Adobe Premiere Elements 11 Classroom in a Book

My experiences with iMovie were generally positive overall, but I really wanted Final Cut Pro, yet the price tag was way too high for my wallet at the time, so on a whim I visited Adobe's site on early Black Friday morning and they were running a great special on Adobe Premier Elements 11...so I jumped on it. Elements 11 is described as "pretty intuitive" by many reviewers on the web...but to me, not what I would consider even an amateur at video editing, intuitive is not an adjective I'd use for this program. (I think that term may be appropriate for someone who has established knowledge of these programs and how they work or one who has quite a bit of 'dabbling' time with them. For newcomers, I still wouldn't use intuitive...but that's me). After talking to one of the videographers I know at my local sports arena, he suggested looking up "Classroom in a Book" by Adobe Press. He says he and several of the videographers he works with have used these books before and every time they upgrade their software, they purchase the new books to discover what's new, shortcuts, etc.I took his advice, found it for about $28.50 (USD) on Amazon and two days later when it arrived, my skills at video editing were immediately elevated. (The Barnes and Noble website also offers this book for sale). The book is about 320 pages long, printed in softcover that lies FLAT...you open it, start reading, boot up your PE11.., download the lessons/videos/pics onto your hard drive...and off you go with Lesson 1. The lesson clips are HD in quality and what the author has you do with them are exactly what you'd have to know to produce good videos for a living. The book is well written, some light humor here and there, and it is almost like having an instructor in the room with you. As you work through the lessons, some take from 30-60 minutes, others two hours or more (depending on your "speed" at picking up the various nuances of this program) but when you finish a lesson, there are several questions at the end of each chapter that help reinforce what you just learned. I have about 4 lessons left, and yes, once in awhile I'll refer to the book when working on a video I shot myself (in between my lessons)....and it serves as a valuable resource too. I should be done with the other 4 lessons in less than a week; and although I am not quite ready to apply for a job doing this type of work, I really feel I received a LOT of bang for the buck in learning how to use Adobe Premier Elements 11. It also taught me how to use many of the features in Adobe Organizer, another program bundled with my version of Elements11 that will help you greatly in organizational skills of your clips and pictures. And Organizer works seamlessly with Elements so it's a snap to transfer your pics and video clips from Organizer to Elements. I have a lot more respect for the folks who do this type of work on a daily basis, and knowing they use the same software I am trying to learn, and seeing their work at every game I attend during the season makes me feel pretty good about having made a good purchase. YMMV, of course, but I would really recommend this book if you are still 'stumbling around' trying to learn the nuances of this program. And yes, these books are available for earlier versions of this program too. Your video editing skills will definitely go to another level after spending some time with Classroom in a Book and the lessons included with it. And I really am happy so far with Adobe Premier Elements 11 too. For me, it is a definite 'step up' from iMovie. One more caveat....on the Adobe website there are LOTS of instructional tutorials for this program too...but the book fills in a lot that the tutorials assume you [U]may[/U] already know.Cheers!Pat

A month ago I got the Adobe Premiere Elements 11/Photoshop 11 bundle from Amazon. I also ordered the Premiere Elements Classroom in a Book since I knew I'd be lost without some serious help. The book and the included disc gave me this help.I'll probably not use even one-tenth of the functionality of Premiere Elements but if I need some exotic editing maneuver in the future I'll be able to find the step-by-step solution in the book. All twelve chapters give step-by-step tutorials on various editing tasks while the reader is actually creating a video about the space shuttle.Since I've done very little editing in the past, I needed the discipline of doing the work on each chapter's project. If I just read through the text without doing the editing of the material on the disc, I would have absorbed very little. And even though an approximate amount of time, like two hours, was estimated for how long a lesson would take, it usually took me twice that time to get through the lesson. This extra time wasn't boring though - I enjoyed every topic.Lesson six did slow me down quite a bit, however, because one of the files on the disc is corrupted. I was able to grab the same file from another lesson, though, so this allowed me to finish chapter six. And this was an important chapter because it involved greenscreening, a function that I'll be using in my videos.I wonder why the author's name is not on the book. Adobe says it is written by the Adobe Creative Team. But this book is definitely written by one man, I think Steve Whatley, and this man has a style and a voice. I felt I was being led by a good teacher who knew his subject perfectly and enjoyed showing me all the tricks he learned in twenty years of video editing.

