Adobe Premiere Elements 7 review

Premiere Elements offers powerful, entry-level video editing

Reviews
By Michael Browne
published
Adobe Premiere Elements 7
The interfacce of Elements 7 is designed to make it as easy as possible for people to get into video editing with pro results

TechRadar Verdict

A good package for the beginner or someone who doesn't need the full suite of options available in the full Premiere suite

Pros

  • +

    Good interface

  • +

    Support for HD material

  • +

    Easy editing mode

Cons

  • -

    Needs a powerful machine

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Adobe Premiere Elements has always been considered as something of an entry-level video editing package, as it's aimed primarily at first-time users. This is no bad thing, as it makes getting to grips with the basics quick and easy.

This latest edition of Premiere Elements takes it one step further, and now has built-in support for the standard HD formats of Blu-ray and AVCHD, as well as older DV formats.

At 4.5GB it's quite a hefty application to install, but you'll find everything you need to edit, enhance and copy your finished movie.

The interface features the standard view of a timeline along the bottom of the screen, with a preview window to the left-hand side and menu controls to the right. This menu system is neatly arranged into four sections: Organise, Edit, Disc Menus and Share.

Organise is all about getting content into the program, either from a range of connected devices or from your hard drive. We found that importing from a wide variety of sources, even AVCHD, proved trouble-free, as the icon-based interface makes it easy to get to grips with.

If you don't want to use this approach, you can always use the easier and quicker InstantMovie wizard to add effects and titles. True, the results might not be as satisfying, but it's a great way to cover the basics of a movie.

This isn't one of the quicker editing suites, but is certainly less resource-heavy than previous versions of Premiere Elements. We tested it out on both single-core and dual-core laptops and found you really need the latter to use this package regularly.

Our edition came as part of a suite with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, but it's also available as a standalone product.

We really like Adobe Premier Elements 7. Sure, it's not the cheapest suite available, but with the added support for HD formats, this latest version is one of the best entry-level video packages you can buy.

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Michael Browne