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In 2024, How To Be A Successful YouTuber
How To Be A Successful YouTuber
Over the last few years, YouTube has gone from being a small video website containing funny videos, to the world’s second-largest search engine. YouTube currently boasts more than 2 billion video views per week. It can also provide a low-cost to no-cost solution to making a social marketing channel for your hobby or business. Most of the time, success is not achieved overnight.
Creating a YouTube channel that will be successful takes a lot of time, effort, planning, and work to kickstart it from zero. In this article, we will be covering the most important topics you have to remember when becoming a successful YouTube star.
- Promotion and Marketing
With that said, let’s get into it!
Successful YouTuber
1. Understand ‘Success’ Means
YouTube’s success is based on the premise that all visitors need the same thing. Search, find, and leave as fast as possible. Kind of like a store. But YouTube visitors have much more diverse needs than you might think. Some come to watch short clips of cats doing silly things, others to view TV shows or how to learn an instrument, cooking, maintain a car, and so much more.
The way your success is measured is by the number of viewers you get onto your channel. No matter what kind of content you upload, whether it’s about music, education, when you turn viewers into subscribers, dedicated fans, and supporters, that is how you can measure your success and how you can get as many new people through the door and make them stick around because they love what you do and what value you are to them. We are going more in-depth in the other stages of this article about analytics and measurements.
Understand What ‘Success’ Means
2. Create Your Plan
When it comes to building a successful YouTube channel, consistency is super important. You are more likely to gain success if you have a well-thought-out plan and a strategy for uploading content. Instead of uploading once per month, try once per week if your time schedule allows it so your new viewers know when to expect a new video. Planning is super important because it will allow you to stick to a schedule. If you have a lot of time to create videos, people tend to get used to that schedule. Once you’re planning becomes less structured because of lack of time, it can confuse viewers as consistency is important. People do not like change, or it will take time for them to get used to a new schedule, especially if it changes often.
Create Your Plan
3. Make Your YouTube Videos
After you created your plan, your strategy, and all the preparation, it is time to start filming! We highly recommend working with an upload schedule, so you know which videos to create and when they have to be finished. Try to have a good overall layout and theme for your videos from the start so people know who you are and what you do. Once you started filming you can continue the process and keep producing.
Note: If you have less time, you can create more videos in one filming session so you have a bulk library you can release over the period when you don’t have time for creating content.
Make Your YouTube Videos
It’s highly recommended to write down a list of topics for videos so you can have your same recording set ready to go for whenever you start shooting. If you are able to keep a dedicated space to keep your set, that’s a huge plus instead of having to tear everything down and setting up again each time you film and it gives your viewers a consistent idea of what they can expect any time new video releases onto your YouTube channel.
4. Use Analytics to Improve
Some marketers could have an unhealthy relationship with analytics. They track too many of the numbers. Maybe we think we can prove any marketing campaign is producing results if there’s an eye-catching percentage. But we all know that some metrics are a lot more revealing than other types of statistics.
We have listed 3 important types of metrics you have to study to truly understand your audience.
❶ Watch Time
The Watch Time is the total amount of minutes viewers have spent watching your content. It’s a key metric because YouTube pushes videos and channels with higher Watch Times in their search results and recommendations section. YouTube does this because the more Watch Time a video has, the more engaging their algorithm knows it is and YouTube like to recommend videos that keep viewers as long as possible on the platform.
Watch Time
In the Watch Time section, you can see the amount of Watch Time your videos have generated. You can also rank each of your videos by Watch Time and group your videos by styles, lengths and themes to determine your most engaging videos.
❷ Average view duration
Your Average view duration is the total Watch Time of your video divided by the total number of video playbacks, also including replays. This metric measures your video’s ability to engage people. If your video can’t engage new visitors, they’ll jump off from your video quite fast, leaving you with an unimpressive average view duration. If you create a high-performing video, your Average view duration and total Watch Time will increase over time and boost your search and recommendations rankings by a lot.
Average View Duration
❸ Audience Retention
Let’s talk about Audience Retention. If your video is longer than five minutes, and Audience Retention is more than 50%, you are going in the right direction. A hook is something that grabs a viewer’s attention and will result in them staying longer on your video or browsing your other content. We recommend regularly reviewing your videos to ensure you aren’t attracting visitors to outdated content. Older videos can turn them away and they may view your YouTube channel as less trustworthy or valuable as a source for the information that they are looking for. Updated videos are high-quality videos.
Audience Retention
5. Promotion and Marketing
Now it is time to let all your hard work pay off! There is one last thing to focus on so your videos will generate your desired results. Promoting your video is important when it comes to letting it find the target audience. We have listed a few options for promoting and marketing your content.
Promotion and Marketing
❶ YouTube’s Community Tab
Tips for You
1. Make a Post
To create a YouTube Community post on your computer or smartphone, go navigate to your YouTube channel, and look for the tab called “Community.”
2. Tag Content Creators
Now you can make a post and add either an image or a video to it to promote it! You can also tag other content creators by writing an @ symbol in front of the channel’s name.
To create a YouTube Community post on your computer or smartphone, go navigate to your YouTube channel, and look for the tab called “Community.” Now you can make a post and add either an image or a video to it to promote it! You can also tag other content creators by writing an @ symbol in front of the channel’s name.
❷ Social Media Advertisements
Tips for You
1. Targeting Teens at Tiktok
When choosing where to place your advertisements, it’s helpful to understand which networks are most popular with your target audience. Targeting teens? TikTok is where to find them. Older generations love Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.