I had used Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 for a while but had stopped because the technology had progressed and that version of the product no longer could handle newer formats, etc. I had a pretty good handle on how to use it back then, and when I decided to buy version 11.0 I assumed that I would pick up right where I had left off a few years ago; that there would be some new CODECs and graphics and that would be it. I was astonished how much the software had matured, and was frustrated that I couldn't find ways to do things that I used to do -- so a decided to buy this book.I didn't install the examples from the DVD included with this book -- and, probably because I had some previous experience with Premiere LE in earlier versions, I didn't need to. I was able to use this book very effectively as a user manual. I read it straight through, and I can say that it gave me an appreciation of what Adobe has packed into this software that I never got with the earlier version I used. I've also been able to use the index to find exactly what I needed to know each time I got stuck.Certainly well worth the money from my POV!!

Having used Premiere Elements for over 10 years, upgrading as each version has been released, I thought I knew most of the features offered by PE.However, having purchased this book/DVD I now feel that I DO know most of the features offered by PE.For instance, even the preliminary chapters dealing with how the software assigns formats based on the media you import, was a revelation.For those of you like me, with a lot of experience, I'm sure there will be something valuable you can take from working through the 'course'.I especially liked the option to 'experiment' within each lesson, rather than be tied to a rigid 'training' sequence as I find the best way to learn is to be shown the basics then allowed to use your imagination to explore the details.As you can hopefully tell, I don't regret buying this item at all.

On the US Amazon website, the following note from the publishers appears: "Note from the Publisher:Regrettably, the file named Greenscreen.mov in the Lesson 6 folder on the companion disc is corrupt. However, that same file is included multiple times on the disc (in lessons 7, 8, 9 and 10), so please use any other file named Greenscreen.mov in order to work through lesson 6."Do note that so that you wont, as I've just done, waste a couple of hours trying to figure out what was wrong, chasing up codecs here there and everywhere and finally redownloading a copy of Elements 11 from the Adobe website!But seriously, this book is in the great tradition of the Adobe 'Classroom ...' books familiar to me from Photoshop Elements, CS3 and then CS5. The clarity is there, the ease of the learning, all the exercise files you need on the DVD at the back of the book. It makes learning a real joy and no slog (as long as you take heed of the, um, er, errant file).I know that the writers and producers of Adobe books and DVDs take immense trouble to get things right, but as we all know, even with that sort of dedication to detail, stuff can happen.If you've got Elements 11, or are going to get it, buy this book. You'll love it.-- Brian Robinson, Milton Keynes, UK

I've struggled for the last two years to learn Premiere Elements 7 by 'mousing around' without any written guidance other than the booklet that was provided with the software which I found worse than useless. The supplied PDF manual was somewhat better enabling me to do very basic editing tasks. I recently bought Premiere Element 11 which has a much more user friendly user interface and has finally got rid of the ghastly black background which it also shared with Elements. Within a week of buying this book and following the lessons I'm already far more proficient. It's not easy to write clear instructions for complex operations but the author has done this very capably - and fortunately without relapsing into some of the dreadful American attempts at humour that is often encountered.Highly recommended!

Great Books, I have been six months at my TV/FILM/MEDIA/PHOTOGRAPHY Course now and I love it. I am in the middle of shooting my first short film. I don't like Editing so far, but with this book and my own PC at home, I am starting to get the hang of it. Great Books. I have bought my first movie camera, and starting to get to know it. This book helps, I like it!

After paying for Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements it makes sense to get the most out of you purchase and although it takes time to work through the two Classroom books it is time well spent.Only draw back being that it means investing more in a particular version of the Adobe products and hence I am more reluctant to upgrade!