4 Easy Ways Beginners Can Edit and Improve Videos

Want to improve a video that you’ve recorded but don’t have much (or any) experience with editing? Although editing a video may seem daunting for beginners, there are some easy ways that you can improve yours that don’t require much experience.

Split Videos into Segments to Trim and Cut Together a Video

One of the first things you should try is to split your videos into segments. In most video editors that have a timeline you should be able to position a marker and click on a button to split the video at that point.

Being able to split your video into segments can be useful in a number of ways. It will let you isolate segments that you can delete and remove from your video, or it will let you split a clip into parts that you can rearrange.

More importantly it is the foundation that you need to cut together a video, as you can split, trim, and then merge videos together to create the final cut. Any video editor can be used to do this, but for example you could use Movavi Video Editor and follow the instructions at https://www.movavi.com/support/how-to/how-to-split-videos.html.

Crop the Video to Adjust the Frame

Another useful and relatively easy way to edit videos is by cropping them. Different editors may handle it differently, but essentially you’ll be removing a section of the video’s frame.

Adjusting the frame by cropping it is a good way to alter the aspect ratio of your video. On top of that you can reframe your video to improve its overall composition as well. Using composition techniques such as the rule of thirds can help with that.

Keep in mind that cropping your video will essentially reduce its resolution – so if possible you will want to avoid cropping too significant a portion.

Apply Automated White Balance or Video Stabilization

The final two ways to edit your videos are probably the easiest – as they involve features that are normally entirely automated. The automated white balance tool will essentially balance the colors of your video, while the video stabilization tool will help fix shaky video footage.

Both of these tools can correct common issues that are present in any videos, and are present in most video editing software. Often they just require a single click, and automated algorithms will handle the rest. In some cases video stabilization may have a tolerance setting that can be adjusted depending on how shaky the video is.

While using the automated white balance tool is a perfect way to edit your video, it may help to also try adjusting the color balance settings manually. As you adjust settings such as the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, shadows, highlights, and so on – you’ll develop a better idea of how each one affects your video.

That in turn could come in handy if you ever want to manually perform color correction or color grading.

What else?

Now that you have a few ways how you can actually edit and improve your videos without much difficulty – you should give them a try. If you want to be able to edit videos, it is important that you get as much experience as possible, so you should use the four ways listed above as a starting point.

As you become more familiar with the video editor, you’re using, you can try experimenting with some of its other features as well. That should help you to get the experience that you need to move on to more advanced editing techniques that you can use to improve your videos.