2. Find Social Networks for Your Brand
Try looking at which social networks perform well organically for your brand. Where does your content naturally strike a chord with fans? This is an obvious choice for your first social ad campaign.
With that said, let’s get into it!
Successful YouTuber
1. Understand ‘Success’ Means
YouTube’s success is based on the premise that all visitors need the same thing. Search, find, and leave as fast as possible. Kind of like a store. But YouTube visitors have much more diverse needs than you might think. Some come to watch short clips of cats doing silly things, others to view TV shows or how to learn an instrument, cooking, maintain a car, and so much more.
The way your success is measured is by the number of viewers you get onto your channel. No matter what kind of content you upload, whether it’s about music, education, when you turn viewers into subscribers, dedicated fans, and supporters, that is how you can measure your success and how you can get as many new people through the door and make them stick around because they love what you do and what value you are to them. We are going more in-depth in the other stages of this article about analytics and measurements.
Understand What ‘Success’ Means
2. Create Your Plan
When it comes to building a successful YouTube channel, consistency is super important. You are more likely to gain success if you have a well-thought-out plan and a strategy for uploading content. Instead of uploading once per month, try once per week if your time schedule allows it so your new viewers know when to expect a new video. Planning is super important because it will allow you to stick to a schedule. If you have a lot of time to create videos, people tend to get used to that schedule. Once you’re planning becomes less structured because of lack of time, it can confuse viewers as consistency is important. People do not like change, or it will take time for them to get used to a new schedule, especially if it changes often.
Create Your Plan
3. Make Your YouTube Videos
After you created your plan, your strategy, and all the preparation, it is time to start filming! We highly recommend working with an upload schedule, so you know which videos to create and when they have to be finished. Try to have a good overall layout and theme for your videos from the start so people know who you are and what you do. Once you started filming you can continue the process and keep producing.
Note: If you have less time, you can create more videos in one filming session so you have a bulk library you can release over the period when you don’t have time for creating content.
Make Your YouTube Videos
It’s highly recommended to write down a list of topics for videos so you can have your same recording set ready to go for whenever you start shooting. If you are able to keep a dedicated space to keep your set, that’s a huge plus instead of having to tear everything down and setting up again each time you film and it gives your viewers a consistent idea of what they can expect any time new video releases onto your YouTube channel.
4. Use Analytics to Improve
Some marketers could have an unhealthy relationship with analytics. They track too many of the numbers. Maybe we think we can prove any marketing campaign is producing results if there’s an eye-catching percentage. But we all know that some metrics are a lot more revealing than other types of statistics.
We have listed 3 important types of metrics you have to study to truly understand your audience.
❶ Watch Time
The Watch Time is the total amount of minutes viewers have spent watching your content. It’s a key metric because YouTube pushes videos and channels with higher Watch Times in their search results and recommendations section. YouTube does this because the more Watch Time a video has, the more engaging their algorithm knows it is and YouTube like to recommend videos that keep viewers as long as possible on the platform.
Watch Time
In the Watch Time section, you can see the amount of Watch Time your videos have generated. You can also rank each of your videos by Watch Time and group your videos by styles, lengths and themes to determine your most engaging videos.
❷ Average view duration
Your Average view duration is the total Watch Time of your video divided by the total number of video playbacks, also including replays. This metric measures your video’s ability to engage people. If your video can’t engage new visitors, they’ll jump off from your video quite fast, leaving you with an unimpressive average view duration. If you create a high-performing video, your Average view duration and total Watch Time will increase over time and boost your search and recommendations rankings by a lot.
Average View Duration
❸ Audience Retention
Let’s talk about Audience Retention. If your video is longer than five minutes, and Audience Retention is more than 50%, you are going in the right direction. A hook is something that grabs a viewer’s attention and will result in them staying longer on your video or browsing your other content. We recommend regularly reviewing your videos to ensure you aren’t attracting visitors to outdated content. Older videos can turn them away and they may view your YouTube channel as less trustworthy or valuable as a source for the information that they are looking for. Updated videos are high-quality videos.
Audience Retention
5. Promotion and Marketing
Now it is time to let all your hard work pay off! There is one last thing to focus on so your videos will generate your desired results. Promoting your video is important when it comes to letting it find the target audience. We have listed a few options for promoting and marketing your content.
Promotion and Marketing
❶ YouTube’s Community Tab
Tips for You
1. Make a Post
To create a YouTube Community post on your computer or smartphone, go navigate to your YouTube channel, and look for the tab called “Community.”
2. Tag Content Creators
Now you can make a post and add either an image or a video to it to promote it! You can also tag other content creators by writing an @ symbol in front of the channel’s name.
To create a YouTube Community post on your computer or smartphone, go navigate to your YouTube channel, and look for the tab called “Community.” Now you can make a post and add either an image or a video to it to promote it! You can also tag other content creators by writing an @ symbol in front of the channel’s name.
❷ Social Media Advertisements
Tips for You
1. Targeting Teens at Tiktok
When choosing where to place your advertisements, it’s helpful to understand which networks are most popular with your target audience. Targeting teens? TikTok is where to find them. Older generations love Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.
2. Find Social Networks for Your Brand
Try looking at which social networks perform well organically for your brand. Where does your content naturally strike a chord with fans? This is an obvious choice for your first social ad campaign.
Read on to Learn About OpenCV Object Tracking, What It Is, and How to Implement It in Python, and OpenCV
OpenCV Tracking is a popular method used for tracking objects in a video in real-time. OpenCV is a powerful library used for image processing and computer vision applications.
