Which video editing software?

[GM5]

I know that video editors can use multiple software all together such as Final Cut Pro X, Davinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Avid, but I just want to learn one software tho I'm interested to get a side job for video editing to be honest. Btw I'm using a Mac desktop and I majored in photography. I already tried 3 main software except AVID.

 

I have to ask this question cause many work places demand video editing skill as a photographer(...) Yeah, photography itself is not that profitable for most of them and I gotta learn something for video which I'm interested in.  Having another career for video is not a bad idea I guess? Base on the requirement from Indeed, most of them demand Adobe software but It seems to be slow and buggy on Mac. I may need to buy a new Mac but that happened on iMac Pro 2017. You may say try anything and decide but I did that for few years and I still couldn't decide. For now, I just wanna focus on one software for personal uses such as 360 videos and art works.

 

Any thoughts and suggestions?

 

 

[HockeyFan12]

In my experience, larger-scale and union shows use Avid while smaller production companies use Adobe.

Resolve seems to be getting more and more traction, but primarily among individual users. Ditto FCP X seems popular among those who are one-man bands (both seem to be fast).

What are your specific goals? 

From what you described I'd go with Adobe. And a 2017 iMac Pro is absolutely more than fast enough for virtually anything. I guess it's not ideal for raw online workflows, but those are pretty niche rn imo.

[GM5]

53 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

In my experience, larger-scale and union shows use Avid while smaller production companies use Adobe.

Resolve seems to be getting more and more traction, but primarily among individual users. Ditto FCP X seems popular among those who are one-man bands (both seem to be fast).

What are your specific goals? 

From what you described I'd go with Adobe. And a 2017 iMac Pro is absolutely more than fast enough for virtually anything. I guess it's not ideal for raw online workflows, but those are pretty niche rn imo.

Well, I think FCPX would be nice cause I'm using Mac. I'm not sure if I can even learn Adobe Premiere Pro since I don't have any video related knowledge such as LUT, iris, 4:2:2, etc. I seriously don't want to pay annually for my software.

 

I have few goals to achieve with video editing

1. 360 video workflow with GoPro (GoPro player allow 360 videos to ProRes. For Windows, good luck)

2. Editing for Youtubers or small scale clients?

3. Personal work

4. Working at the video production team (Maybe)

5. Stop motion

 

At this point, learning is my main objective as I don't have a video camera especially with ProRes codec. It would be nice if I can have ProRes RAW files to play with.

 

[Geoff CB]

4 hours ago, GM5 said:

Well, I think FCPX would be nice cause I'm using Mac. I'm not sure if I can even learn Adobe Premiere Pro since I don't have any video related knowledge such as LUT, iris, 4:2:2, etc. I seriously don't want to pay annually for my software.

 

I have few goals to achieve with video editing

1. 360 video workflow with GoPro (GoPro player allow 360 videos to ProRes. For Windows, good luck)

2. Editing for Youtubers or small scale clients?

3. Personal work

4. Working at the video production team (Maybe)

5. Stop motion

 

At this point, learning is my main objective as I don't have a video camera especially with ProRes codec. It would be nice if I can have ProRes RAW files to play with.

 

I recommend Resolve if you love editing your photos. The color control in Resolve is second to none, and you don't even have to pay for it for most of the features you need starting out. 

[IronFilm]

7 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

In my experience, larger-scale and union shows use Avid while smaller production companies use Adobe.

Resolve seems to be getting more and more traction, but primarily among individual users. Ditto FCP X seems popular among those who are one-man bands (both seem to be fast).

This!

What @HockeyFan12 said x10

As much as I'd like to recommend MAGIX Vegas Pro and HitFilm Pro to newbies, the commercial reality is that if you want to make a career out of this being employed by others then if you want to aim for the big big time doing editing full time the Avid is essential to know, while if editing is just one of many strings on your bow as a "general videographer/editor/etc"  then you should learn at least one of Resolve/Premiere/FCPX (although if you're just approaching this as a casual amateur then give HitFilm or Vegas a serious look at instead!). 

https://***URL removed***/opinion/3313009578/why-davinci-resolve-16-is-the-best-video-editing-software-for-beginners

[kye]

I agree with the above, and while I recommend Resolve to people and firmly believe it will gradually take on a huge market share, if you want to get work the most important thing will probably be using the same tools / workflows / etc as the people you will be working with.  Even if that means Adobe, which seems to be buggy as hell and going down the toilet if YT and these forums here are to be believed.

I would make one suggestion though, and that's to try and think longer-term because if there's an industry you want to get into later on but don't have immediate access to then it might be worth aiming high and being a bit of a misfit for the interim.  

