- This is our VSDC Free Video Editor Tutorial
for beginners on Windows.
We're gonna run you through
everything you need to know to get started,
plus a ton of video editing tips to get you cutting videos
in VSDC's video editing software like a pro fast.
Okay, here we are in VSDC Video Editor.
Now, for this tutorial, I am just using the free version.
In the paid one, you will unlock more editing options,
much better hardware acceleration and audio wave forms,
but the free version is still really good.
So if you are using the paid version,
everything I'm gonna show you here will apply.
This is a complete tutorial
showing you how to edit in VSDC.
So we're gonna hit the X here and close out of this.
And then what we wanna do on this opening screen
is just select New Blank Project.
And then you wanna set up your project format,
so the resolution frame rate, the width and the height.
Now to do this,
you can just key everything in here manually.
So you could go through here and select 4K, 1080p,
your framerate and everything individually,
or there's some presets in here as well
to help you with that.
So I'm gonna leave this here on YouTube.
I am gonna set it to 1080p.
The video footage I'm using is 25 frames per second
so I'll be leaving this here,
but you can see all the other options you've got
24, 25, 29.97, 30, right up to 60 frames per second.
And so for this, ideally, you wanna be matching
whatever your primary video footage is,
you wanna match these settings here.
Once you get those in, you wanna click on Finish,
and that's gonna create our editing project.
So a quick overview of the overall interface here,
this is set up kind of like your Microsoft Office
with the tabs across the top
for Projects, Scenes, Edit, View,
Editor is probably where we'll be spending most of our time,
Exporting, Conversion, Tools,
and the Activation area here
is because we're using the free version.
When you do upgrade, this is where you can do it.
We'll go back to Editor here.
This big black box in the middle here
is your preview or your playback window.
This is where you get to watch back your editing masterpiece
while you're making it.
On the right-hand side here, we've got our Properties Window
and our Basic Effects Window.
Now, these are where we can really dial in
and configure everything up
and make changes to all of the settings.
Now, these do take up quite a bit of space here
so what I like to do is hit the little pin button
to Auto Hide on both of these.
So they're still accessible.
They're just on the right-hand side here
now under these tabs.
Now, if you do come over to the View tab here,
this is where you can turn those on and off as well.
Then the bottom is our actual timeline.
This is where we will be editing from.
On the side here is our Object Explorer,
and this is another one that I really don't use too much
and I set to Hide
just so that we've got more desktop real estate.
This menu bar down the side here we will be using,
this is where we can come to add footage
and music and everything,
but know that all of this is fully customizable.
You can pick up these menu bars and you can move them around
and you can even customize up the icons that are on here.
Now, you don't need to,
and it's really not something that I do,
but if you are someone
who wants to configure everything up the way that you like,
then VSDC gives you that support.
All right, so to start this edit,
the first thing we're gonna need to do
is to import our video footage,
and there's a couple of different ways that we can do this.
We can come down here to the little Play button,
this is Add Video.
We can then go through and find our video clips
and choose Open.
If we just go OK on this,
it's going to add the video to our timeline as well
to the position where the cursor is,
so From our Cursor Position.
We can also specify
we want it at the Start of the Current Scene,
End of the Current Scene, a Manual Position.
'Cause this is the first clip we're bringing in,
we're just gonna go with OK.
That's gonna import it into our project
and into our timeline.
Now, if you wanna see all of your video assets,
all the footage and music and stuff
that you are currently using
or have imported into your project,
you can always hit on this Resources Window here under View,
and that's gonna bring up a list of them here.
Another way we can import footage
is that we can use this Resources Window
by right clicking on it and choose Add Resource.
We can then choose what it is that we wanna add.
So I can go Add Video,
we can pick a second camera angle here,
and this is now listed in here in our Resources Window,
but is not automatically added to our timeline.
And the other way we can do it
is by dragging and dropping our files in.
So we've got a folder here with some B-roll clips.
I can drag that folder in and it says,
"Do you want to import all the files from within that path?"
Then we can choose Yes, No,
or Yes, including all the sub directories underneath that.
So I'm gonna choose Including Subdirectories,
that's going to import those files for us.
So we have three B-roll clips that were in there.
I'm also going to bring in our music
into our Resources area as well.
Okay, so now that we have our files that we wanna use
imported into the program here,
we then wanna make sure that our primary footage
is down on our timeline.
So we already imported our primary clip
directly into our timeline.
But if you didn't, we can just delete this now,
select on it and press Delete.