From real-time video analysis to Augmented Reality, OpenCV Tracking has a wide range of uses and can help both private and public sectors to detect and track the desired object in an image or video.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore OpenCV Tracking and its pre-built trackers**.** We will use the OpenCV library and Python to implement this Object Tracking application.
- What Is OpenCV
- The Pre-Built Algorithms OpenCV Offers For Object Tracking
- Implementation In Python And OpenCV
Part 1. What Is Object Tracking?
Object Tracking determines the location of an object in a video and can be used for a variety of purposes, including surveillance, security, traffic control, digital forensics, anomaly detection, gesture recognition, visual surveillance, human-computer interaction, augmented reality, and robot vision.
Even though it may seem easy for an average person, object tracking is quite complex for computers because they have to analyze a set of frames and estimate the object’s trajectory based on numbers instead of images.
Because of how complicated it is, Object Tracking is considered one of the most difficult tasks in computer vision. Even though it’s a challenge, it’s not impossible to accomplish.
And there are two levels of Object Tracking that you should learn about:
1. SOT & MOT
- Single Object Tracking (SOT): SOT is a tracking algorithm that creates advanced appearance models and/or motion models to manage difficult issues like out-of-plane rotations, illumination variations, or scale changes.
- Multiple Object Tracking (MOT): MOT tracks every part of a video and is mainly concerned with mid-level tasks and serves as a foundation for high-level tasks.
2. The Difference Between Tracking And Detection
After knowing what Object Tracking is, there is another concept you should also be aware of - Object Detection.
The Object Tracking and Object Detection are two important methods in computer vision. Object Tracking tracks the position of a given object in an image in real-time, while Object Detection identifies and localizes objects in an image or video. That is the difference.
Part 2. Types Of Object Tracking
Image Tracking
Image tracking allows users to interact with digital content more naturally and helps users move and interact with digital objects in the same manner as they will with real-world physical objects.
Image tracking can be used in various augmented reality (AR) applications, such as AR gaming, shopping, and navigation. Moreover, you can also use it for educational purposes, such as teaching anatomy or providing instructions for a difficult task.
Video Tracking
Video tracking is the process of tracking objects in a video sequence and can be used for various applications, such as detecting and counting objects in a scene, understanding their motions, and recognizing activities.
Part 3. What Are The Difficulties Of Object Tracking?
As what has been mentioned above, the use of object tracking is versatile. However, there are some challenges associated with Object Tracking, such as:
Background Clutter: The background can impact extracting an object’s features. If the background is more densely populated, detecting or tracking the object of interest can be more difficult.
Occlusion: This is a phenomenon where the object being tracked is affected by the background or foreground. This causes the tracking algorithm to get confused due to multiple objects coming close together, hence, losing track of the object.
Varying spatial scales: Varying spatial scales refer to the target object being of a different size or shape, which can confuse the algorithm, leading to errors.
Training and Tracking Speed: If the object is moving too fast or is too small, it can be difficult to track. Therefore, the tracking module has to be designed to track, identify, and localize objects in a matter of seconds.
Part 4. Stages Of The Object Tracking Process
After the introduction of object tracking technically, let’s learn about its mechanism of it from two sides: periods of the working process and the way it tracks.
1. Stages Of The Object Tracking Process
Following are the stages of the Object Tracking process:
Target Initialization
Target initialization is the first step in Object Tracking and involves defining the targets or objects of interest and drawing a bounding box around them in the initial frame. After that, the tracker has to detect the position of the object in the frame while drawing the bounding box.
Appearance Modeling
Appearance modeling is important for understanding how an object will look under different circumstances. If the object being tracked changes appearance due to different lighting, angle, or speed, the tracking algorithm may lose its information and the object itself. Therefore, it has to be conducted to let the algorithm detect the changes and distortion.
Motion Estimation
Motion estimation entails the capacity of the model to anticipate an object’s future position with precision.
Target Positioning
Motion estimation is a process of approximating the most likely region where an object could be present. After the object’s location is approximated, a visual model can be used to determine the target’s location more accurately.
2. Methods Of Object Tracking
Here’re some methods of Object Tracking:
OpenCV-Based Object Tracking
OpenCV Object Tracking method is widely used because it offers several built-in functions designed specifically for this purpose, such as GOTURN, MIL, MediandFlow, and CSRT. The tracker type you select will depend on your specific application design. Each tracker has its pros and cons, so there is not a single type of tracker ideal for all applications.
MDNet
Multi-Domain Convolutional Neural Network Tracker is a convolutional neural-based visual tracker and has won the VOT2015 challenge. Moreover, it is composed of domain-specific layers, branches, and multiple shared layers.
The MDNetT tracker is a deep neural network that is trained on numerous Object Tracking datasets. The tracker is designed to work in multiple domains, including video, text, and images.
DeepSort
DeepSort algorithm can track objects in real-time and uses YOLO v3 to compute the bounding boxes around the objects in a frame.
DeepSort uses Kalman filter from Simple Online and Realtime Tracking algorithm and an identification model, ReID to interlink bounding boxes and object tracks.
ROLO
ROLO is a novel Object Tracking method that uses recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to learn object-specific Spatio-temporal representations. This method works with YOLO, an object detection algorithm, and an LTSM for determining the trajectory of an object.
Part 5. The powerful backup: OpenCV
We have demonstrated how powerful OpenCV Tracking is and how it works. However, do you wonder what OpenCV is? How it supports the tracking goals being achieved? In this part, we will focus on OpenCV and help you better understand the the underlying mechanisms.