I should also suggest that I've watched enough videos where people compare NLEs or swap from one to another to know that software isn't just which buttons to push and where the windows are, the structure of the software (including the features, hotkeys, control surfaces, and strengths and weaknesses) all shape the way that people think about editing, and while it's tempting to think that now we've left tape / film splicing behind that in the age of NLEs they'd all be the same, they're not.

[Mark Romero 2]

First, you need to do more research about what job opportunities are realistically available to you.

You need to find out who is likely to hire an editor / colorist with little to no experience in your location, and what their software requirements will be.

If you aren't sure, and just want to start editing and grading to know what it feels like, then start with something like Resolve (which is free) and at least learn whether you LIKE to edit / grade or whether you think it is going to be really annoying. (Although I don't know how it handls 360-videos. It is constantly being upgraded / improved upon, and most concepts you will learn in resolve will translate over to the other editing programs, if not the exact techniques.)

[fuzzynormal]

I think I'm an okay editor and make half way considered opinions when editing.  Thing is, I don't really like doing it.  I don't really get excited to sit in front of the computer pushing buttons.  Hence, even though I've been paid decently over the years to edit things, I've never considered myself an editor.  My cousin, however, is in the industry.  He cranks 10 hours a day on real productions.  That dude is an editor.  I'm a dilettante.

Honestly, the most entertaining edit from my biz last year was a Adobe Rush thing my wife put together on her iPhone.

That being said, if you want to make a serious career in the work, my impression is that you really need to do a deep dive into it;  that means learning the same tools the upper echelon creatives use. But editing decks are just tools, just like cameras.  There's really not a big difference between functionality.  At the end of the day it comes down to your decision making abilities that hopefully help improve whatever footage is that you're working with.  

 

[GM5]

9 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

I recommend Resolve if you love editing your photos. The color control in Resolve is second to none, and you don't even have to pay for it for most of the features you need starting out. 

Well, idk how to learn and study with Resolve cause it's too complicated especially the color grading.

Are there any online course that I can take for Davinci Resolve especially the color grading?

[Geoff CB]

18 minutes ago, GM5 said:

Well, idk how to learn and study with Resolve cause it's too complicated especially the color grading.

Are there any online course that I can take for Davinci Resolve especially the color grading?

Thousands. At a certain point you have to put in effort if you want results. Like photography the more you know and the more you do it the better you get. 

[GM5]

17 minutes ago, Geoff CB said:

Thousands. At a certain point you have to put in effort if you want results. Like photography the more you know and the more you do it the better you get. 

Yeah but at least I need to know and understand all tools in order to study. At this point, I don't even understand the color grading itself compared to photography. I'm just wondering if I can just do color grading on Davinci Resolve while I do editing on Final Cut Pro X or not.

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, kye said:

I agree with the above, and while I recommend Resolve to people and firmly believe it will gradually take on a huge market share, if you want to get work the most important thing will probably be using the same tools / workflows / etc as the people you will be working with.  Even if that means Adobe, which seems to be buggy as hell and going down the toilet if YT and these forums here are to be believed.

I would make one suggestion though, and that's to try and think longer-term because if there's an industry you want to get into later on but don't have immediate access to then it might be worth aiming high and being a bit of a misfit for the interim.  

Yeah for someone starting out from scratch today in 2020, it wouldn't be a crazy as bet to just totally ignore Avid / Premiere / Final Cut, instead going all in on learning only Resolve. In the hope that five years from now Resolve will be a major player on equal footing to the rest in terms of employment demand. (Resolve is already top notch in terms of employment demand when comes to wanting graders, but we're discussing editors here)

 

9 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

You need to find out who is likely to hire an editor / colorist with little to no experience in your location, and what their software requirements will be.

Yeah for the first year or two (or three plus...) then it doesn't really matter what you're using, as nobody is going to be hiring you likely to work within a large team where the software workflow matters. Instead you're probably mostly doing small one person jobs for indies / friends / etc.  Thus you could use Resolve, or whatever the hell you like. 

 

[kye]

3 hours ago, GM5 said:

Yeah but at least I need to know and understand all tools in order to study. At this point, I don't even understand the color grading itself compared to photography. I'm just wondering if I can just do color grading on Davinci Resolve while I do editing on Final Cut Pro X or not.

There’s a thread on here about Resolve and colour grading and i’ve shared all the really useful videos and resources I could find about it:

Resolve is perhaps the best overall solution in terms of having all the bases covered so you can ingest, transcode, log, edit, sound-design, VFX, colour grade, and export all from the same software.  Resolve is weakest in the editing and management of media, and strongest in colour grading compared to the other packages.  It’s also improving and adding features at about 10X the speed of the other packages.

