You can correct, improve, and otherwise modify your clips with the effects provided in Adobe Premiere Elements. All effects are preset with default values for settings, so when you apply an effect, it alters your clip. You can adjust and animate values as desired.

This reference contains descriptions of all audio and video effects included as part of Adobe Premiere Elements. It defines only those effect properties and tools that may not be self-explanatory. It doesn’t include descriptions of effects installed with capture cards or third-party plug-ins.

The samples below illustrate just some of the video effects included with Adobe Premiere Elements. To preview an effect not in this gallery, apply it and preview it in the Monitor panel. (See Apply and preview effects.)

Adjust

Auto Color, Auto Contrast, and Auto Levels

Use Auto Color, Auto Contrast, and Auto Levels to make quick global adjustments to a clip. Auto Color adjusts the contrast and color of a clip by neutralizing the midtones and placing a limit on the range of the white and black pixels. Auto Contrast adjusts the overall contrast and mixture of colors without introducing or removing color casts. Auto Levels automatically corrects the highlights and shadows. Because Auto Levels adjusts each color channel individually, it may remove or introduce color casts, which are tints to a clip. Each effect has one or more of the following properties:

Specifies the range of adjacent frames used to determine the amount of correction needed for each frame, relative to surrounding frames. For example, if you set Temporal Smoothing to 1 second, Premiere Elements analyzes the frames 1 second before the displayed frame to determine the appropriate adjustments. If you set Temporal Smoothing to 0, Premiere Elements analyzes each frame independently without regard for surrounding frames. Temporal smoothing can result in smoother‑looking corrections over time.

Specifies that Premiere Elements ignores scene changes when you have enabled Temporal Smoothing.

Specifies how much the effect constrains the shadows and highlights within the new extreme shadow (level 0) and highlight (level 255) colors in the clip. Larger values produce greater contrast.

(Available for Auto Color only) Specifies that Premiere Elements finds an average nearly neutral (gray) color in a clip and adjusts the gamma values of that color to make it neutral.

Specifies the percentage of the effect to apply to the clip.

Brightness & Contrast

The Brightness & Contrast effect adjusts the brightness and contrast of the entire clip. The value 0.0 indicates that no change is made.

Using the Brightness & Contrast effect is the easiest way to make simple adjustments to the tonal range of the clip. It adjusts all pixel values in the clip at once—highlights, shadows, and midtones. Brightness & Contrast does not work on individual color channels.

Channel Mixer

Every clip in Premiere Elements is composed from three color channels: red, green, and blue. Each channel contains the luminance values for its respective color. Using the Channel Mixer effect, you can add the values from any of these channels to any of the other channels, for example, adding the luminance values from the green channel into the red channel. Use this effect to make creative color adjustments not easily achieved with the other color adjustment tools. Create high‑quality grayscale clips by choosing the percentage of the grayscale contributed by each color channel, create high‑quality sepia‑tone or other tinted clips, and swap or duplicate channels. You could use this effect, for example, to entirely replace a noisy blue channel with values taken from, say, a clean green channel.

Each of the properties for the Channel Mixer is labeled with a pair of color names. The word to the left of each hyphen names the property’s output channel; the word to the right names its input channel. For example, the Red-Green property has the red channel as its output and the green channel as its input. You can use it to add the luminance values of the green channel to the red channel.

The value to the right of each property name sets the percentage of the output channel contributed by the specified input channel. This number is a percentage ranging from -200% to 200%.

The Constant (Const) properties for each output channel allow you to specify a base value to add to that output. For example, a Red-Const value of 50 will add 50% of full luminance (50% of 255, or about 127) to every pixel in the red output channel.

The Monochrome option creates a grayscale clip from the output channel values. Monochrome is useful for clips that you plan to convert to grayscale. If you select this option, adjust the channel values, and then deselect this option, you can modify the blend of each channel separately, creating a hand‑tinted appearance.

Mix Channels in a clip

Extract

The Extract effect removes colors from a video clip or still image, creating a textured grayscale appearance. Control the clip’s appearance by specifying the range of gray levels to convert to white or black.

Specify Extract settings

Image Control

The Image Control effect emulates the controls of a video processing amplifier. This effect adjusts the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of a clip.

Lighting Effects

The Lighting Effects effect applies creative lighting effects on a clip with up to five lights. You can control lighting properties such as lighting type, direction, intensity, color, lighting center, and lighting spread. Use the Bump Layer control to use textures or patterns from other clips to produce special lighting effects, such as a 3D-like surface effect.

Posterize

The Posterize effect specifies the number of tonal levels (or brightness values) for each channel in a clip and maps pixels to the closest matching level. For example, if you choose two tonal levels in an RGB clip, you get two tones for red, two tones for green, and two tones for blue. Values range from 2 to 255. Although the results of this effect are most evident when you reduce the number of gray levels in a grayscale clip, Posterize also produces interesting effects in color clips.

Use Level to adjust the number of tonal levels for each channel to which Posterize will map existing colors.

Shadow/Highlight

Use the Shadow/Highlight effect to brighten shadowed subjects in a clip or to reduce the highlights. This effect does not apply a global darkening or lightening of a clip, but rather it adjusts the shadows and highlights independently, based on the surrounding pixels. You can also adjust the overall contrast of a clip. The default settings are optimized to fix clips with backlighting problems.

Specifies that Adobe Premiere Elements automatically analyzes and corrects highlight and shadow problems stemming from backlighting issues. This option is selected by default. Deselect it to activate manual controls for shadow and highlight correction.

Lightens the shadows in the clip. This control is active only if you deselect Auto Amounts.

Darkens the highlights in the clip. This control is active only if you deselect Auto Amounts.

Specifies the range of adjacent frames that Adobe Premiere Elements analyzes in order to determine the amount of correction needed for each frame, relative to its surrounding frames. For example, if you set Temporal Smoothing to 1 second, the frames are analyzed 1 second before the displayed frame to determine appropriate shadow and highlight adjustments. If you set Temporal Smoothing to 0, each frame is analyzed independently, without regard for surrounding frames. Temporal Smoothing can result in smoother‑looking corrections over time. This control is active only if you select Auto Amounts.

Specifies that scene changes are ignored when you have enabled Temporal Smoothing.

Specifies the percentage of the effect to apply to the clip.

Expand the More Options category to reveal the following controls:

Specify the range of adjustable tones in the shadows and highlights. Lower values restrict the adjustable range to only the darkest and lightest regions, respectively. Higher values expand the adjustable range. These controls are useful for isolating regions to adjust. For example, to lighten a dark area without affecting the midtones, set a low Shadow Tonal Width value so that when you adjust the Shadow Amount, you are lightening only the darkest areas of a clip.

Specify the size (in pixels) of the area around a pixel that the effect uses to determine whether the pixel resides in a shadow or a highlight. Generally, this value should roughly equal the size of the subject of interest in your footage.

Specifies the degree of color correction that the effect applies to the adjusted shadows and highlights. The higher the value, the more saturated the colors become. The more significant the correction that you make to the shadows and highlights, the greater the range of color correction available.

Tip: If you want to change the color over the whole clip, use the Hue/Saturation effect after applying the Shadow/Highlight effect.

Specifies the degree of contrast that the effect applies to the midtones. Higher values increase the contrast in the midtones alone, while concurrently darkening the shadows and lightening the highlights.

Specify how much the effect clips the shadows and highlights to the new extreme shadow (level 0) and highlight (level 255) colors in the clip. Larger values produce greater contrast.