We can just grab our clip from the Resources Window here,
and we can drag that down onto our timeline.
We're gonna go Add as Video,
and that clip is now in our timeline.
Now, another thing to know before we start editing
is you can actually adjust all of these video layers,
you can make them bigger or smaller.
So because we're not gonna have
too many video layers in this project,
I can just move my mouse cursor to this line
then I can pull this down to stretch it up
so that our timeline or our video footage here
is going to be bigger.
So now that we've got this set up,
the next thing that we wanna do
is go through and remove any bad takes, any mistakes,
or anything we don't wanna have in our finished video.
So if we move this playback head here,
this red line with a green marker at the top,
we can pick that up and we can move it around.
So I'm gonna move it back to the start,
I'm gonna press Spacebar to playback the video,
or I can also press the little red button here.
Okay, so what I wanna do here
is remove that start piece where I'm saying "1, 2, 1, 2,"
just doing a quick microphone audio check,
and have the video start right after that.
So I can play it back through the video
and I can find that point right before I start talking,
or I can actually pick up this playback head here
and click along to find that spot.
Now, I can zoom in on the timeline here for more control.
We've got the plus and minus here,
or I can just grab this slider bar and slide it across.
So now that we've got this point here
where we wanna remove everything to the start,
we wanna click on our clip so that it's selected,
wanna make sure we're over on the Editor tab here,
and we can hit this button here,
this will split our clip into parts.
Or you can press Control + K
and that's going to add a cut or a split
in your timeline at that point.
So if we click on this, we can see
that it's essentially made a cut in our timeline
so we have two clips,
we have a clip on the left and a clip on the right.
What we need to do then is select the clip on the left.
We can press Delete on the keyboard
or we can right-click and choose Delete,
and that clip is now gone.
So if I zoom in even further, move across,
what this hasn't done though,
is it hasn't closed up that gap.
So our video file here now starts with blank
and then I start talking at that point.
So we wanna pick up our clip, we wanna click on it,
we wanna click and drag on it
and move that back over to the left
so that our video now starts at that point.
Now, let's come across to the very end of our video here
and let's find the point where our video finishes.
Again, I can press Spacebar or hit Play to play through it,
or I can just move this marker along
to find that point, to about here.
Now, I could select the clip
and do exactly what we did before,
come up here to split and then delete the clip,
or I can actually grab this little handle
on the right-hand side of the end of the clip here.
In the middle, you can see when we put the mouse over,
it changes to two arrows.
We wanna click and drag on that
and we can adjust the end point of our clip
to now be at this new point.
Now, let's say that there was a piece in here
that we wanted to remove,
again, I can come back over here,
I can add a split in the timeline at that point,
I can select say this clip here,
I can then drag that clip back
to remove however much I'd like to remove,
and then I can pick up this clip
and move it back to close up the gap.
That's one way to do it.
Now, let's come back along here a bit further.
Another way that we can do that
is by using this playback head marker at the top.
So I can click up here and drag out
to highlight this section that I want to remove.
So obviously, you wanna play this through
to find out the area that you wanna remove.
These markers, you can adjust afterwards,
so I can click and adjust.
But the idea is you wanna select here
the area that you don't want in your project,
click on the clip to make sure it's selected,
and then come up here to the pair of scissors,
click the little arrow next to it,
and choose Cut Out Fragment,
or you can press Control + Delete.
So if we press this now, that's going to cut out
that segment or that section that we just highlighted.
So essentially, it's created two cuts,
it's selected the clip and it's deleted it
and it's closed up the gap.
So that's a much faster way
that you can start to cut down your footage.
Now, let's say, for instance, that we had a few cuts
in our timeline here.
I'll just go through and add a few
as if these were separate clips.
So let's just say that we wanted to finish this clip here
at this point here on this marker.
We don't want this end bit.
I've already showed you a couple of different ways
that you could do it.
But with this clip selected,
we can also come up here to the pair of scissors,
hit the little dropdown and choose Trim End.
So this is going to trim everything off the end of our clip
right up until the clip ends.
So if I press this now, you can see that it's just removed
everything again up to that marker.
Likewise, with this clip here,
if we wanted to remove the start of it to this marker,
we could select the clip, come up here
and choose Trim Start.
That's gonna trim off the start of that clip.
So what you wanna do now is go through
and use all of those tools that I've just shown you.
You wanna cut down your video footage
to remove all the bad takes, all the mistakes,
so that you're just left with your primary footage.
