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przone
Known Participant
March 24, 2025
Question

Easy to forget just how bad Premiere is...

  • March 24, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 607 views

Have a 'tall' video - want a 'square video' - it is 25 seconds long.
These days - on your iPhone etc - this takes seconds.
With Premiere Pro?
No easy cropping - so you create a 1080x1080 square jpg in Photoshop and drop it on the Premiere timeline - so the work area is 'square and the size you need it'.
Now? Premiere refuses to add a video to the same timeline 😄 
I had honestly forgotten about this cr*p.
Eventually manage to get the video 'cropped' and on the right timeline.
Go to export and... 1.2GB
For a 25 second clip
🙂 🙂 🙂

It would be funny if it were not so sad

    2 replies

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    March 25, 2025

    Premiere Pro, like Avid, Baselight, Nuke, Resolve, and other professional video post applications, can do amazing things ... if you know how to do it.

     

    All the professional video apps take some time to learn how to use them. It's just required with such complex, capable applications.

     

    And like Kevin shows, you can quickly do what you wanted in Premiere with a small amount of training. Or ... asking for help. Novel idea, that ... 

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      P
      przoneAuthor
      Known Participant
      March 25, 2025

      I'd like to think we have moved past the time of 'Dark Arts' and 'Sector Editors on CP/M' etc...  The software is backward - has been in the 20+ years I've used it... If Adobe was not spending MILLION$ on telling us about their 'Very Clevr Ai', then maybe we let them off... But these Adobe interfaces/interactions are to modrn software - like Outlook is for email... dinosaurs from a bygone era...  Creativity means moving straight to 'What I want', rather than, "Oh yes - let me get into the idiosyncracies of this program"

       

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      March 25, 2025

      Apparently, you've not used BlackMagic's Resolve? Or perhaps "the Avid"?

       

      As stated above, the full-on profesional video post apps are all very complex and yes, at time confusing applications. They all have the basic assumption the user want's total manual control of all specifics ... in matters with tons of specifics to control.

       

      And they all approach operational use quite differently from each other. I personally work in both Premiere and Resolve ... and doing "the same thing" is a very different process for the user.

       

      I've a good friend who finds the Resolve UI "absolutely amazingly intuitive, freaking AMAZINGLY easy for anyone to get around in!"... which is actually applicable only to him. As are all UI things, how we see them is how we see them, as no two users ever work alike.

       

      I've been working in Resolve for over a decade, and for me ... it's still pretty opaque. I struggle to remember all the places they've 'buried' (to me) the context menus that to my friend are freaking obvious.

       

      To each their own. Everyone's mileage always varies.

       

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      Kevin-Monahan
      Community Manager
      Kevin-MonahanCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      March 25, 2025

      Hi @przone,

      Thanks for the message and welcome to the forum. Premiere Pro has no issues creating these kinds of videos, but you may need a bit of a primer before starting out.

       

      1. You can create a square sequence by choose File > New > Sequence. Choose the Social > 1x1 preset. You can do it the way you professed as well.

       

      2. Premiere won't refuse to add a video to the same timeline if source patching is set up for V1/A1 correctly. If the blue boxes don't automatically enable, double click it to load it into the Source Monitor, then drag it in.

      I would say not understanding source patching is the #1 roadblock new users experience.

      1. Make sure the source patching is set up for V1 and A1.

      2. Then....drag and drop.

      That should work every time. If you set up the right sequence preset and have source patching set up right, you should have an easier time with this.

       

      As far as your large export file size goes, a little more information about the preset you used might help.

       

      I hope the advice helps.

       

      Thanks,
      Kevin

       

      Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
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        przoneAuthor
        Known Participant
        March 25, 2025

        Thanks for the reply Kevin - but I do remain unconvinced...
        Input file was an MP4 - 28 seconds and 141MB
        First used Premiere around 2008 (tape ingestion days) - so the 'drop an image on the line - the size you want' - used to be perfectly valid.
        Now?  The software has become 'so advanced' that Premier no longer understands that if you drag a new video over to that same sequence - it blocks the action. You can't tell me that this is 'going forward'.
        You go to export and (for a square video - 1080x1080) - Premiere offers you a range of WIDE screen outputs...   Again, with all of the Ai in the world (and Adobe) - you're telling me that it 'looks' at square footage and offers wide screen output as a default?  I'd have loved to have been in that meeting.

        When you choose 'adaptive medium' - you finally get the kind of answer you were expecting - which is the Netflix-style H.264 compression to around 30MB.

        Why oh why is none of this easy 😞

        Please bear in mind that Adobe - not me - is making a BIG PLAY on Ai and 'being smart/helpful'...  it's all quite sad




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