Media Editors

Video Editors

Digiarty Software is a media editor company. Cecilia Hwung, marketing manager of Digiarty Software and the editor-in-chief of VideoProc team, wrote an article called Top 18 Best Free Video Editing Software 2022. Their product is in there but so are many others. She covers both Windows and MacOS. Informative article and nice resource.

Windows Movie Maker

Movie Maker comes free with Windows. It is a basic video editor. 

Apple iMovie

MacOS iMovie is a free application included with all Apple Mac computers. It was first released in 1999 and has gone through many releases. iMovie is a complete video system including:

  • Import video, images, music and sound
  • Select a theme for the look, titles and transitions
  • Enhance video/photo with colour correction, brightness, contrast
  • Reduce video shake
  • Enhance audio, equalizer, noise reduction
  • Create Ken Burns pans from photos
  • Create picture-in-pictures, cutaways, side-by-sides and green-screen effects
  • Add scene transitions and titles from a large library
  • Export final video to popular social networks and YouTube.

Free and fee tutorials exist for learning iMovie. Many book trailers are produced with iMovie. It has powerful editing features, supports real timeline non-destructive editing and can be used to make professional-looking edits. If a user learns iMovie then wants to move past its limits, the project can be exported to Final Cut Pro X.

iMovie for iPhone/iPad

In addition to iMovie for OSX, Apple sells iMovie for iOS based products such as iPhone, iTouch and iPad. In the US, it retails for $4.99. iOS iMovie not only gives you the ability to do basic editing on your phone or tablet, but also to export the project to OSX iMovie for more complex editing.

Editing on an iPad is easier due to the large screen. A common strategy if you have both an iPhone and iPad is to shoot with the iPhone, transfer the videos to the iPad and edit on the iPad. Moving the project to a more capable platform includes then exporting to OSX iMovie, and even on to Final Cut X.

  1. Shoot with iPhone
  2. AirDrop video/images to iPad
  3. Edit in iPad iMovie
  4. Export iMovie project to MacOS iMovie if you want to do more elaborate editing

Apple Final Cut Pro X

The most common professional video editors are Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid and Apple Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro X is popular with video hobbyists and independent filmmakers, but is also making inroads with film and television editors who have traditionally used Avid Technology’s Media Composer. Final Cut supports not only 1080P HD, but also 2K, 4K and 5K film formats. The movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) was edited with Final Cut Pro and won an Academy Award for Best Editing.

Adobe Premiere Elements

Adobe Premiere Elements is the consumer version of Adobe Premiere Pro, the most popular pro-level video editor. Elements is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

If you are looking for an image editor as well as a video editor, Adobe sells Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements as a combined package. Photoshop Elements is the consumer version of Adobe Photoshop, the most popular image editor.

Elements is a solid package, and the combination of Photoshop and Premiere Elements makes a great platform for book trailer creation.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based video editing software application. It is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes video editing, graphic design, image editing (Photoshop) and web-development programs. Premiere Pro is the most popular computer-based video editor and is used by major networks such as CNN and BBC.

Image Editors

Here is a list of popular image editors for Windows and Mac OSX.

Windows

Mac OSX

Host

Audio Editors

Here is a list of popular audio editors for Windows and Mac OSX.

Note: When you do your first export of an MP3 audio file from Audacity, the program will not find the LAME library. There is a download button. Just click and follow the directions.