And you can pick up and adjust clips and move them around
to build out the story that you're after.
Okay, once you've gone through and done that,
then the next step is to add in
any B-roll or overlay footage.
So again, you wanna make sure that you've imported
your video footage into this Resources Window.
And if you're not seeing that, it's back under View,
then Resources Window, it could turn on and off.
So I'm gonna pick one of these clips here,
I'm gonna click on it
and I'm gonna drag it on top of our primary footage here,
and I'm gonna choose Add as Video.
And what that's done is created a new video layer
on top of or above our primary footage,
which now has our B roll footage on it.
So my footage and me talking
is still happening underneath this when we play it.
Now, these B-roll overlay clips
are treated exactly the same as our regular footage.
We can pick the clips up, we can move them around,
we can use all the tools that I just showed you
to trim them down or to remove pieces of them.
So we could add a split in the clip here, Control + K.
We can then select the first clip here and we can delete it.
And maybe we want our clip to finish about here,
we can go back over to Editor, we can select Trim to End.
So you wanna go through it now
and bring in any of your B-roll or overlay clips
onto your timeline.
Now, you can see here that it has brought
these three clips in on three separate video layers.
You can pick them up and move them around,
they don't all have to be on different layers.
But it's just to give you further creativity
knowing that you can layer these things up if you need to.
Okay, once you've gone through,
you've added in all your B-roll or overlay footage,
now, we're gonna add in any text or titles into our video.
So I wanna come back across
to the very start of our video here
and we're gonna add in a name, title card for me,
or a lower third.
So I wanna come over here to the T, the type tool.
We're gonna add text
and it's asking us where we want the text positioned.
Because I've already selected the start here,
I'm just gonna choose From our Cursor Position and go OK.
And then now, I can just draw out the area
we want our title to appear.
So I'm just gonna create a pretty basic title here.
Let's type in Justin Brown, Primal Video.
We can select this. We can customize it all up.
We can make it centered.
We could change the font, let's go Impact.
So we can customize this up to match our branding.
So we might even wanna select the bottom text here,
and we could change the text color, something like this
is gonna be close to our Primal Video color,
and maybe we'll make the whole thing a bit bigger.
Okay. Something really simple.
Now, if we take a look down at our timeline here,
we've now got a text layer here as well.
This is treated the same as any other clip
that we've got on our timeline.
We can pick it up. We can move it around.
We can adjust the start time, the end time.
So if I grab this end handle on the end here,
I can shorten this right up
because we're not gonna want it on screen for too long.
And maybe we'll zoom in on our timeline here about here.
So we'll probably have it so that at the start of the video,
I am talking for a little bit before the title comes on.
Title appears, title disappears.
Now, if we select on this,
we can come up here to Title Effects
and there's some different effects
and things that we can add in here.
But if you do wanna create some amazing titles and things
that you can use in your videos,
Placeit is an amazing source for that, and so is VideoHive.
And I'll have links to those down in the description.
So now what you wanna do is go through
and add in any titles and text to your entire video.
Once that's done, we're gonna add in
any transitions or effects.
So let's say we wanna make this title transition on
and not just appear at that point and disappear at the end,
let's add some sort of effect to it.
So let's move our playback head here
to the start of the clip
and let's make sure the clip is selected.
We wanna come up here to Video Effects,
let's come down to Transitions,
and let's just choose a Wipe.
And it asks us where do we wanna apply this wipe,
we're gonna choose From the Cursor Position,
and I'm gonna go OK.
So if we hit Play on this now, you'll see
that we've now got this little effect that happens.
So the view that we're currently looking at now
is the timeline or the view inside of that text layer.
So this will allow us to, again,
stack up or create multiple effects in here.
Let's say that we also wanted to have that same effect
for the title to disappear,
we could come back out here to our main scene, zoom in,
so that we're putting our cursor in the right position.
So we're about here, we want the effect to start.
Now, we could go through the same process here
and choose Video Effects, Transitions,
and then pick the transition out that we want.
So we could go Wipe.
That's taken us back into this Text tab.
And again, we get to choose
where we want this transition to start from.
Now, I do find it easier
to always go From the Cursor Position
if you'd set the position where you wanted to start from,
but you could also go, in this case,
To the End of the Scene,
and that's gonna position this effect
right until the end of this clip.
But I'm just gonna leave this here as it is and go OK.
So you can see here that we've got our Wipe 2,
which is the transition on,
and then it's going to transition off at that point.
And again, these effects are things that we can adjust.