Blur and sharpen

Antialias (Windows only)

The Antialias effect blends the edges between areas of highly contrasting colors. When blended, colors create intermediate shades that make transitions between dark and light areas appear more gradual.

note: You cannot apply keyframes to the Antialias effect.

Fast Blur

Use the Fast Blur effect to specify how much to blur a clip. You can specify that the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both. Fast Blur blurs areas more quickly than Gaussian Blur.

Gaussian Blur

The Gaussian Blur effect blurs and softens the clip and eliminates noise. You can specify that the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both. (Gaussian refers to the bell‑shaped curve that is generated by mapping the color values of the affected pixels.)

Ghosting (Windows only)

The Ghosting effect overlays transparencies of the immediately preceding frames on the current frame. This effect can be useful, for example, when you want to show the motion path of a moving object, such as a bouncing ball. Keyframes cannot be applied to this effect.

Sharpen (Windows only)

The Sharpen effect increases the contrast where color changes occur.

Channel

Invert

The Invert (video) effect inverts the color information of a clip.

Channel

Specifies which channel or channels to invert. Each group of items operates in a particular color space, inverting either the entire clip in that color space or just a single channel. RGB consists of three additive color channels: red, green, and blue. HLS consists of three calculated color channels: hue, lightness, and saturation. YIQ is the NTSC luminance and chrominance color space, where Y is the luminance signal, and I and Q are the in‑phase and quadrature chrominance signals. Alpha, not a color space, provides a way to invert the alpha channel of the clip.

Blend with Original

Combines the inverted clip with the original. You can apply a fade to the inverted clip.

Color Correction

AutoTone and Vibrance

The AutoTone effect uses automatic Adobe Premiere Elements settings for exposure, brightness, contrast, blacks, and whites. You can choose to use the default settings or edit the parameters after applying the effect to a clip.

Vibrance prevents over saturation of colors as full saturation values are reached. For example, you can use vibrance to prevent over saturation of skin tones. The saturation levels of lower-saturated colors are affected more than the higher-saturated colors.

Three-Way Color Corrector

The Three-Way Color Corrector effect lets you make subtle corrections by adjusting a clip’s hue, saturation, and brightness for the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Specify the color range for correction using the secondary color correction controls to further refine your adjustments.

When you preview an image using Tonal Range, the black areas (shadows), gray areas (mid tones), and the white areas (highlights) in an image are displayed.

The areas in the image to which the changes are applied is displayed. For example, if you are correcting mid tones, the gray areas in your image that are affected is displayed.

Assigns a black, midtone gray, or white balance to a clip. For example, for White Balance, you target a color that is pure white. The three-way color corrector shifts colors in the image so that the targeted color appears white. Use the different Eyedropper tools to sample a target color in the image, or choose a color from the Adobe Color Picker.

Rotates the color toward a target color. The default value is 0. Negative values rotate the outer circumference of the color wheel to the left and positive values rotate the color wheel to the right.

Controls the intensity of the color introduced into the video. Moving the circle out from the center increases the magnitude (intensity). The intensity can be fine-tuned by moving the Balance Gain handle.

Affects the relative coarseness or fineness of the Balance Magnitude and Balance Angle adjustment. For fine (subtle) adjustments, keep the perpendicular handle of this control close to the center of the wheel. For coarse adjustments, move the handle toward the outer ring.

Adjusts the color saturation in the highlights, midtones, or shadows. The default value is 100, which doesn’t affect the colors. Values less than 100 decrease saturation, with 0 completely removing any color. Values greater than 100 produce more saturated colors.

Shifts the video color toward a target color. Moving the Balance Magnitude circle toward a specific hue shifts the color accordingly. The combined adjustment of the Balance Magnitude and Balance Gain controls the intensity of the shift.

HSL Tuner

You can adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of specific colors in your image or video using the HSL tuner effect. Use the slider controls in the Applied Effects panel to adjust the hue, luminance, or saturation for the following colors in your image:

• Red
• Orange
• Yellow
• Green
• Aqua
• Blue
• Purple
• Magenta

The HSL tuner effects enables you to provide a movie-type look to your video.

Split Tone

Use the color balance adjustment to tone the shadows and highlights of your image in two different colors.

Use the Split toning effect to tint the highlights in your image with a particular color and the shadows with a different color. You can achieve best results, if the highlights and shadows in your image are of opposite colors.Use the Hue and Saturation control sliders to adjust the hue and saturation for both highlights and shadows

Distort

Bend (Windows only)

The Bend effect distorts a clip by producing the appearance of a wave traveling both vertically and horizontally through it. You can produce a number of different wave shapes at various sizes and rates. To change the following effect properties for the horizontal dimension, the vertical dimension, or both, select the clip with the effect in the Expert view timeline. Click the Applied Effects button, and then click the Setup button to the right of the effect name in the Applied Effects panel.

Specifies the direction of the wave. The In setting specifies that waves move toward the center of the clip. The Out setting specifies that waves start in the center and move to the edge of the clip.

Specifies the shape of the wave. Choose from a sine wave, circle, triangle, or square.

Specifies the height of the wave.

Specifies the frequency of the wave. To produce a wave only vertically or horizontally, move the Rate slider all the way to the left for the direction you do not want.

Specifies the wave width.

Corner Pin

The Corner Pin effect distorts a clip by changing the position of any of its four corners. Use it to stretch, shrink, skew, or twist a clip, or to simulate perspective or movement that pivots from the edge of a layer, such as a door opening.

Lens Distortion

The Lens Distortion effect simulates a distorted lens through which the clip is viewed.

Changes the curvature of the lens. Specify a negative value to make the clip concave, or a positive value to make the clip convex.

Displaces the focal point of the lens, making the clip bend and smear. At extreme settings, the clip wraps in on itself.

Creates a result similar to vertical and horizontal decentering, except that, at extreme values, the clip doesn’t wrap in on itself.

Specifies the background color.

When selected, makes the background transparent so that underlying tracks are visible. To access this option from the Applied Effects panel, click the Setup button to the right of the effect name.

Mirror

The Mirror effect creates a mirror image of the clip and places the center of its side at a pivot point you specify. You can make both the location of the pivot point and the reflection angle change over time.

Setting the first value determines the horizontal location of the pivot point. Setting the second determines its vertical location.

Setting this value determines the angle at which the mirror image pivots at the pivot point.

Ripple (Windows only)

The Ripple effect produces an undulating pattern on a clip, like ripples on the surface of a pond. The shape, severity, and direction of the ripple pattern are adjustable, as well as the background color.

Spherize

The Spherize effect wraps the clip around a sphere, giving objects and text a three-dimensional appearance. To set the size of the sphere, enter a Radius value from 0.1 to 2,500. To position the effect, enter horizontal or vertical values for Center Of Sphere.

Transform

The Transform effect applies two-dimensional geometric transformations to a clip. Use the Transform effect to skew a clip along any axis. Apply the Transform effect instead of using a clip’s fixed effects if you want to render anchor point, position, scale, or opacity settings before other Standard effects are rendered.

Specifies the point, in an x,y coordinate, around which the clip will be scaled or skewed.

Specifies the location, in an x,y coordinate, of the center (anchor point) of the clip.

Scales height up or down as a percentage of the source clip height.

Scales width up or down as a percentage of the source clip width.

Scales height and width proportionately.

Specifies skew amount.

The axis on which the skew is based. Changing the axis has no effect if Skew is 0.

Specifies the number of complete rotations and degree that the clip rotates.

