Five Premiere Pro Shortcuts to Save You Crazy Amounts of Time

These five Premiere Pro keyboard shortcuts might be lesser-known, but they’re bound to save you a ton of time.

In the four or five years that I’ve been writing about filmmaking and post-production, I’ve shared numerous videos and cheat sheets and articles about nailing down your keyboard shortcut workflow. In fact, the very last article I ever wrote for No Film School was all about Premiere shortcuts. Anyhow, the point is that it’s one of those things that can immeasurably speed up your process, especially when it comes to repetitive tasks you do many times a day. And these Premiere Pro keyboard shortcuts will definitely come in handy to many editors.

While I personally still use a weird custom combination of Avid and FCP7 keyboard shortcuts (old habits die hard) for the most basic editing actions, I’m always on the hunt for new ones that I can add to my arsenal to save even more time. So I was thrilled when I came across this video from Jordy Vandeput of Cinecom where he shares five keyboard shortcuts that I had never known about, but which are all incredibly useful. Check it out:

For those of you unable to watch the video, here’s a quick recap of the shortcuts:

• Q for Before Playhead Trimming: Based on where your playhead is parked, this will not only trim off everything on your clip before the playhead, but it will ripple your sequence, so there aren’t any gaps left. For trimming a few frames or a few seconds from the front of a clip, there’s no faster way to do it than this simple one-key shortcut.
• W for After Playhead Trimming: This one is the inverse to the above shortcut. Just press W to trim off everything on your clip after the playhead and ripple the sequence. So handy. So quick.
• Bypass Lumetri Color: Assign this function to whatever keystroke you want (Jordy uses the number 0). It will be the handiest way to compare the original footage with your graded footage. To make this work, just open Premiere’s keyboard customization panel and type “Bypass,” and you’ll be able to assign this function to a keystroke.
• F to Show Source Media: Instead of having to hunt through your bins for a clip that’s in your sequence, just select the clip in the sequence and press F to load it into the source viewer.
• Alt+Arrow Keys: For moving a clip around on the timeline very precisely, this is a way better (and more precise) option than just using the mouse. When you select a clip on the timeline, just hold down Alt and use the arrow keys, holding down shift as well if you want to move the clip in larger increments.
• Alt+Scroll Wheel on Mouse to Zoom into Timeline: Personally, I prefer to have this one mapped to the plus and minus keys, but if you use a mouse with a scroll wheel, holding down the Alt key will allow you to start zooming into the timeline wherever the cursor is parked.
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So there you have it, 5 lesser-known shortcuts in Premiere that will save you a ton of time. Be sure to share your own favorite Premiere Pro keyboard shortcuts down in the comments!

[via 4KShooters]