Adobe Premiere Pro vs DaVinci Resolve: Which Is Best for Beginners?

At first glance, video editing looks glamorous — smooth transitions, cinematic color grading, and reels that seem built for virality.It looks creative and powerful to the outside observer. This excitement diminishes considerably when a novice user opens professional software used for video editing. When searching to begin learning how to edit video, you can find 2 names consistently mentioned, Adobe Premiere Pro and Da Vinci Resolve. They each are very powerful, have a great following among professionals, and provide ways for you to create truly amazing videos. What many beginners want to know is which program is going to be easiest for them to use. 

The students that are joining a computer class or beginning an editing program (Video Program) will benefit greatly by selecting one of the two. Depending on their choice, some students may take longer than others to learn to edit video, due to the complexity and learning curve of the software package they use.

Why Beginners Often Start With Premiere Pro

An editing tool that most beginners have worked on throughout the years is Adobe Premiere Pro. With a simple layout on the timeline, Premiere Pro's interface is organized and easy to use the first time anyone opens it in comparison to other more advanced programs in use today.

Another benefit to Premiere Pro is that it works with other Adobe products. Most creators involved in digital marketing, YouTube Creation, or Social Media advertising will often use Premiere Pro along with other products such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, and other Adobe tools. This provides an ecosystem for the creator to move files from one Adobe product to another seamlessly while creating marketing videos, advertisements, or any marketing-related content.

Most computer classes have instructors who prefer to use Premiere Pro for their courses because of how easily novice users will learn the basic cuts, transitions, titles, and simple effects, without becoming overwhelmed by the number of technical options to choose from. For this reason, most editing course programs include Premiere Pro in their beginner level curriculum.

DaVinci Resolve: Powerful but Slightly Technical

On the flip side, DaVinci Resolve has a stellar reputation within the professional film-making community. Initially it was developed primarily as a color grading application, but currently its color grading/conversion system remains one of the best colour correction systems on the planet. 

The cool thing about Resolve is that now you can edit, create visual effects, edit audio, and do all your colour grading in one platform, and for those wanting to learn every aspect of video production under one roof it is a great choice. 

Even with all these benefits of using Resolve many beginners still feel that it has a little bit more technical learning curve, there are many different workspaces within Resolve and many options that might be confusing for a beginner, especially if they do not have the benefit of some structured computer class ownership from an instructor.  In many cases new learners may take substantially longer than they should to master the software due to this factor. 

That said, the nice thing about Resolve is that there is also a HUGE advantage — it has a free version that is packed with features! So, for those new to video editing that may not have the funds to spend on high-end editing software, using Resolve to learn how to edit video provides an excellent entry point to develop into a professional quality video editor.

What a Good Editing Course Actually Teaches

Selecting appropriate software is important; however, the foundational principles learned are what enable a person to become a great video editor. Typically, the editing courses that are taught well will cover skills that are applicable between Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve as an example. The following are examples of items students would Commonly learn about when taking an editing class:

1. The Editing Timeline and Video Layers

2. Basic Cuts | Trimming | Storytelling Flow

3. Adding Titles | Transitions | Background Music

4. Color Correction Techniques

5. Exporting Video for YouTube | Instagram | Marketing Campaigns

Many of these skills can be found in the current computer class atmosphere where students practice the skills they learned by completing real-world projects such as YouTube videos, social media reels, or promotional materials for a digital marketing campaign.

How Editing Skills Help in Digital Marketing

Video is currently one of the top tools available for digital marketers. Companies use short videos to showcase their products, describe their services, and get attention via social media sites like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Individuals who complete an editing program will have the skills necessary to apply them in a digital marketing career. There is a constant demand for video editors across all sizes of businesses to produce engaging video content that will hold viewer attention in the first few seconds. 

Even small businesses are using video marketing to connect with potential customers online by producing short promotional video clips.

Because of this need for video editing skills combined with an understanding of digital marketing principles, many current technology courses incorporate elements of video editing into their curriculum along with elements of digital marketing. Students learn techniques for editing video within software, they also reflect on which styles, speeds and images attract an audience when set to play online.

Final Thoughts

From a beginner's perspective, because of its more intuitive user interface, Adobe Premiere Pro appears to be easier to get up and running on with lots of various types of instructional training programs available for that software also. On the other hand, though DaVinci Resolve has many powerful features, it can be a good tool for those who prefer not to pay for it, as well as use this for developing skills in video editing.

Ultimately, the decision doesn’t come down to software, but also to the environment you are using it in when you are taking an editing class with hands-on experience on how to use the software, the software will be easier for you to master. After you have a solid understanding of storytelling principles and principles of timing and visual flow, switching from one tool to another will be much more straightforward.

At this point in time, video editing will be what it is supposed to be — creative storytelling rather than just software editing.

Powered by Froala Editor