Specifies the degree of transparency of the clip, in percentages.

note: Transform is an Adobe After Effects effect that includes the Shutter Angle control and the Use Composition option; both of which apply only in Adobe After Effects.

Twirl

The Twirl effect rotates a clip around its center. The clip is rotated more sharply in its center than at the edges.

Wave Warp

The Wave Warp effect distorts a clip to make it wave-shaped.

Options from a pop-up menu specify the shape of the wave.

Specifies the height of the wave.

Specifies the distance from one wave crest to the next.

Specifies the direction of the wave, in degrees.

Specifies the rate at which the wave pulses during playback.

Options from a pop-up menu set the orientation of the wave.

Sets the starting point, in degrees, at which the wave cycle begins.

Options from a pop-up menu control the amount of blurring used to smooth the edges of the waves.

Generate

Lens Flare

Use the Lens Flare effect to simulate the refraction caused by shining a bright light into the camera lens.

Specifies a location for the center of the flare.

Specifies the percentage of brightness. Values can range from 0% to 300%.

Selects the type of lens to simulate.

Specifies the degree to which the effect will be blended with the source clip.

Write-on

Creates the effect of text being hand-written on the screen. The key to this effect is animating the position of the Write-on effect, by creating keyframes in the Effect Controls panel. It is recommended that you use this effect for videos only. You may experience severe performance degradation if this effect is used on still images or synthetic clips.

1. Select the Write-on effect from the Effects panel and apply it to a video clip on the timeline.
   
   
2. Select the clip on the timeline and expand the effect (Write-on) in the Applied Effects panel.
   
   
3. Position the edit line at the beginning of the clip.
   
   
4. Drag the small circle with an + in the center, on the Monitor window, to where you want to begin writing.
   
   
5. To animated the Brush Position, open the keyframe control and toggle the key next to the Brush Position parameter.
   
   
6. Increase the brush size from 2 to a higher value (say 10)
   
   
7. Move the CTI a few frames on the timeline to move the Write-on point to a new location. Repeat this several times as required and preview the effect.
   
   Note: You can also tweak and animate the other parameters such as Brush Hardness, Brush Opacity, etc.

Image control

Black & White

The Black & White effect converts any color clip to grayscale. That is, colors appear as shades of gray. You cannot apply keyframes to this effect.

Color Balance (HLS)

The Color Balance (HLS) effect alters a clip’s levels of hue, lightness, and saturation.

Specifies the color scheme of the clip.

Specifies the brightness of the clip.

Specifies the intensity of the colors in the clip.

note: Setting the Saturation to ‑100 converts a movie to grayscale.

Color Balance (RGB)

The Color Balance effect changes colors in the clip by adjusting its RGB levels. Drag the Red, Green, and Blue sliders to adjust the level of each color.

Color Pass (Windows only)

The Color Pass effect converts a clip to grayscale, with the exception of specified colors. Use the Color Pass effect to highlight a particular area of a clip. For example, in a clip of a basketball game, you could highlight the basketball by selecting and preserving its color, while keeping the rest of the clip displayed in grayscale. Note, however, that with the Color Pass effect, you can isolate only colors, not objects within the clip.

Specify Color Pass settings

Color Replace (Windows only)

The Color Replace effect replaces all occurrences of a selected color with a new color, preserving any gray levels. Using this effect, you could change the color of an object in a clip by selecting it, and then adjusting the controls to create a different color.

Replace a color

Gamma Correction

The Gamma Correction effect lightens or darkens a clip without substantially changing the shadows and highlights. It does this by changing the brightness levels of the midtones (the middle‑gray levels), while leaving the dark and light areas unaffected. The default gamma setting is 7. You can adjust the gamma from 1 to 28.

Tint

The Tint effect alters a clip’s color information. For each pixel, the luminance value specifies a blend between two colors. Map Black To and Map White To specify to which colors dark and bright pixels are mapped. Intermediate pixels are assigned intermediate values. Amount To Tint specifies the intensity of the effect.

Keying

For information on using keying effects to create transparency, see Superimposing and transparency.

Alpha Adjust

Use the Alpha Adjust effect in place of the Opacity effect when you need to change the default render order of fixed effects. Change the opacity percentage to create levels of transparency. The following controls allow you to interpret the alpha channel in the clip.

Ignores the alpha channel of the clip.

Reverses the transparency and opaque areas of the clip.

Displays only the alpha channel.

Blue Screen Key and Green Screen Key (Windows only)

The Blue Screen Key effect and the Green Screen Key effect create a keyhole of all clip pixels that are similar to a standard blue screen or green screen, so that they become transparent. This effect is typically used to replace a blue or green background with another clip, as in replacing a blue screen behind a TV weatherman with a weather map.

Effective use of the Blue Screen Key or the Green Screen Key requires footage where the background is a bright, evenly-lit standard blue or green screen. Make sure that persons or objects you place in front of the backdrop don’t match the color of the backdrop (unless they have areas that you also want to make transparent). For footage with a single-color background that doesn’t match these requirements, try Chroma Key or the Videomerge effect.

You can adjust the following settings in the Applied Effects panel:

Sets the level of blue or green that determines transparent areas in the clip. Dragging the Threshold slider to the left increases the amount of transparency. Use the Mask Only option to view the black (transparent) areas as you move the Threshold slider.

Sets the opacity of the nontransparent areas that the Threshold setting specifies. Dragging the Cutoff value to the right increases the opacity. Select the Mask Only option to view the white (opaque) areas as you drag the Cutoff value.

Specifies the amount of anti-aliasing (softening) applied to the boundary between transparent and opaque regions. Choose None to produce sharp edges, with no anti-aliasing. This option is useful when you want to preserve sharp lines, such as those in titles. Choose Low or High to produce different amounts of smoothing.

Displays only the clip’s alpha channel. Black represents transparent areas, white represents opaque areas, and gray represents partially transparent areas.

Chroma Key (Windows only)

The Chroma Key effect creates transparency from a color or range of colors. You can use this key for a scene shot against a screen that contains a range of one color, such as a shadowy blue screen. Select a key color by clicking the Color swatch or by clicking the Eyedropper tool and selecting a color in the Monitor panel. Control the range of transparent colors by adjusting the tolerance level. You can also feather the edges of the transparent area to create a smooth transition between the transparent and opaque areas.

Adjust the following Chroma key settings as needed:

Broadens or reduces the range of color that will be made transparent. Higher values increase the range.

Blends the clip you are keying out with the underlying clip. Higher values blend more of the clip.

Controls the amount of shadows in the range of color you keyed out. Higher values retain more shadows.

Darkens or lightens shadows. Drag to the right to darken shadows, but do not drag beyond the Threshold slider; doing so inverts gray and transparent pixels.

Specifies the amount of anti‑aliasing applied to the boundary between transparent and opaque regions. Anti‑aliasing blends pixels to produce softer, smoother edges. Choose None to produce sharp edges with no anti‑aliasing. This option is useful when you want to preserve sharp lines, such as those in titles. Choose Low or High to produce different amounts of smoothing.

Displays only the clip’s alpha channel, as modified by the key settings. If Mask Only is selected, opaque areas of a clip appear white, transparent areas appear black, and partially transparent areas appear gray. Remove all the gray areas to produce a clean, hard‑edged key.

Difference Matte effect

The Difference Matte effect creates transparency by comparing a source clip with a difference clip, and then keying out pixels in the source image that match both the position and color in the difference image. Typically, it’s used to key out a static background behind a moving object, which is then placed on a different background. Often the difference clip is simply a frame of background footage (before the moving object has entered the scene). For this reason, the Difference Matte effect is best used for scenes that have been shot with a stationary camera and an unmoving background.