1. What Is OpenCV?
OpenCV is a powerful library that allows you to perform image processing, deep learning, machine learning, and computer vision tasks on live video feeds. Moreover, it can be used to detect objects, track their movements, and recognize faces.
It can help process the data that have videos and images and has been used in various applications, such as object recognition and detection, autonomous cars, robots, medical image analysis, automated surveillance, and anomaly detection.
2. The Pre-Built Algorithms OpenCV Offers For Object Tracking
There are 8 pre-built algorithms that OpenCV offers for Objects Tracking. All of them have their uniquility and here we will present their pros and cons for your better understadning.
| Tracker | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| BOOSTING Tracker | Track objects accurately. | Relatively slow. Unable to stop when an object is lost. |
| MIL Tracker | Strong resistance to noise. Gives accurate results. | Low speed. Unable to stop tracking once the object is lost. |
| KCF Tracker | High speed and accuracy. Stops tracking when the object is lost. | Inability to continue tracking objects once lost. |
| TLD Tracker | Resistance to overlapping and object scaling. | Unstable in object detection and tracking. Constantly loses object. |
| MEDIANFLOW Tracker | High accuracy and speed. Accurate in determining the object’s loss. | Loses object quickly due to high speed. |
| GOTURN Tracker | Shows resistance to obstructions and noise. | If the speed of an object is high, it shifts to another object. |
| MOSSE Tracker | Able to continue tracking after the object is lost. High speed. | Loses object easily if very high speed. |
| CSRT Tracker | Good resistance to overlapping. High accuracy. | Low speed. Unstable when an object is lost. |
3. Implementation In Python And OpenCV
Now, after theoretical explanation of OpenCV and OpenCV Tracking, let’s learn Object Tracking OpenCV Python with coding and our simple and step-by-step instructions:
Install The Dependencies
Install the pycharm app on your PC, and launch it. Create a new project and go to Terminal. Install the opencv-contrib-python package by pasting the following command into the Terminal.
Set Up the Trackers
Now, create a Jupyter-notebook and set up the trackers with this code:
Tasks:
- cv2. version returns the OpenCV library version number.
- Save the name of the eight trackers.
- Check the list for the version you are working on and create a tracker object based on the number.
Capture The Video Input
For capturing the video input, write the following lines of code:
Tasks:
- Use the VideoCapture class to capture a video via the webcam or get a saved one from your PC.
- In VideoCapture - line 2, give the path to your video.
- Comment on the second line to use the webcam for tracking and uncomment the third one.
Creating The Bounding Box And Initializing The Tracker
Define an initial random bounding box or select the choices for the object you want to track with the following code:
Start The Tracker And Check The Output
Finally, write the below code lines to start the tracker:
Tasks
- Read each video frame.
- Start the timer and, through the tracker, determine the trajectory of the object.
- Use the trajectory to draw the bounding box.
- The program will start tracking. Afterward, press the space bar to stop tracking.
Video – Object Tracking with Opencv and Python
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve discussed Object Tracking in detail and how it compares with Object Detection. Furthermore, we explored the methods used for tracking objects and provided complete guidance on the OpenCV Tracking method and its built-in functionalities.
Hopefully, you find this guide helpful, and you can now track objects in real-time without any issues.
Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)
Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later
- Image Tracking
- Video Tracking
- What Are The Difficulties Of Object Tracking
- Stages Of The Object Tracking Process
- What Is OpenCV
- The Pre-Built Algorithms OpenCV Offers For Object Tracking
- Implementation In Python And OpenCV
Part 1. What Is Object Tracking?
Object Tracking determines the location of an object in a video and can be used for a variety of purposes, including surveillance, security, traffic control, digital forensics, anomaly detection, gesture recognition, visual surveillance, human-computer interaction, augmented reality, and robot vision.
Even though it may seem easy for an average person, object tracking is quite complex for computers because they have to analyze a set of frames and estimate the object’s trajectory based on numbers instead of images.
Because of how complicated it is, Object Tracking is considered one of the most difficult tasks in computer vision. Even though it’s a challenge, it’s not impossible to accomplish.
And there are two levels of Object Tracking that you should learn about:
1. SOT & MOT
- Single Object Tracking (SOT): SOT is a tracking algorithm that creates advanced appearance models and/or motion models to manage difficult issues like out-of-plane rotations, illumination variations, or scale changes.
- Multiple Object Tracking (MOT): MOT tracks every part of a video and is mainly concerned with mid-level tasks and serves as a foundation for high-level tasks.
2. The Difference Between Tracking And Detection
After knowing what Object Tracking is, there is another concept you should also be aware of - Object Detection.
The Object Tracking and Object Detection are two important methods in computer vision. Object Tracking tracks the position of a given object in an image in real-time, while Object Detection identifies and localizes objects in an image or video. That is the difference.
Part 2. Types Of Object Tracking
Image Tracking
Image tracking allows users to interact with digital content more naturally and helps users move and interact with digital objects in the same manner as they will with real-world physical objects.
Image tracking can be used in various augmented reality (AR) applications, such as AR gaming, shopping, and navigation. Moreover, you can also use it for educational purposes, such as teaching anatomy or providing instructions for a difficult task.
Video Tracking
Video tracking is the process of tracking objects in a video sequence and can be used for various applications, such as detecting and counting objects in a scene, understanding their motions, and recognizing activities.
Part 3. What Are The Difficulties Of Object Tracking?