So if I want that effect to happen quicker,
I can shorten that down.
Now, to come back to our main timeline,
we're clicking on scene zero here.
And then if we play that through,
this is what it looks like.
It fades in and fades back out.
So while that process is a little bit more complicated
than some of the other editing tools out there,
it's cool that you so much more control over the effects
and have the ability to layer them up.
Now, in terms of other effects
and things that you could add on to your clip,
if we select our B-roll footage here,
come back up here to Video Effects,
in here, there's different filters and presets
and things that you can apply,
or you can add blur, you can reshape and resize,
and mirror your clips in here as well.
And there's also different effects like a Glitch
and 3D effect that you can apply in here.
Now, if you wanna speed up or slow down your clips,
then you wanna select your clip,
you wanna come over to this Properties Window,
if it's not already displayed,
and down near the bottom here,
you've got this setting here for Speed.
So it's currently set to 100%,
so this is playing back at normal speed.
We can slow this down.
So let's say that we wanted to play it back at 60% speed
and hit Enter.
Then that has stretched down our clip here
to make this now a slow motion clip.
Now, me recording the computer screen here
has really slowed down the video playback,
but you get the idea, that's now in slow motion.
Likewise, you wanna speed it up,
you're gonna come back to that Properties Window,
you can type in a number above 100,
so we could go 120, and it's now 20% faster.
Now, in terms of transitions
between our main primary footage down here,
I wouldn't normally add any fade or transition between clips
where they are almost the same.
Instead, what we do with our YouTube videos
is that I will zoom in on one of the shots
so that as it changes between the clips,
it feels like the shot is a little bit different.
It's almost like having a second camera angle.
So if I click on this second clip here
that we wanna make a bit bigger,
I can then come up the top here
and we've got these black handles around our clip.
I can scale this up a little bit.
Now, you don't wanna go too much
because depending on how you filmed this,
you could be losing quality at this point.
But you just wanna make it a little bit bigger
to essentially zoom it in, just to change up the shot.
Now, in order to really sell this effect
and have it look really good,
you wanna try and line up if you've got someone on camera,
that's a terrible photo,
you wanna have the eyes almost in the same position.
So this is our before shot.
And this is our second shot.
It's close, I might move it across a little bit,
again, so those eyes match up a little bit better.
Back to our first shot, you could see
it's just a subtle difference between the two,
but this is what we're doing
to break up a lot of our footage
and help you hide any mistakes
that you're making in your videos.
Okay, so you wanna go through add in any transitions,
any effects or any zoom ins on your footage.
Once that's done, we're going to add in our music.
So we're gonna come back
across here to our Resources Window.
We're gonna find the music tracks that we have.
Now, if you're looking for great music for your videos,
I will link a YouTube video down below
where we've talked about the best music sites out there,
free and paid.
But for us, our top two recommendations
are Artlist and Epidemic Sound.
So I'm gonna pick this music track here.
Again, I'm gonna click on it,
drag it down into our timeline and let it go.
And just the same as all of our other clips,
we can pick them up, we can move them around.
We can adjust the start time, the end time.
We can add cuts and all of that fun stuff with your music,
just the same as you do with your video clips.
So now that you've got your music in,
it's a good idea to hit Play and go through,
and you might wanna adjust
some of your cuts on your primary footage
to match the beat or to tighten up your edit
now that you've got your music in there.
And then from here, the next step
is to adjust all of your volume levels.
Now, when you're doing this, you wanna make sure
that if you do have someone speaking in your video,
that their volume is the most important piece
to get set first.
Music and sound effects and everything are secondary.
So what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna select our music track here,
I'm gonna come over to Properties
and I'm going to select Audio Volume here,
and I'm just gonna turn it right down to minus 100.
So currently, it's muted.
So we're gonna mute our music so that we can focus
on getting our primary content volume levels right first,
and then we can adjust and bring back in
the music volume levels afterwards.
So with that muted, one way to do this
would be to click on our first clip here,
come over to Properties Window,
and we can adjust our volumes up and down here
just as we saw.
If we click on this, we get the volume slider.
We can turn it up little bit, we can turn it down
to dial it in this way.
Now, if you're gonna do it manually,
I would suggest that you've at least got headphones on
so you can really gauge how loud it's going to be.
But there's also a really cool feature in here
for normalizing your audio
and for getting it all set correctly.
So what you can do is select all of your clips here,
just drawing a box out around them all,
come up the top here, Audio Effects,
down to Amplitude and choose Normalize Audio.
