Welcome to Tool Tip Tuesday for Adobe Premiere Pro on ProVideo Coalition
TL;DR: Sometimes, the answer is copy and paste; sometimes, it’s drag and drop.
Adobe applications have some hidden, powerful exchange methods.
Last week, I had an interesting accident. I needed to downgrade a Premiere project from the beta version to the current version.
Obligatory: you shouldn’t be using the beta version for professional projects. Yes, you can open a project in the beta or current version.
Instead, I did a copy-paste. Both apps open. And it just worked..
This is not an officially blessed workflow. Speaking of unsanctioned, it’s possible to downgrade any project – using one of two websites – to earlier versions of Adobe Premiere Pro. ElementsTV downgrader. Josh Cluderay downgrader
Again, the caution: You shouldn’t use beta software in production; you shouldn’t use these downgraders as “bad things might happen.”
Meanwhile, I copied and pasted the shipping version and the beta version of Premiere Pro. I selected what I wanted, hit Command+C, opened the older Premiere version, hit Command+V, and boom—it worked!
Curious, I explored further. Could I copy from Premiere to After Effects?
Initially, pasting clips directly failed.
But when I created a comp first in After Effects, then pasting Premiere clips into the comp – it worked perfectly – and remained in sync/with their original in/out points from the timeline I sourced them from.
Result:
Going backward—After Effects to Premiere—I selected a comp, pasted into Premiere…didn’t exactly work. It created a new sequence in the Premiere Pro project (instead of a comp.)
But drag and drop DID WORK – but it has to be drag and drop to the Premiere Project
Note: Take a look at the screenshot above – there’s lots of “dead space” before the six clips I chose. When the comp returned, it had “dead space” from the beginning of the Adobe Premiere Pro sequence.
If you adjust the work area in Adobe After Effects, you can use the Composition > Trim Comp to Work Area in AE.
How about Media Encoder?
Copy-paste didn’t work from either Premiere or After Effects into Media Encoder.
But dragging and dropping worked seamlessly: Premiere timelines and After Effects Comps could all be dragged directly into Media Encoder.
Here’s a quick reference table summarizing these findings:
| Action | Copy & Paste | Drag & Drop |
|---|---|---|
| Premiere Beta → Premiere | Yes | No |
| Premiere → After Effects | Yes (into comp) | No |
| After Effects → Premiere | Sorta (new sequence) | Yes (into project) |
| Premiere → Media Encoder | No | Yes |
| After Effects → Media Encoder | No | Yes |
Hopefully, this gives you just a little more flexibility between Adobe tools!
This series is courtesy of Adobe.