The idea that you avoid Resolve because its colour grading is too complicated and instead use one NLE for editing and Resolve for colour grading makes no sense as both involve having to learn Resolve and colour grading.

The reason that Resolve is complicated to learn is that it is powerful.  In much the same way that Lightroom is more complicated to use for colouring images than Instagram is, it is also more powerful and can do things that Instagram cannot.  Photoshop is more powerful (thus more complicated) again over Lightroom.

Packages like iMovie are the colour grading equivalents of Instagram, PP and FCPX are the equivalents of Lightroom, and Resolve is the equivalent of Photoshop.  Learning Photoshop is daunting if you’re only familiar with Lightroom, but if you want to progress in the industry then you can’t expect to get away without learning it, and the same is true of Resolve.  

FCPX and PP offer the basic colour grading tools and are sufficient for the majority of work done on normal productions, but Resolve can do almost anything, and is actually more flexible than Photoshop due to the difference between nodes vs layers. 

The reason that people talk about FCPX/PP/Resolve are all kind of spoken about as equivalent options is that you don’t have to use Resolve to colour grade, and perfectly good grades are done all the time in FCPX/PP.  The other reason they’re spoken of in equivalent terms is that TBH most people online don’t actually know enough about colour grading to appreciate the extra things that Resolve can do.  That’s not a criticism, I speak with professional colourists and they say that most of the time they are just doing basic corrections and don’t need to use the exotic tools or techniques that often at all (and most productions don’t have the budget to get that fancy).  The only times when there is time / budget to get really sophisticated with colour are big budget productions where there’s money available and hobbyist productions where someone has lots of time because they’re essentially working for free on a passion project.

I’d suggest you get clear on what you’re trying to achieve and work backwards.  In reality, the extra functionality that Resolve offers isn’t understood, required, or even used most of the time, colour grading itself is over-hyped in comparison to things like good editing.  Good editing is over-rated in terms of how important it is to get good lighting, sound, and composition while actually shooting, and everything I have listed is all basically pointless if the writing is bad or you have nothing to say.

After reading this thread, my advice would be to:

• Pick the software package you like, or just pick one, and move on
• Realise that building your editing, sound production, and basic colour skills is what you should be focusing on
• and accept that your overall success will be determined by the relationships you develop within the industry, not on anything else

I’m happy to help out if you have more questions, and good luck  

[majoraxis]

I think Resolve is the future.  The fact is that Resolve 16 is finally stable enough for pro users.  I know people have been using it professionally for years, but having used all the versions starting with 12, it is finally ready for prime time, both feature wise and stability wise.  It will become the industry standard in the next to 2 years, so learning it now will put you ahead of the game.

[Mark Romero 2]

16 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Yeah for the first year or two (or three plus...) then it doesn't really matter what you're using, as nobody is going to be hiring you likely to work within a large team where the software workflow matters. Instead you're probably mostly doing small one person jobs for indies / friends / etc.  Thus you could use Resolve, or whatever the hell you like. 

Good point.

[bluefonia]

Many good things have been said already. Most important - as I see it - is that it does not matter which software you use, but how good/talented you are/will be at editing. 

So, as you are a mac user I would go for FCP. It is designed for the mac and it will run very efficient on your iMac. To my knowledge none of the alternatives will run as smooth as FCP. - and It is killing all creativity to deal with slow renders, corrections and so on...

[GM5]

I guess I should go for FCPX and do color grading on Davinci Resolve once I learn something. Thanks everyone. 

[Dustin]

It’s so easy for me to get caught up in software and not actually edit anything! The last two years have been split for me between premiere pro and resolve. If I had no prior experience I would’ve just started on resolve. One thing I can’t get used to in resolve is not being able to zoom into the timeline with the trackpad like you can on PP. (I’m on a 2019 16” MBP). 

 

Just cut together a Christmas vlog though snd the more I learn resolve the less I feel the need to use Premiere. I just think since it’s what I’ve learned it’s what I’m faster in.

[Mark Romero 2]

2 hours ago, Dustin said:

One thing I can’t get used to in resolve is not being able to zoom into the timeline with the trackpad like you can on PP. (I’m on a 2019 16” MBP). 

Pretty sure there HAS to be a way to do this. I'm on a PC and for that it is Alt + scroll Center Mouse Button. Certainly there has to be something on a Macbook that is similar.

[Dustin]

4 minutes ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Pretty sure there HAS to be a way to do this. I'm on a PC and for that it is Alt + scroll Center Mouse Button. Certainly there has to be something on a Macbook that is similar.

I’d love to know! I have a Magic Mouse 2 as well. Can’t figure it out. Cmd + /- to zoom is getting old!