As what has been mentioned above, the use of object tracking is versatile. However, there are some challenges associated with Object Tracking, such as:
Background Clutter: The background can impact extracting an object’s features. If the background is more densely populated, detecting or tracking the object of interest can be more difficult.
Occlusion: This is a phenomenon where the object being tracked is affected by the background or foreground. This causes the tracking algorithm to get confused due to multiple objects coming close together, hence, losing track of the object.
Varying spatial scales: Varying spatial scales refer to the target object being of a different size or shape, which can confuse the algorithm, leading to errors.
Training and Tracking Speed: If the object is moving too fast or is too small, it can be difficult to track. Therefore, the tracking module has to be designed to track, identify, and localize objects in a matter of seconds.
Part 4. Stages Of The Object Tracking Process
After the introduction of object tracking technically, let’s learn about its mechanism of it from two sides: periods of the working process and the way it tracks.
1. Stages Of The Object Tracking Process
Following are the stages of the Object Tracking process:
Target Initialization
Target initialization is the first step in Object Tracking and involves defining the targets or objects of interest and drawing a bounding box around them in the initial frame. After that, the tracker has to detect the position of the object in the frame while drawing the bounding box.
Appearance Modeling
Appearance modeling is important for understanding how an object will look under different circumstances. If the object being tracked changes appearance due to different lighting, angle, or speed, the tracking algorithm may lose its information and the object itself. Therefore, it has to be conducted to let the algorithm detect the changes and distortion.
Motion Estimation
Motion estimation entails the capacity of the model to anticipate an object’s future position with precision.
Target Positioning
Motion estimation is a process of approximating the most likely region where an object could be present. After the object’s location is approximated, a visual model can be used to determine the target’s location more accurately.
2. Methods Of Object Tracking
Here’re some methods of Object Tracking:
OpenCV-Based Object Tracking
OpenCV Object Tracking method is widely used because it offers several built-in functions designed specifically for this purpose, such as GOTURN, MIL, MediandFlow, and CSRT. The tracker type you select will depend on your specific application design. Each tracker has its pros and cons, so there is not a single type of tracker ideal for all applications.
MDNet
Multi-Domain Convolutional Neural Network Tracker is a convolutional neural-based visual tracker and has won the VOT2015 challenge. Moreover, it is composed of domain-specific layers, branches, and multiple shared layers.
The MDNetT tracker is a deep neural network that is trained on numerous Object Tracking datasets. The tracker is designed to work in multiple domains, including video, text, and images.
DeepSort
DeepSort algorithm can track objects in real-time and uses YOLO v3 to compute the bounding boxes around the objects in a frame.
DeepSort uses Kalman filter from Simple Online and Realtime Tracking algorithm and an identification model, ReID to interlink bounding boxes and object tracks.
ROLO
ROLO is a novel Object Tracking method that uses recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to learn object-specific Spatio-temporal representations. This method works with YOLO, an object detection algorithm, and an LTSM for determining the trajectory of an object.
Part 5. The powerful backup: OpenCV
We have demonstrated how powerful OpenCV Tracking is and how it works. However, do you wonder what OpenCV is? How it supports the tracking goals being achieved? In this part, we will focus on OpenCV and help you better understand the the underlying mechanisms.
1. What Is OpenCV?
OpenCV is a powerful library that allows you to perform image processing, deep learning, machine learning, and computer vision tasks on live video feeds. Moreover, it can be used to detect objects, track their movements, and recognize faces.
It can help process the data that have videos and images and has been used in various applications, such as object recognition and detection, autonomous cars, robots, medical image analysis, automated surveillance, and anomaly detection.
2. The Pre-Built Algorithms OpenCV Offers For Object Tracking
There are 8 pre-built algorithms that OpenCV offers for Objects Tracking. All of them have their uniquility and here we will present their pros and cons for your better understadning.
| Tracker | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| BOOSTING Tracker | Track objects accurately. | Relatively slow. Unable to stop when an object is lost. |
| MIL Tracker | Strong resistance to noise. Gives accurate results. | Low speed. Unable to stop tracking once the object is lost. |
| KCF Tracker | High speed and accuracy. Stops tracking when the object is lost. | Inability to continue tracking objects once lost. |
| TLD Tracker | Resistance to overlapping and object scaling. | Unstable in object detection and tracking. Constantly loses object. |
| MEDIANFLOW Tracker | High accuracy and speed. Accurate in determining the object’s loss. | Loses object quickly due to high speed. |
| GOTURN Tracker | Shows resistance to obstructions and noise. | If the speed of an object is high, it shifts to another object. |
| MOSSE Tracker | Able to continue tracking after the object is lost. High speed. | Loses object easily if very high speed. |
| CSRT Tracker | Good resistance to overlapping. High accuracy. | Low speed. Unstable when an object is lost. |
3. Implementation In Python And OpenCV
Now, after theoretical explanation of OpenCV and OpenCV Tracking, let’s learn Object Tracking OpenCV Python with coding and our simple and step-by-step instructions:
Install The Dependencies
Install the pycharm app on your PC, and launch it. Create a new project and go to Terminal. Install the opencv-contrib-python package by pasting the following command into the Terminal.
Set Up the Trackers
Now, create a Jupyter-notebook and set up the trackers with this code:
Tasks:
- cv2. version returns the OpenCV library version number.
- Save the name of the eight trackers.
- Check the list for the version you are working on and create a tracker object based on the number.
Capture The Video Input
For capturing the video input, write the following lines of code:
Tasks:
- Use the VideoCapture class to capture a video via the webcam or get a saved one from your PC.
- In VideoCapture - line 2, give the path to your video.