Garbage Matte (Four‑Point, Eight‑Point, and Sixteen‑Point)

Use these effects to apply a garbage matte with either four, eight, or 16 adjustment points for more detailed keying. After you apply the effect, click the Applied Effects button, and then click the effect name in the Applied Effects panel to display the garbage matte handles in the Monitor panel. To adjust the matte, drag the handles in the Monitor panel.

Image Matte Key effect

The Image Matte Key determines transparent areas based on a matte image’s alpha channel or brightness values. To get the most predictable results, choose a grayscale image for your image matte, unless you want to alter colors in the clip. Any color in the image matte removes the same level of color from the clip you are keying. For example, white areas in the clip that correspond to red areas in the image matte appear blue‑green (since white in an RGB image is composed of 100% red, 100% blue, and 100% green); because red also becomes transparent in the clip, only blue and green colors remain at their original values. Select your matte by clicking the Setup button in Applied Effects panel.

Composites the clips using the alpha channel values of the image matte.

Composites the clips using the luminance values of the image matte.

Luma Key effect

The Luma Key effect keys out all the regions of a layer with a specified luminance or brightness. Use this effect if the object from which you want to create a matte has a greatly different luminance value than its background. For example, if you want to create a matte for musical notes on a white background, you can key out the brighter values. The dark musical notes become the only opaque areas.

Specifies the range of darker values that are transparent. Higher values increase the range of transparency.

Sets the opacity of nontransparent areas specified by the Threshold slider. Higher values increase transparency.

Tip: You can also use the Luma Key effect to key out light areas by setting Threshold to a low value and Cutoff to a high value.

Non Red Key

The Non Red Key creates transparency from green or blue backgrounds. This key is similar to the Blue Screen and Green Screen Keys, but it also lets you blend two clips. In addition, the Non Red Key helps reduce fringing around the edges of nontransparent objects. Use the Non Red Key to key out green screens when you need to control blending, or when the Blue Screen or Green Screen Keys don’t produce satisfactory results.

The following Non Red Key settings are adjusted in the Applied Effects panel:

Sets the levels of blue or green that determine transparent areas in the clip. Dragging the Threshold slider to the left increases the amount of transparency. Use the Mask Only option to view the black (transparent) areas as you move the Threshold slider.

Sets the opacity of nontransparent areas that the Threshold value specifies. Higher values increase transparency. Drag to the right until the opaque area reaches a satisfactory level.

Removes residual green or blue screen color from the edges of the opaque areas of a clip. Choose None to disable defringing. Choose Green or Blue to remove a residual edge from green-screen or blue-screen footage, respectively.

Specifies the amount of anti-aliasing (softening) that is applied to the boundary between transparent and opaque regions. Choose None to produce sharp edges, with no anti-aliasing. This option is useful when you want to preserve sharp lines, such as those in titles. Choose Low or High to produce different amounts of smoothing.

Displays only the clip’s alpha channel. Black represents transparent areas, white represents opaque areas, and gray represents partially transparent areas.

Remove Matte effect

The Remove Matte effect removes color fringes from clips that are premultiplied with a color. It is useful when combining alpha channels with fill textures from separate files. If you import footage with a premultiplied alpha channel, you may need to remove halos from an image. Halos are caused by a large contrast between the image's color and the background, or matte, color. Removing or changing the color of the matte can remove the halos.

Choose the color of the matte from the Matte Type menu.

RGB Difference Key effect (Windows only)

The RGB Difference Key effect is a simpler version of the Chroma Key effect. It lets you select a range for the target color, but you cannot blend the image or adjust transparency in grays. Use the RGB Difference Key effect for a scene that is brightly lit and contains no shadows, or for rough cuts that don’t require fine adjustments.

Specifies the color in the video that will be made transparent by the mask.

Broadens or reduces the range of the target color that will be made transparent. Higher values increase the range.

Specifies the amount of anti-aliasing (softening) applied to the boundary between transparent and opaque regions. Choose None to produce sharp edges, with no anti-aliasing. This option is useful when you want to preserve sharp lines, such as those in titles. Choose Low or High to produce different amounts of smoothing.

Displays only the clip’s alpha channel. Black represents transparent areas, white represents opaque areas, and gray represents partially transparent areas.

Adds a 50% gray, 50% opaque shadow offset 4 pixels down and to the right from the opaque areas of the original clip image. This option works best with simple graphics such as titles.

Track Matte Key

The Track Matte Key reveals one clip (background clip) through another (superimposed clip), using a third file as a matte that creates transparent areas in the superimposed clip. This effect requires two clips and a matte, each placed on its own track. White areas in the matte are opaque in the superimposed clip, preventing underlying clips from showing through. Black areas in the matte are transparent, and gray areas are partially transparent.

You can create mattes in various ways:

• Use the Titles view to create text or shapes (use only grayscale images if you plan to key using luma information), save the title, and then import the file as your matte.

• Create a matte from any clip by using the Videomerge effect, Chroma Key, Blue Screen Key, Green Screen Key, or Non Red Key keying effect; then choose the effect’s Mask Only option.

• Use Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Illustrator, or Adobe Photoshop to create a grayscale image and import it into Premiere Elements.

The Track Matte Key has the following controls:

Lists the video tracks that contain clips that could be used as mattes. Choose one from the list.

Selecting Matte Alpha from this pop-up menu sets the matte’s transparency based on its alpha channel. Matte Luma sets transparency based on the matte’s luminance or brightness.

Reverses the order of the background and foreground clips.

NewBlue Art Effects Elements

Airbrush

The Airbrush effect creates an airbrushed effect by smoothing colors while maintaining sharp edges.

Lets you set the width of the airbrush nozzle. Increase the spray value to make the colors blend together over larger areas. Decrease the spray value to make individual color details become more evident.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Colorize

The Colorize effect turns the image black-and-white, and then enhances specific areas using one or two colors that you specify. The areas that are enhanced are those that contain one of the two colors you specify. You can specify the two paint colors that dominate the image, and adjust how much color is applied.

To use only one color, drag the strength value of one color to 0.

Specify the paint colors that stand out in the image. Use the eyedropper to select point colors directly from the image, or click the color swatch to choose a color from the Color Picker. Brightness or dullness does not affect the results; however, the hue is important. For example, you can select a dark green or a light green and the result will be the same. You can refine the color by clicking the color swatch and adjusting the color in the Color Picker.

Control the influence of the associated paint color. The stronger the paint, the more it is used to color neighboring hues.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Line Drawing

The Line Drawing effect converts an image into a series of dots and lines drawn against a plain-colored background.

Sets the background color. Use the eyedropper to select a color directly from the image, or click the color swatch to choose a color from the Color Picker.

Sets the pen color used for drawing the lines. Use the eyedropper or color swatch to choose a color.

Sets the sensitivity for creating lines. Slide to the far left for little to no lines. Slide to the right and the picture becomes increasingly busy with lines filling in the textures.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Metallic

The Metallic effect paints an image to look like it’s hammered out of metal. You can control the metal’s color, its behavior, and the amount it mixes with the original image.

Specifies the color of the metal. Use the eyedropper to select a color directly from the image, or click the color swatch to choose a color from the Color Picker.

Specifies how much metal is mixed into the picture. Use this in conjunction with the Picture control to create a nice blend between metal and original picture.

