User Guide Cancel

Using the Reference Monitor

Search
  1. Adobe Premiere Pro User Guide
  2. Beta releases
    1. Beta Program Overview
    2. Premiere Pro Beta Home
    3. Features in Beta
      1. New import & export in Premiere Pro (Beta)
      2. FAQ | New import and export in Premiere Pro (Beta)
  3. Getting started
    1. Get started with Adobe Premiere Pro
    2. What's new in Premiere Pro
    3. Release Notes | Premiere Pro
    4. Keyboard shortcuts in Premiere Pro
    5. Accessibility in Premiere Pro
  4. Hardware and operating system requirements
    1. Hardware recommendations
    2. System requirements
    3. GPU and GPU Driver requirements
    4. GPU Accelerated Rendering & Hardware Encoding/Decoding
  5. Creating projects
    1. Creating projects
    2. Open projects
    3. Move and delete projects
    4. Work with multiple open projects
    5. Work with Project Shortcuts
    6. Backward compatibility of Premiere Pro projects
    7. Open and edit Premiere Rush projects in Premiere Pro
    8. Best Practices: Create your own project templates
  6. Workspaces and workflows
    1. Workspaces
    2. Working with Panels
    3. Windows touch and gesture controls
    4. Use Premiere Pro in a dual-monitor setup
  7. Capturing and importing
    1. Capturing
      1. Capturing and digitizing footage
      2. Capturing HD, DV, or HDV video
      3. Batch capturing and recapturing
      4. Setting up your system for HD, DV, or HDV capture
    2. Importing
      1. Transferring and importing files
      2. Importing still images
      3. Importing digital audio
    3. Importing from Avid or Final Cut
      1. Importing AAF project files from Avid Media Composer
      2. Importing XML project files from Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro X
    4. Supported file formats
    5. Digitizing analog video
    6. Working with timecode
  8. Editing
    1. Sequences
      1. Create and change sequences
      2. Add clips to sequences
      3. Rearrange clips in a sequence
      4. Find, select, and group clips in a sequence
      5. Edit from sequences loaded into the Source Monitor
      6. Simplify sequences
      7. Rendering and previewing sequences
      8. Working with markers
      9. Scene edit detection
    2. Video
      1. Create and play clips
      2. Trimming clips
      3. Synchronizing audio and video with Merge Clips
      4. Render and replace media
      5. Undo, history, and events
      6. Freeze and hold frames
      7. Working with aspect ratios
    3. Audio
      1. Overview of audio in Premiere Pro
      2. Audio Track Mixer
      3. Adjusting volume levels
      4. Editing, repairing and improving audio using Essential Sound panel
      5. Monitor clip volume and pan using Audio Clip Mixer
      6. Audio balancing and panning
      7. Advanced Audio - Submixes, downmixing, and routing
      8. Audio effects and transitions
      9. Working with audio transitions
      10. Apply effects to audio
      11. Measure audio using the Loudness Radar effect
      12. Recording audio mixes
      13. Editing audio in the timeline
      14. Audio channel mapping in Premiere Pro
      15. Use Adobe Stock audio in Premiere Pro
    4. Advanced editing
      1. Multi-camera editing workflow
      2. Editing workflows for feature films
      3. Set up and use Head Mounted Display for immersive video in Premiere Pro
      4. Editing VR
    5. Best Practices
      1. Best Practices: Mix audio faster
      2. Best Practices: Editing efficiently
  9. Video Effects and Transitions
    1. Overview of video effects and transitions
    2. Effects
      1. Types of effects in Premiere Pro
      2. Apply and remove effects
      3. Effect presets
      4. Automatically reframe video for different social media channels
      5. Color correction effects
      6. Change duration and speed of clips
      7. Adjustment Layers
      8. Stabilize footage
    3. Transitions
      1. Applying transitions in Premiere Pro
      2. Modifying and customizing transitions
      3. Morph Cut
  10. Graphics, Titles, and Animation
    1. Graphics and titles
      1. Create titles and motion graphics
      2. Apply text gradients in Premiere Pro
      3. Spell check and Find and Replace
      4. Use Motion Graphics templates for titles
      5. Add Responsive Design features to your graphics
      6. Replace images or videos in Motion Graphics templates
      7. Use data-driven Motion Graphics templates
      8. Best Practices: Faster graphics workflows
      9. Working with captions
      10. Speech to Text
      11. Speech to Text in Premiere Pro | FAQ
      12. Upgrade Legacy titles to Source Graphics
    2. Animation and Keyframing
      1. Adding, navigating, and setting keyframes
      2. Animating effects
      3. Use Motion effect to edit and animate clips
      4. Optimize keyframe automation
      5. Moving and copying keyframes
      6. Viewing and adjusting effects and keyframes
  11. Compositing
    1. Compositing, alpha channels, and adjusting clip opacity
    2. Masking and tracking
    3. Blending modes
  12. Color Correction and Grading
    1. Overview: Color workflows in Premiere Pro
    2. Get creative with color using Lumetri looks
    3. Adjust color using RBG and Hue Saturation Curves
    4. Correct and match colors between shots
    5. Using HSL Secondary controls in the Lumetri Color panel
    6. Create vignettes
    7. Looks and LUTs
    8. Lumetri scopes
    9. Display Color Management
    10. HDR for broadcasters
    11. Enable DirectX HDR support
  13. Exporting media
    1. Workflow and overview for exporting
    2. Quick export
    3. Exporting for the Web and mobile devices
    4. Export a still image
    5. Exporting projects for other applications
    6. Exporting OMF files for Pro Tools
    7. Export to Panasonic P2 format
    8. Exporting to DVD or Blu-ray Disc
    9. Best Practices: Export faster
  14. Working with other Adobe applications
    1. After Effects and Photoshop
    2. Dynamic Link
    3. Audition
    4. Prelude
  15. Organizing and Managing Assets
    1. Working in the Project panel
    2. Organize assets in the Project panel
    3. Playing assets
    4. Search assets
    5. Creative Cloud Libraries
    6. Sync Settings in Premiere Pro
    7. Using Productions
    8. How clips work across projects in a Production
    9. Consolidate, transcode, and archive projects
    10. Managing metadata
    11. Best Practices
      1. Best Practices: Working with Productions
      2. Best Practices: Learning from broadcast production
      3. Best Practices: Working with native formats
  16. Improving Performance and Troubleshooting
    1. Set preferences
    2. Reset preferences
    3. Working with Proxies
      1. Proxy overview
      2. Ingest and Proxy Workflow
    4. Check if your system is compatible with Premiere Pro
    5. Premiere Pro for Apple silicon
    6. Eliminate flicker
    7. Interlacing and field order
    8. Smart rendering
    9. Control surface support
    10. Best Practices: Working with native formats
    11. Knowledge Base
      1. Green and pink video in Premiere Pro or Premiere Rush
      2. How do I manage the Media Cache in Premiere Pro?
      3. Fix errors when rendering or exporting
      4. Troubleshoot issues related to playback and performance in Premiere Pro
  17. Monitoring Assets and Offline Media
    1. Monitoring assets
      1. Using the Source Monitor and Program Monitor
      2. Using the Reference Monitor
    2. Offline media
      1. Working with offline clips
      2. Creating clips for offline editing
      3. Relinking offline media