- Comment on the second line to use the webcam for tracking and uncomment the third one.
Creating The Bounding Box And Initializing The Tracker
Define an initial random bounding box or select the choices for the object you want to track with the following code:
Start The Tracker And Check The Output
Finally, write the below code lines to start the tracker:
Tasks
- Read each video frame.
- Start the timer and, through the tracker, determine the trajectory of the object.
- Use the trajectory to draw the bounding box.
- The program will start tracking. Afterward, press the space bar to stop tracking.
Video – Object Tracking with Opencv and Python
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve discussed Object Tracking in detail and how it compares with Object Detection. Furthermore, we explored the methods used for tracking objects and provided complete guidance on the OpenCV Tracking method and its built-in functionalities.
Hopefully, you find this guide helpful, and you can now track objects in real-time without any issues.
Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)
Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later
How to Create Your Own LUTs for Your Video with Filmora
Create High-Quality Video - Wondershare Filmora
An easy and powerful YouTube video editor
Numerous video and audio effects to choose from
Detailed tutorials are provided by the official channel
Color grading can feel daunting, especially if you don’t have much experience grading footage. Fortunately, LUTs can help you grade your footage almost effortlessly. Like your favorite Snapchat or Instagram filters, a LUT can instantly transform dull-looking footage into something more vibrant. So, what is a LUT?
LUT is an acronym for “look up table.” A LUT is a preset color that you can apply to footage to transform how it looks. Video editors, colorists, and filmmakers use LUTs to speed up color grading. However, you don’t need to be an experienced professional to use them. With minimal color grading and video editing experience, you can easily apply LUTs to your footage.
LUTs are usually denoted by the .LUT, .CUBE, or. 3DL file extensions. You can create LUTs using several video editing and color grading applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Filmora. In this guide, we’ll explore how to create your own LUT and use custom LUTs in Filmora.
In this article
01 Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
03 How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
Many video editing tools usually come with pre-installed LUTs that you can quickly apply to footage. However, you may need to create your own LUT in some cases. Here are some reasons why you may need to create your own LUT:
1. To Create a Particular Feeling
Clients may want their videos to evoke a particular emotion. If the pre-installed LUTs that come with your video editing software can’t evoke the particular feeling the client wants, you may need to create your own LUT. Some key questions to ask yourself when creating the LUT include:
- What is the genre of the video project?
- What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?
- Are there any colors or tones that you should emphasize?
- Once you ask yourself these questions, you’ll be able to create an appropriate LUT for the client.
For instance, if the genre of the video project is a comedy, you may want to create a LUT that highlights orange, yellow, and its tones to create a cheerful atmosphere.
On the other hand, if the project’s genre is an action video, you may want to create a LUT that highlights blue, green, and other similar tones to evoke a serious feeling.
2. To Showcase Several Looks
Color grading often comes down to preference. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution when grading footage, especially if the video project is on a neutral topic.
Creating custom LUTs can allow you to preview different looks for clients and allow them to choose the footage they like.
3. To Speed Up the Color Grading Process
Perhaps the biggest pro of LUTs is their ability to speed up the color grading process. Creating your own LUTs can allow you to use the same LUT for multiple projects that are similar and save time during color grading.
In addition, since color grading can take a considerable amount of time, creating your own LUTs can be helpful if you regularly work on projects with tight deadlines.
And if you’re working with an editor or team of editors, adding your own LUT to the footage can speed up editing and give the final cut a more refined look.
4. When Working with Multiple Editing Tools
Nearly all popular video editing applications support LUTs. If you regularly use several applications for editing and color grading, LUTs can help you quickly achieve the same colors across all the various applications you use.
All editing applications have different color grading tools, so it’s relatively challenging to achieve the same colors across several applications. Creating your own LUTs can make it easier to transfer color values between different software.
How to Create Your Own LUT
Creating LUTs is fairly simple. However, to create effective LUTs, ensure you prepare your source footage to avoid issues down the line when applying the LUT to your footage.
Here are some crucial things you should do when prepping your source footage:
- Ensure your exposure is perfect.
- Ensure your white balance is correct.
- Ensure your lighting reflects an accurate balance of highlights and shadows.
By ensuring these things are in order, you will be able to create a versatile LUT that you can apply across a wide variety of footage.
After prepping your source footage, you can then create your own LUT. Here’s how you can create a LUT in Filmora following a few simple steps:
Tips for Filmora New Version Users
Due to the updating of Filmora, some of the following operations may be different from the operations of the new version, new version users can click on the latest operation guide - Apply 3D LUT in color correction in the User Guide section.
Step 1. Import the Footage
Launch Filmora and click on New Project. In the New Project window that opens, import your footage by clicking on Import and selecting one of the drop-down options.
Step 2. Add the Footage to the Timeline
Drag and drop the footage into your project’s timeline.
Step 3. Open the Color Tab
Double click on the video on the timeline to select it. Then, navigate to the top left panel and click on the Color tab.
Step 4. Create Your LUT
Under the Color tab, choose the ‘3D LUT’ in Basic to customize your own LUTs.
Since you’re creating your own LUT instead of using the pre-built LUTs, scroll down to adjust various things, such as the White Balance, Color, Light, HSL, and Vignette.
Tweak these settings until you’re satisfied with the results. To help you make the adjustments and balance the intensity of the colors in your footage, check the color histogram located at the top right corner of the window.
Step 5. Save Your LUT
If you’re satisfied with the results, click on the 
Save button locate in the menu bar.