Specifies how much of the original picture to blend in with the metal. Mixing metal with the original colors creates a much more appealing result. Turn up both Metal and Picture to increase brightness.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Pastel Sketch

The Pastel Sketch effect softens colors and draws sharp lines around the edges, creating the effect of a painting in pastel colors.

Controls the sensitivity for creating lines. Drag to the left to decrease the number of lines; drag right to increase the number of lines.

Specifies how to mix the original image with the sketched image. Drag to the right if you want more of the original image to show through. Drag to the left to achieve a more sketched look.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

NewBlue Film Look

Old Film

The Old Film effect makes your video look like an aged movie, complete with scratches, jitters, and graininess, all of which you can adjust for maximum impact.

Sets the amount of film damage, including wear and scratches.

Shifts the color of the film from full color to sepia to black and white.

Controls the amount of camera jitter in the scene.

Sets the style of film wear. Use this in conjunction with Damage.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

NewBlue Motion Effects Elements

Active Camera

The Active Camera effect simulates every variety of camera movement, from agitated hand-held, to jackhammer, to a gentle train ride.

Sets the range of motion along the horizontal (side to side) axis.

Sets the range of motion along the vertical (up and down) axis.

Enlarges the picture so it doesn’t chop off at the edges from the camera movements. Depending on the Horizontal and Vertical settings, drag this control just enough to hide all exposed picture edges.

Sets the speed at which the camera moves from one position to another.

Sets the rate and intensity of random jitter as the camera moves from one position to another.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Earthquake

The Earthquake effect recreates the chaos of an earthquake by moving, rotating, and blurring the image to simulate the effect of a shaking camera.

Specifies the range of motion. Drag to the left for subtle movement. Slide all the way to the right for the greatest range of movement.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Shear Energy

The Shear Energy effect twists the images with a shearing blur on two axes. For example, consider a row of books on a shelf, leaning to the right. If you push them to the left, they will lean to the left. Shear lets you increase or decrease the shear (angle) of the first image, then it blurs the image in the direction of the shear.

Sets the horizontal shearing. When the image is sheared horizontally, it progressively blurs more to the sides as it moves up from the center point of the shear operation.

Sets the vertical shearing. When the image is sheared vertically, it progressively blurs more to the top and bottom as it moves outward from the center point of the shear operation.

Rotates the shear blur in degrees.

Specifies the center point of the shear blur.

Sets the amount of blur to mix in with the picture. Drag all the way to the left to make the blur disappear. Drag to the right to increase the percentage of blur until the original picture is completely replaced by the blurred image.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Zoom Blur

The Zoom Blur effect simulates a camera zoom within a shot, adding motion blur that you can adjust up or down for dramatic effect.

Sets the strength of the zoom. Drag to the right to increase image magnification. As you increase, you create a blur that starts with the original image and expands it to the magnified version of the image.

Sets the amount of blur to mix with the nonblurred image. With Blend set all the way to the left, the blur disappears. Drag to the right to increase the percentage of blur until the original picture is completely replaced by the blurred image.

Sets the origin of the zoom.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

NewBlue Cartoonr effect

The NewBlue Cartoonr Plus effect is the latest addition to the list of effects that can be applied to movie clips in Adobe Premiere Elements Editor. The cartoon effect provides a cartoon-like feel to movie clips on which it is applied. Using this effect, you can create a cartoon-like movie out of a live-motion movie clip.

The effect can be customized using its various parameters.

Density

Controls how many lines to draw. At the lowest value, only the simplest, most obvious, lines show.

Clean Up

Removes dirt and noise between the lines.

Width

Sets the width of the lines. Increasing the value increases the overall width of the lines.

Mix

Determines the intensity of the black lines mixed into the image. Increase the value for solid, black lines.

Layers

Determines the number of layers of paint for coloring the picture. Set a low value to have broad, distinct layers. Increase the value to blend the paints into a continuously changing palette.

Smooth

Controls the smoothness of the layer edges. Low values set harsh, high-resolution layer edges. High values set the layers to wander in and out of the picture lines.

Sharpen

Increases the sharpness of the layer edges. At high values, a strong, almost brittle, effect is achieved.

Shading

Adds a bold shading around the edges of objects in the picture, making it more dramatic

ColorShift

When you change the value, the colors change to other colors that fall within the spectrum of the primary color.

Color

Sets the color saturation. Decreasing the value results in a monochrome image. Increase the value for vivid colors.

Brightness

Sets the overall brightness of the picture.

Contrast

Increases the contrast between the dark and light areas in the picture.

Blend

Mixes the original picture with the cartooned image. Decrease the value to get an image close to the original image. Increase the value for a more cartoonish effect.

Perspective

Basic 3D

The Basic 3D effect manipulates a clip in an imaginary three‑dimensional space. You can rotate your clip around horizontal and vertical axes and move it toward or away from you. You can also create a specular highlight to give the appearance of light reflecting off a rotated surface. The light source for the specular highlight is always above, behind, and to the left of the viewer. Because the light comes from above, the clip must be tilted backward to see this reflection. Specular highlights enhance the realism of the three‑dimensional appearance.

Controls horizontal rotation (rotation around a vertical axis). You can rotate past 90° to see the back side of the clip, which is the mirror clip of the front.

Controls vertical rotation (rotation around a horizontal axis).

Specifies the clip’s distance from the viewer. As the distance gets larger, the clip recedes.

Adds a glint of light that reflects off the surface of the rotated layer, as though an overhead light were shining on the surface. When Draw Preview Wireframe is enabled, the specular highlight is indicated by a red plus sign (+) if it is not visible on the layer (the center of the highlight does not intersect the clip) and a green plus sign (+) if the highlight is visible. You must render a preview before the Specular Highlight effect becomes visible in the Monitor panel.

Draws a wireframe outline of the three‑dimensional clip. Because manipulating a clip in three‑dimensional space can be time consuming, the wireframe renders quickly so you can manipulate the controls to get the rotation you want. Deselect the Preview control when you finish manipulating the wireframe clip to see your final results.

Bevel Alpha

The Bevel Alpha effect adds a beveled edge and lights to the alpha boundaries of a clip, often giving two‑dimensional elements a three‑dimensional appearance. (If the clip has no alpha channel or its alpha channel is completely opaque, the effect is applied to the edges of the clip.) The edge created in this effect is somewhat softer than that of the Bevel Edges effect. This effect works well with text containing an alpha channel.

Bevel Edges

The Bevel Edges effect gives a chiseled and lighted three‑dimensional appearance to the edges of a clip. Edge locations are determined by the alpha channel of the source clip. Unlike Bevel Alpha, the edges created in this effect are always rectangular, so clips with nonrectangular alpha channels do not produce the proper appearance. All edges have the same thickness.

Drop Shadow

The Drop Shadow effect adds a shadow that appears behind the clip. The shape of the Drop Shadow is determined by the clip’s alpha channel. Unlike most other effects, Drop Shadow can create a shadow outside the bounds of the clip (the dimensions of the clip’s source).

Since Drop Shadow uses the alpha channel, it works well with 32‑bit footage files from drawing programs and three‑dimensional rendering programs that support the alpha channel.

Pixelate

Facet (Windows only)

The Facet effect clumps pixels of similar color values in cells for a painterly effect. Keyframes cannot be applied to this effect.

Render

Lightning

The Lightning effect creates lightning bolts and other electrical effects, including a Jacob’s Ladder effect (an effect that depicts a small lightning bolt bridging two metal spikes, often seen in Frankenstein movies) between two specified points in a clip. The Lightning effect is automatically animated without keyframes across the clip’s time range.

