fps clip to 48 fps, it becomes half as long, with a new duration of 5 seconds. Clip frame rate is reconciled with the sequence frame rate. For example, if you change a 24-fps clip in a 24-fps sequence to 48 fps, the sequence displays only every other frame of the clip.

You can also change clip speed and duration by choosing the Clip > Speed/Duration command for a clip selected in a Timeline panel. However, such a change affects only that clip instance in a Timeline panel. Using the Interpret Footage command changes how a file is interpreted throughout a project.