You’ll need to name and save your LUT in the new window that opens. Give your LUT a descriptive name and click on OK to save it.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully created your own LUT.
How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Step 1. Import the Footage
Follow steps 1, 2, and 3 in the section on creating your own LUT to launch Filmora, import your footage, add it to the project timeline, and open the Color tab.
Step 2. Apply the Custom LUT
Under the Color tab, click on the All Presets drop-down menu to view all the available preset options.
Click on the Custom option to view the LUT you created. To apply the custom LUT, simply click on it to apply it to your footage.
Step 3. Save the Changes
If you’re pleased with the results, click on the OK button to save the changes.
Filmora will apply the custom LUT to the video in the Preview Monitor.
Step 4. Export the Footage
Finally, you can export the footage by clicking on the Export tab on the main menu and selecting one of the available options on the drop-down menu.
For Win 7 or later (64-bit)
For macOS 10.12 or later
Conclusion
LUTs can make the color grading process easier and quicker. They can prove incredibly useful, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the color grading workflow or hard-pressed for time. They can also elevate your footage and make it look more cinematic.
While many video editing applications come with several pre-installed LUTs, try to create your custom LUTs using the steps above. Creating your LUTs from scratch may take you slightly more time than using pre-created LUTs, but creating the perfect LUT could save you time grading future projects.
When creating your own LUTs, try to create and apply several different LUTs to see which one is suitable for your footage. There usually isn’t a one-size-fits-all LUT option, so creating and testing out different LUTs is the best way to find the perfect custom LUT for your projects.
Color grading can feel daunting, especially if you don’t have much experience grading footage. Fortunately, LUTs can help you grade your footage almost effortlessly. Like your favorite Snapchat or Instagram filters, a LUT can instantly transform dull-looking footage into something more vibrant. So, what is a LUT?
LUT is an acronym for “look up table.” A LUT is a preset color that you can apply to footage to transform how it looks. Video editors, colorists, and filmmakers use LUTs to speed up color grading. However, you don’t need to be an experienced professional to use them. With minimal color grading and video editing experience, you can easily apply LUTs to your footage.
LUTs are usually denoted by the .LUT, .CUBE, or. 3DL file extensions. You can create LUTs using several video editing and color grading applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Filmora. In this guide, we’ll explore how to create your own LUT and use custom LUTs in Filmora.
In this article
01 Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
03 How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
Many video editing tools usually come with pre-installed LUTs that you can quickly apply to footage. However, you may need to create your own LUT in some cases. Here are some reasons why you may need to create your own LUT:
1. To Create a Particular Feeling
Clients may want their videos to evoke a particular emotion. If the pre-installed LUTs that come with your video editing software can’t evoke the particular feeling the client wants, you may need to create your own LUT. Some key questions to ask yourself when creating the LUT include:
- What is the genre of the video project?
- What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?
- Are there any colors or tones that you should emphasize?
- Once you ask yourself these questions, you’ll be able to create an appropriate LUT for the client.
For instance, if the genre of the video project is a comedy, you may want to create a LUT that highlights orange, yellow, and its tones to create a cheerful atmosphere.
On the other hand, if the project’s genre is an action video, you may want to create a LUT that highlights blue, green, and other similar tones to evoke a serious feeling.
2. To Showcase Several Looks
Color grading often comes down to preference. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution when grading footage, especially if the video project is on a neutral topic.
Creating custom LUTs can allow you to preview different looks for clients and allow them to choose the footage they like.
3. To Speed Up the Color Grading Process
Perhaps the biggest pro of LUTs is their ability to speed up the color grading process. Creating your own LUTs can allow you to use the same LUT for multiple projects that are similar and save time during color grading.
In addition, since color grading can take a considerable amount of time, creating your own LUTs can be helpful if you regularly work on projects with tight deadlines.
And if you’re working with an editor or team of editors, adding your own LUT to the footage can speed up editing and give the final cut a more refined look.
4. When Working with Multiple Editing Tools
Nearly all popular video editing applications support LUTs. If you regularly use several applications for editing and color grading, LUTs can help you quickly achieve the same colors across all the various applications you use.
All editing applications have different color grading tools, so it’s relatively challenging to achieve the same colors across several applications. Creating your own LUTs can make it easier to transfer color values between different software.
How to Create Your Own LUT
Creating LUTs is fairly simple. However, to create effective LUTs, ensure you prepare your source footage to avoid issues down the line when applying the LUT to your footage.
Here are some crucial things you should do when prepping your source footage:
- Ensure your exposure is perfect.
- Ensure your white balance is correct.
- Ensure your lighting reflects an accurate balance of highlights and shadows.
By ensuring these things are in order, you will be able to create a versatile LUT that you can apply across a wide variety of footage.
After prepping your source footage, you can then create your own LUT. Here’s how you can create a LUT in Filmora following a few simple steps:
Tips for Filmora New Version Users
Due to the updating of Filmora, some of the following operations may be different from the operations of the new version, new version users can click on the latest operation guide - Apply 3D LUT in color correction in the User Guide section.
Step 1. Import the Footage
Launch Filmora and click on New Project. In the New Project window that opens, import your footage by clicking on Import and selecting one of the drop-down options.
Step 2. Add the Footage to the Timeline
Drag and drop the footage into your project’s timeline.
Step 3. Open the Color Tab
Double click on the video on the timeline to select it. Then, navigate to the top left panel and click on the Color tab.
Step 4. Create Your LUT
Under the Color tab, choose the ‘3D LUT’ in Basic to customize your own LUTs.