Specify where the lightning begins and ends.

Specifies the number of segments that form the main lightning bolt. Higher values produce more detail but reduce the smoothness of motion.

Specifies the size of undulations in the lightning bolt as a percentage of the layer width.

Specify how much detail is added to the lightning bolt and any branches. For Detail Level, typical values are between 2 and 3. For Detail Amplitude, a typical value is 0.3. Higher values for either control are best for still images but tend to obscure animation.

Specifies the amount of forking that appears at the ends of bolt segments. A value of 0 produces no branching; a value of 1.0 produces branching at every segment.

Specifies the amount of branching from branches. Higher values produce tree‑like lightning bolts.

Specifies the size of the angle between a branch and the main lightning bolt.

Specifies the length of each branch segment as a fraction of the average length of the segments in the lightning bolt.

Specifies the maximum number of segments for each branch. To produce long branches, specify higher values for both the branch segment length and the branch segments.

Specifies the average width of each branch as a fraction of the width of the lightning bolt.

Adjust the following controls for the Lightning effect:

Specifies how fast the lightning bolt undulates.

Determines how closely the lightning undulates along the line defined by the start and end points. Lower values keep the lightning bolt close to the line; higher values create significant bouncing. Use Stability with Pull Force to simulate a Jacob’s Ladder effect and cause the lightning bolt to snap back to a position along the start line after it has been pulled in the Pull Force direction. A Stability value that is too low does not let the lightning stretch into an arc before it snaps back; a value that is too high lets the lightning bolt bounce around.

Determines whether the end point of the lightning bolt remains fixed in place. If this control is not selected, the end of the bolt undulates around the end point.

Specify the width of the main lightning bolt and how much the width of different segments can vary. Width changes are randomized. A value of 0 produces no width changes; a value of 1 produces the maximum width changes.

Specifies the width of the inner glow, as specified by the Inside Color value. The Core Width is relative to the total width of the lightning bolt.

Specify the colors used for the lightning bolt’s outer and inner glows. Because the Lightning effect adds these colors on top of existing colors in the composition, primary colors often produce the best results. Bright colors often become much lighter, sometimes becoming white, depending on the brightness of colors beneath.

Specify the strength and direction of a force that pulls the lightning bolt. Use the Pull Force control with the Stability control to create a Jacob’s Ladder appearance.

Specifies a starting point for randomizing the lightning effects you have specified. Because random movement of the lightning may interfere with another clip or layer, typing another value for the Random Seed starts the randomizing at a different point, changing the movement of the lightning bolt.

Specifies how the lightning is added to the layer. Adobe Premiere Elements support layer blend modes that change the way layers react with each other. You often use some of the common modes in every day work. For example, if your image is too dark, you can quickly make it brighter by duplicating the photo layer in the layers palette. Later, you change the duplicate layer mode to Screen. Use the Opacity filter to select blending modes for various layers of your video. Premiere Elements supports 27 blending modes. Select a blending mode from the list and apply it to your image. Use the sliders to increase or decrease its effect.

Controls the frame‑by‑frame generation of the lightning. Selecting the Rerun At Each Frame option regenerates the lightning at each frame. To make the lightning behave the same way at the same frame every time you run it, do not select this control. Selecting this control may increase rendering time.

Ramp

The Ramp effect creates a color gradient, blending it with the original clip contents. Create linear or radial ramps and vary the position and colors of the ramp over time. Use the Start and End Of Ramp properties to specify the start and end positions. Use the Ramp Scatter control to disperse the ramp colors and eliminate banding.

Video Stabilizer

Stabilizer

The Stabilizer effect removes unwanted camera shaking by analyzing the video image and tracking objects in the picture. If the entire picture moves suddenly, the effect compensates for the move by shifting the image in the opposite direction, thus smoothing out the camera jitter. You can specify the amount of smoothing. When the effect moves the image, it leaves empty video on one side. Use Background-Use Original, Zoom, or both to specify how the space is filled.

Specifies the degree of stabilization. When turned all the way down, the effect removes only the smallest jitter and vibration. When turned all the way up, it keeps the camera movement stable over a long period of time. If there is intention camera movement (for example, panning across a scene), setting a high value for smoothing can cause the effect to remove that movement. Consequently, it is important to set Smoothing appropriately for each scene.

Fills in the blank edges with the original video image. This option works well for small movements.

Enlarges the picture to fill in the blank edges. The more stabilization that is required (the more shaky the original image is), the more you will want to zoom in to compensate.

Forces the stabilization to stray no further than the edges of the enlarged (zoomed) image. This option disables the stabilization when it hits the edge because it doesn’t allow for the full motion compensation. Use this option if you want to ensure that the edges never appear.

NewBlue, Inc., www.newbluefx.com.

Stylize

Alpha Glow

The Alpha Glow effect adds color around the edges of a masked alpha channel. You can specify that a single color either fades out or changes to a second color as it moves away from the edge.

Controls how far the color extends from the alpha channel edge. Higher settings produce larger glows (and can cause very slow processing before playback or export).

Controls the initial opacity of the glow.

Shows the current glow color. Click the swatch to choose another color.

Lets you add an optional color at the outer edge of the glow.

Specifies whether the colors fade out or stay solid.

Color Emboss

The Color Emboss effect sharpens the edges of objects in the clip but doesn’t suppress any of the clip’s original colors.

Specifies the apparent direction in which the highlight source is shining, in degrees. A setting of 45° causes the shadow to be cast in the northeast direction.

Specifies the apparent height of the embossing, in pixels. The Relief setting actually controls the maximum width of highlighted edges.

Specifies the sharpness of the clip content’s edges. At lower settings, only distinct edges show the effect. As you increase the setting, the highlight becomes more extreme.

Adds a percentage of the original source clip to the final result.

Emboss

The Emboss effect sharpens the edges of objects in the clip and suppresses colors. The effect also highlights the edges from a specified angle.

Specifies the apparent direction in which the highlight source is shining, in degrees. A setting of 45° causes the shadow to be cast in the northeast direction.

Specifies the apparent height of the embossing, in pixels. The Relief setting actually controls the maximum width of highlighted edges.

Specifies the sharpness of the clip content’s edges. At lower settings, only distinct edges show the effect. As you increase the setting, the highlight becomes more extreme.

Adds a percentage of the original source clip to the final result.

Find Edges

The Find Edges effect identifies the areas of the clip that have significant transitions and emphasizes the edges. Edges can appear as dark lines against a white background or colored lines against a black background. When the Find Edges effect is applied, clips often look like sketches or photographic negatives of the original.

Inverts the clip after the edges are found. When Invert is not selected, edges appear as dark lines on a white background. When Invert is selected, edges appear as bright lines on a black background.

Adds a percentage of the original source clip to the final result.

Mosaic

The Mosaic effect fills a layer with solid color rectangles. It is useful for creating a highly pixelated clip.

Specifies the number of mosaic divisions in each direction.

Gives each tile the color of the pixel in its center in the unaffected clip. Otherwise, the tiles are given the average color of the corresponding region in the unaffected clip.

Noise

The Noise effect randomly changes pixel values throughout the clip.

Specifies the amount of noise, and therefore the amount of distortion, through random displacement of the pixels. The range is 0% (no effect) to 100% (the clip may not be recognizable).

Randomly changes the red, green, and blue values of the clip’s pixels individually when Use Color Noise is selected. Otherwise, the same value is added to all channels.