 

The Reference Monitor acts like a secondary Program Monitor. You can use a Reference Monitor to compare different frames of a sequence side by side, or to view the same frame of a sequence using different viewing modes.

You can cue the frame of a sequence displayed in the Reference Monitor independently from the Program Monitor. This way, you can cue each view to a different frame for comparison—to use the color matching filter, for example.

Alternatively, you can gang the Reference Monitor and Program Monitor together, so that they both show the same frame of a sequence and move in tandem. This is especially useful for color-correcting tasks. By setting the Reference Monitor’s viewing mode to a waveform monitor or vectorscope, you can make adjust the color corrector or any other video filter more effectively.

Using a Reference Monitor to aid in setting video levels

You can specify the Reference Monitor’s quality setting, magnification, and viewing mode just as you would in the Program Monitor. Its time ruler and viewing area bar also work in the same way. But because it’s for your reference and not for editing itself, the Reference Monitor contains controls for cueing to frames and not for playback or editing. When you group the Reference Monitor and Program Monitor together, you can use the Program Monitor’s playback controls. You can open only one Reference Monitor.

Andrew Devis shows how to correct brightness and contrast, and use of the Reference Monitor in this video on the Creative COW website.

Open a Reference Monitor

In the Window menu, choose Reference Monitor. The Reference Monitor opens in a separate panel. If you want, you can drag the Reference Monitor’s tab into a drop zone next to the Source Monitor.

Gang Reference and Program Monitor

The Gang functionality is a handy feature since it lets you see how a source clip compares to your sequence, and it is ideal for tasks like matching the look of one piece of footage with another. The Gang to Program Monitor button can be powerful for workflows like color correction, Multi-cam editing, or when comparing edits. 

The Gang Source and Program button gangs the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor together. Click the button to toggle the gang functionality on and off. When it is enabled, the play heads are locked together and move in tandem. When it is off, the monitors function independently from one another.

You can gang the Reference Monitor and the Program Monitor so that both always monitor the same frame.

  • In the Reference Monitor, click the Gang To Program Monitor button .

  • In the Reference Monitor’s panel menu, choose Gang To Program Monitor.

  • In the Program Monitor’s panel menu, choose Gang To Reference Monitor.

Moving the playhead in either the Reference Monitor, the Program Monitor, or the Timeline moves the playheads in the other two to the same frame.

Adobe logo

Sign in to your account

Quick links

View all your plans Manage your plans

Legal Notices    |    Online Privacy Policy