Now for this, I like to change the percentage to 90, go OK,
and it's gonna go through and it's gonna adjust
all the volume levels to that 90% mark,
giving you a little bit of a buffer to 100%
because you don't wanna be going over that,
that's where your audio's gonna sound
distorted and really bad.
So now, each of these clips has been adjusted
and all set to the same level.
So even if you did have some that were louder
and some that were quieter,
these are all now set to the same.
Now, you can override each one of these clips if you want,
again, by clicking on them,
coming over to the Properties Window.
And you can see that the volume level here
has been boosted to 3.3,
next one here, 2.6,
the next one here is 1.4.
So it's actually gone through and done it all for us.
So once that's done, we can come back to our music track,
we can select that, and we can increase that volume level.
Now, where you're setting this
is gonna come down to personal preference,
it's gonna come down to the video you're making,
but it's also gonna come down to the audio track
and how loud that is.
So what we find for our YouTube videos for background music,
we're normally looking anywhere
between minus 30 and minus 20, depending on the track.
But really, it's just a matter of setting this audio level,
pressing Play, seeing what it sounds like,
making sure that your music isn't too overpowering,
and then making any adjustments from there.
Now that your music is in and your volume levels are sorted,
next up, we're going to color grade
or color correct our videos.
Now, if we come back over to our first clip here
and make sure that's selected,
one way that we can do this
is we can come up here to the Video Effects,
we can come down to Quick Styles
and these are different presets and things that we can use.
Think of these like Instagram filters
that you can add on to your videos.
Now, this really isn't something that I would use.
I'm gonna undo this now.
But there is a lot of presets in there that you can use.
But also, under Adjustments,
this is where you can get more specific
with the tools and the effects that you're adding here.
There are some auto ones,
Auto Levels, Auto contrast and Auto Gamma,
but in my experience,
I've never really had great success with these,
I'd much rather dial everything in myself.
So while there are some good effects and things in here
to help you adjust your colors
and the look and feel of your video,
there's also a really powerful feature in VSDC
and it also lets us adjust all of our clips here at once
if they are selected.
So I'm gonna draw out a box
across all of our primary video footage here,
just so that they are all selected,
I'm gonna come up here to the Basic Effects Window,
and in here, as I make changes to things
like the brightness, contrast, gamma, color temperature,
these are actually going to apply to all of our clips.
So I'd normally adjust the brightness first,
then the contrast, then come down to the color temperature.
So you see if we move this one way,
we're adding more warmth to our shot,
and back the other way, we're gonna cool it back down.
And then saturation, we can either add more colors,
we really don't wanna go overboard with this one,
or we can remove the colors.
So this is how much color is in your shot.
So you really don't wanna move this one too much.
Okay. So this is looking pretty good.
Now, there are more advanced tools in here as well,
like your RGB Curves and your Hue Saturation Curves
and YUV Curves down the bottom here as well.
But for probably most people watching this,
these tools up here are probably gonna do
everything that you need.
So we've gone through now,
we've tweaked the colors in our primary footage,
you can also make adjustments
to your B-roll and overlay footage too,
just following the same process.
Once you're done with that,
it's then time to save or to export your video.
So you can come up here to Export Project.
Once again, there's a ton of different presets in here
for you to choose from.
So if you do have a specific platform
that you're looking to upload to like Instagram or Facebook,
you can start with their presets
and customize up from there.
So for us, I'm gonna leave this here on YouTube
and it's gone ahead and it's picked a profile for us
or output settings for us.
We can customize this up.
There's other presets in here that we can choose.
We're currently on Ultra Quality.
We can choose High Quality and Normal Quality.
So if you do need a smaller file size,
then you can customize this up here.
But I'm gonna leave this here on Ultra Quality.
We can choose where our file
is going to save to our computer.
We can change the file name down here if we need to.
I'm just gonna leave this here all as defaults.
And then, we just wanna hit Export Project,
and our project is going to start exporting.
Now, again, all of this has been with the free version.
If you do want faster exports
and better timeline performance,
that's something you can access in the Pro Version of VSDC,
which is ridiculously cheap.
But that is a complete end-to-end tutorial
on editing using VSDC.
Now, to help you level up your video editing
in any video editing application,
we've put together a free PDF guide.
There is a link onscreen
taking you through the ultimate step-by-step process
so that you know you're editing videos down
in the most efficient way.
And this is the process
that we just took you through in this video.
So don't forget to download your free copy.
And I will see you in the next video.