Determines whether the noise causes pixel colors to wrap around. When the color value of a pixel gets as large as it can be, clipping makes it stay at that value. With unclipped noise, the color value wraps around or starts again at low values. When Clipping is selected, even 100% noise leaves a recognizable clip. If you want a completely randomized clip, turn off Clipping and turn on Color Noise.

Replicate

The Replicate effect divides the screen into tiles and displays the whole clip in each tile. Set the number of tiles per column and row by dragging the slider.

Solarize

The Solarize effect creates a blend between a negative and positive clip, causing the clip to appear to have a halo. This effect is analogous to briefly exposing a print to light during developing.

Strobe Light

The Strobe Light effect performs an arithmetic operation on a clip at periodic or random intervals. For example, every five seconds a clip could appear completely white for one‑tenth of a second, or a clip’s colors could invert at random intervals.

Specifies the color of the strobe light. Click the white box to choose a color from the Color Picker, or use the eyedropper to select a color from the clip.

Specifies the intensity, or brightness, of the effect. A value of 0 causes the effect to appear at full intensity; higher values diminish the intensity of the effect.

Specifies in seconds how long a strobe effect lasts.

Specifies in seconds the duration between the start of subsequent strobes. For example, if the Strobe Duration is set to 0.1 second and the Strobe Period is set to 1.0 second, the clip has the effect for 0.1 second and then is without the effect for 0.9 second. If this value is set lower than the Strobe Duration, the strobe effect is constant.

Specifies the probability that any given frame of the clip will have the strobe effect, giving the appearance of a random effect.

Specifies how the effect is applied. Operates On Color Only performs the strobe operation on all color channels. Make Layer Transparent makes the clip transparent when a strobe effect occurs.

Specifies the arithmetic operator to use when Operates On Color Only is selected from the Strobe menu. The default setting is Copy.

Randomizes the way lightning effect works.

Texturize

The Texturize effect gives a clip the appearance of having the texture of another clip. For example, you could make the clip of a tree appear as if it had the texture of bricks, and control the depth of the texture and the apparent light source.

Texture Layer

Select the source of the texture to be used from the list of video tracks in the pop-up menu. To see the texture without seeing the actual clip used for the texture, set the opacity for the texture clip to zero. To disable texture, select None.

Light Direction

Changes the direction of the light source, thus changing where shadows lie and how deep they appear.

Texture Contrast

Specifies the intensity of the texture’s appearance. Lower settings decrease the amount of visible texture.

Texture Placement

Specifies how the effect is applied. Tile Texture applies the texture repeatedly over the clip. Center Texture positions the texture in the middle of the clip. Stretch Texture To Fit stretches the texture to the dimensions of the selected clip.

Time

Echo

The Echo effect combines a frame with previous frames from the same clip. It has a variety of uses, from a simple visual echo to streaking and smearing effects. This effect is visible only when there is motion in the clip. By default, any previously applied effects are ignored when you apply the Echo effect.

Specifies the time, in seconds, between echoes. Negative values create echoes from previous frames; positive values create echoes from upcoming frames.

Specifies the number of frames to combine for the Echo effect. For example, if two echoes are specified, Echo will make a new clip out of [current time], [current time + Echo Time], and [current time + 2 x Echo Time].

Specifies the intensity, or brightness, of the starting frame in the echo sequence. For example, if this is set to 1, the first frame is combined at its full intensity. If this is set to 0.5, the first frame is combined at half intensity.

Specifies the ratio of intensities of subsequent echoes. For example, if the decay is set to 0.5, the first echo will be half as bright as the Starting Intensity. The second echo will then be half that, or 0.25 times the Starting Intensity.

Specifies the operations to be performed between echoes. Add combines the echoes by adding their pixel values. If the starting intensity is too high, this mode can quickly overload and produce streaks of white. Set Starting Intensity to 1.0 per number of echoes and Decay to 1.0 to blend the echoes equally. Maximum combines the echoes by taking the maximum pixel value from all the echoes. Minimum combines the echoes by taking the minimum pixel value from all the echoes. Screen emulates combining the echoes by sandwiching them optically. This is similar to Add, but it will not overload as quickly. Composite In Back uses the echoes’ alpha channels to composite them back to front. Composite In Front uses the echoes’ alpha channels to composite them front to back. Blend combines the echo values by averaging their values.

Posterize Time

The Posterize Time effect changes the frame rate of a clip to one you choose. You can use it to slow a 30-fps clip to 24 fps, for example, to give it the look of film, slow it to 18 fps to simulate the jerkiness of old home movies, or slow it even further to give it a strobe effect.

Transform

Camera View (Windows only)

The Camera View effect distorts a clip by simulating a camera viewing the subject from different angles. By controlling the location of the camera, you distort the shape of the image.

Moves the camera vertically. The effect makes the clip appear to be flipping vertically.

Moves the camera horizontally. The effect makes the clip appear to be flipping horizontally.

Rolls the camera, thus appearing to rotate the clip.

Changes the focal length of the camera lens. Shorter lengths provide wider views, whereas longer focal lengths provide narrower but closer views.

Sets the distance between the camera and the center of the clip.

Enlarges or reduces the view of the clip.

Specifies the background color.

When checked, makes the background transparent (useful if the clip with the effect is superimposed). To access this option from the Applied Effects panel, click the Setup button to the right of the effect name.

Clip (Windows only)

The Clip effect trims rows of pixels off the edges of a clip and replaces the trimmed areas with a specified background color. If you want Adobe Premiere Elements to automatically resize the trimmed clip to its original dimensions, use the Crop effect instead of the Clip effect

Crops each edge of the clip separately.

Specifies the color that replaces the trimmed areas. The default color is black.

Sets the units specified by the sliders, either in pixels or the percentage of the frames. Click the Setup button at the right of the effect name to set units.

Crop

The Crop effect trims rows of pixels from the edges of a clip and, if you select the Zoom option, automatically resizes the trimmed clip to its original dimensions. Use the slider controls to crop each edge of the clip separately. You can crop by pixels or clip percentage.

Edge Feather

The Edge Feather effect adds a darkened, soft‑focused bevel to the edges of a clip. To adjust the width of the feather, drag the Amount slider left or right.

Horizontal Flip

The Horizontal Flip effect reverses each frame in a clip from left to right; however, the clip still plays in a forward direction.

Horizontal Hold (Windows only)

The Horizontal Hold effect skews the frames to the left or to the right; the effect is similar to the horizontal hold setting on a TV. Drag the slider to control the clip’s slant.

Roll

The Roll effect rolls a clip to the left or to the right, or up or down, as if the clip were on a cylinder.

Vertical Flip

The Vertical Flip effect flips a clip upside down. You cannot apply keyframes to this effect.

Vertical Hold (Windows only)

The Vertical Hold effect scrolls the clip upward; the effect is similar to adjusting the vertical hold on a TV. You cannot apply keyframes to this effect.

Videomerge

The Videomerge effect automatically determines the background of the selected clip and makes it transparent. Video or image clips on the tracks below it become visible through the transparent areas. If you want a different color to be transparent, select the Select Color option, and choose a different color in the clip.

For best results, when shooting video that will use transparency, do the following:

• Create a strong (preferably dark or saturated) solid, uniform color background to shoot against.

• Make sure that the background is brightly and uniformly lit to avoid shadows.

• Avoid skintones and colors that are similar to the subject’s clothing or hair color. (Otherwise, the skin, clothes, or hair will become transparent too.)

Videomerge options

Click if you want to specify a different color as transparent.

Click the color box to choose a new color from the Color Picker, or click the eyedropper, and then click a color in the clip. To use this option, first select Select Color.

Choose from Soft, Normal, or Detailed to specify the softness of the edges created by the transparency.

Specifies the color range that determines transparent areas in the clip. Dragging the slider to the right increases the color range so that more similar colors become transparent.

Audio effects

Balance

The Balance effect lets you control the relative volumes of the left and right channels. Positive values increase the proportion of the right channel. Negative values increase the proportion of the left channel. You can use this to compensate, for example, when the sounds coming from one channel overpower those from the other.

Bass

The Bass effect lets you increase or decrease lower frequencies (200 Hz and below). Boost specifies the number of decibels by which to increase the lower frequencies.

AudioGain

Audio gain helps in normalizing audio, by either raising or lowering it to match other audio sources.

Channel Volume

The Channel Volume effect lets you independently control the volume of each channel in a stereo clip or track. Unlike the Balance effect, Channel volume doesn’t automatically reduce the volume of one channel when you raise that of the other. You might use this, for example, to raise the volume of a voice in the left channel without diminishing the volume of a voice in the right. Each channel’s level is measured in decibels.

Delay

The Delay effect adds an echo of the audio clip’s sound that plays after a specified amount of time.

Specifies the amount of time before the echo plays. The maximum is 2 seconds.

Specifies a percentage of the delayed signal to be added back into the delay to create multiple decaying echoes.

Controls the amount of echo.

Fill Left, Fill Right

The Fill Left effect duplicates the left channel information of the audio clip and places it in the right channel, discarding the original clip’s right channel information. The Fill Right effect duplicates the right channel information and places it in the left channel, discarding the existing left channel information. For example, you might use this effect on footage shot with a monaural microphone plugged into only one channel of a camcorder, extending the voice of a speaker from one channel to both.

Highpass, Lowpass

The Highpass effect removes frequencies below the specified Cutoff frequency. Use it to reduce low-pitched noises and rumbles.

The Lowpass effect eliminates frequencies above the specified Cutoff frequency. Use it to eliminate high-pitched noises, squeals, and whistles.

Invert

The Invert effect inverts the phase of all channels. Use it, for example, to bring the sound of one shot of an event into phase with another shot of the same event taken from another camcorder.

NewBlue Audio Polish

Audio Polish that cleans and enhances audio. It includes features for noise reduction, compression, brightening the high end and even adding reverberation.

Sets the amount of noise reduction to apply to the audio. Rotate the knob to the right to decrease background noise.

Boosts lower-level signals, flattening the sound to be more consistent. Compression is especially useful for dialog because it brings voices up to a constant level. Rotate the knob to the right to increase compression.

Adds a little high end to the signal. Rotate the knob to the right to “brighten” the sound. Brightening help polish muddy recordings.

Adds a little reverberation to the mix. Rotate the knob to the right to increase the amount of reverberation.

NewBlue Auto Mute

Auto Mute reduces background noise by turning off all sound when the signal goes below a specified threshold.

Sets the minimum acceptable signal level. Auto Mute only allows sounds above the minimum level to play. Auto Mute erases the sound whenever it dips below the minimum level. Turn the knob to the far left and almost every sound level makes it through. Turn it to the right and sensitivity increases to the point that only the loudest sounds make it through.

Controls the speed at which a sound is removed after its level drops below the minimum threshold. Most sounds have a natural decay to them. A quick cut immediately after the decay drops below the minimum Level sounds unnatural. On the other hand, the longer the decay, the more background noise can be heard. Turn the Decay knob to the left for a quick fadeout. Turn the knob to the right for a longer decay.

NewBlue Cleaner

Removes many undesirable sounds from the mix. The effect includes noise-reduction circuitry and tone elimination, useful for removing isolated tones such as hum.

Sets the amount of noise reduction to apply to the audio. Turn the knob to the right to decrease background noise.

Sets the cut frequency for the tone eliminator. If you know the frequency (such as 60-Hz electric hum), select it. If you don't know the frequency, perform the following steps:

1. Turn the Hum Cut slider to the far left so that it magnifies the tone.

2. Turn Hum Frequency control to find the spot where the tone that you want to remove is at its loudest.

After you have isolated the frequency, turn the Hum Cut control to the right to set the depth of the tone elimination.

Most tones are not pure; they have overtones, or harmonics. Turn the Hum Harmonics slider to the right to add tone removal of higher harmonics. Don't overdo it because the increased filtering can also cut desired sounds.

NewBlue Hum Remover

Hum Remover scrubs hum from your soundtrack. Electric power is usually the most common reason for hum. Reasons range from a microphone cable that runs too close to a power cord to the humming sound of an electronically dimmed light. Power hum is easy to isolate because it is always the same frequency: In North America, the power frequency is 60-Hz. In other countries, power hum is 50-Hz.Hum Remover applies a notch filter specifically to the frequency of the hum. Sometimes, that's not enough. The hum signal often distorts, which adds additional tones. Hum Remover calculates the frequencies of these additional tones and removes them as well.

Sets the frequency that must be removed. Typically, the frequency is 60-Hz or 50-Hz. However, you can turn the knob to select any frequency within the range of 40-Hz to 75-Hz. The two most useful frequencies, 50-Hz and 60-Hz, are provided as presets.

Determines the strength of the hum filter. Start with the knob at the left and turn to the right until the hum goes away. Ensure that you have set the Pitch and Hum Distortion sliders correctly. If the Pitch and Hum Distortion sliders have not been set appropriately, Hum Remover removes the wrong part of the signal.

Provides information to the Hum Remover about the level of distortion of the hum tone. A distorted hum has higher frequency overtones that must also be eliminated. Turn the knob to the right to remove more of these overtones (also known as "harmonics"). The number of overtones removed depends on the level of distortion.

NewBlue Noise Fader

Reduces background noise by progressively reducing the volume of quieter sounds.

Sets the signal level for attenuation. Noise Fader leaves any sound louder than the threshold unchanged, while fading down sounds below the threshold. Turn the knob to the left to set the threshold low. Turn the knob to the far right to fade all but the loudest sounds.

Determines how to fade out sounds below the threshold level. Turn the knob to the left for minimum fading. Turn the knob all the way to the right to completely mute all sounds below the threshold. The correct level is somewhere in the middle.

NewBlue Noise Reducer

Removes background noise. Use the effect to clean videos shot under less-than-ideal audio conditions.

Sets the intensity of the noise reduction. Turn all the way to the left for no reduction at all. Turn to the middle to significantly drop background noise while keeping the louder sounds prominently in the foreground. Turn further to the right and more of the signal fades out.

Notch

The Notch effect removes frequencies that are near the specified center. The Center control specifies the frequency to be removed. If you are removing power‑line hum, type a value that matches the power‑line frequency used by the electrical system where the clip was recorded. For example, in North America and Japan, type 60 Hz, and in most other countries, type 50 Hz.

Swap Channels

The Swap Channels effect switches the placement of the left and right channel information.

Treble

The Treble effects lets you increase or decrease higher frequencies (4000 Hz and above). The Boost control specifies the amount, measured in decibels, to increase or decrease. Use this to compensate, for example, when low instruments overpower high instruments in a soundtrack.

Volume

Use the Volume effect in place of the Fixed Volume effect if you want to render Volume before other Standard effects. The Volume effect creates an envelope for a clip so that you can increase the audio level without clipping. Clipping occurs when the signal exceeds the dynamic range that’s acceptable for your hardware, often resulting in distorted audio. Positive values indicate an increase in volume; negative values indicate a decrease in volume. The Volume effect is available for clips only.