Since you’re creating your own LUT instead of using the pre-built LUTs, scroll down to adjust various things, such as the White Balance, Color, Light, HSL, and Vignette.
Tweak these settings until you’re satisfied with the results. To help you make the adjustments and balance the intensity of the colors in your footage, check the color histogram located at the top right corner of the window.
Step 5. Save Your LUT
If you’re satisfied with the results, click on the Save button locate in the menu bar.
You’ll need to name and save your LUT in the new window that opens. Give your LUT a descriptive name and click on OK to save it.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully created your own LUT.
How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Step 1. Import the Footage
Follow steps 1, 2, and 3 in the section on creating your own LUT to launch Filmora, import your footage, add it to the project timeline, and open the Color tab.
Step 2. Apply the Custom LUT
Under the Color tab, click on the All Presets drop-down menu to view all the available preset options.
Click on the Custom option to view the LUT you created. To apply the custom LUT, simply click on it to apply it to your footage.
Step 3. Save the Changes
If you’re pleased with the results, click on the OK button to save the changes.
Filmora will apply the custom LUT to the video in the Preview Monitor.
Step 4. Export the Footage
Finally, you can export the footage by clicking on the Export tab on the main menu and selecting one of the available options on the drop-down menu.
For Win 7 or later (64-bit)
For macOS 10.12 or later
Conclusion
LUTs can make the color grading process easier and quicker. They can prove incredibly useful, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the color grading workflow or hard-pressed for time. They can also elevate your footage and make it look more cinematic.
While many video editing applications come with several pre-installed LUTs, try to create your custom LUTs using the steps above. Creating your LUTs from scratch may take you slightly more time than using pre-created LUTs, but creating the perfect LUT could save you time grading future projects.
When creating your own LUTs, try to create and apply several different LUTs to see which one is suitable for your footage. There usually isn’t a one-size-fits-all LUT option, so creating and testing out different LUTs is the best way to find the perfect custom LUT for your projects.
Color grading can feel daunting, especially if you don’t have much experience grading footage. Fortunately, LUTs can help you grade your footage almost effortlessly. Like your favorite Snapchat or Instagram filters, a LUT can instantly transform dull-looking footage into something more vibrant. So, what is a LUT?
LUT is an acronym for “look up table.” A LUT is a preset color that you can apply to footage to transform how it looks. Video editors, colorists, and filmmakers use LUTs to speed up color grading. However, you don’t need to be an experienced professional to use them. With minimal color grading and video editing experience, you can easily apply LUTs to your footage.
LUTs are usually denoted by the .LUT, .CUBE, or. 3DL file extensions. You can create LUTs using several video editing and color grading applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Filmora. In this guide, we’ll explore how to create your own LUT and use custom LUTs in Filmora.
In this article
01 Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
03 How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
Many video editing tools usually come with pre-installed LUTs that you can quickly apply to footage. However, you may need to create your own LUT in some cases. Here are some reasons why you may need to create your own LUT:
1. To Create a Particular Feeling
Clients may want their videos to evoke a particular emotion. If the pre-installed LUTs that come with your video editing software can’t evoke the particular feeling the client wants, you may need to create your own LUT. Some key questions to ask yourself when creating the LUT include:
- What is the genre of the video project?
- What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?
- Are there any colors or tones that you should emphasize?
- Once you ask yourself these questions, you’ll be able to create an appropriate LUT for the client.
For instance, if the genre of the video project is a comedy, you may want to create a LUT that highlights orange, yellow, and its tones to create a cheerful atmosphere.
On the other hand, if the project’s genre is an action video, you may want to create a LUT that highlights blue, green, and other similar tones to evoke a serious feeling.
2. To Showcase Several Looks
Color grading often comes down to preference. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution when grading footage, especially if the video project is on a neutral topic.
Creating custom LUTs can allow you to preview different looks for clients and allow them to choose the footage they like.
3. To Speed Up the Color Grading Process
Perhaps the biggest pro of LUTs is their ability to speed up the color grading process. Creating your own LUTs can allow you to use the same LUT for multiple projects that are similar and save time during color grading.
In addition, since color grading can take a considerable amount of time, creating your own LUTs can be helpful if you regularly work on projects with tight deadlines.
And if you’re working with an editor or team of editors, adding your own LUT to the footage can speed up editing and give the final cut a more refined look.
4. When Working with Multiple Editing Tools
Nearly all popular video editing applications support LUTs. If you regularly use several applications for editing and color grading, LUTs can help you quickly achieve the same colors across all the various applications you use.
All editing applications have different color grading tools, so it’s relatively challenging to achieve the same colors across several applications. Creating your own LUTs can make it easier to transfer color values between different software.
How to Create Your Own LUT
Creating LUTs is fairly simple. However, to create effective LUTs, ensure you prepare your source footage to avoid issues down the line when applying the LUT to your footage.
Here are some crucial things you should do when prepping your source footage:
- Ensure your exposure is perfect.
- Ensure your white balance is correct.
- Ensure your lighting reflects an accurate balance of highlights and shadows.
By ensuring these things are in order, you will be able to create a versatile LUT that you can apply across a wide variety of footage.
After prepping your source footage, you can then create your own LUT. Here’s how you can create a LUT in Filmora following a few simple steps:
Tips for Filmora New Version Users
Due to the updating of Filmora, some of the following operations may be different from the operations of the new version, new version users can click on the latest operation guide - Apply 3D LUT in color correction in the User Guide section.
Step 1. Import the Footage
Launch Filmora and click on New Project. In the New Project window that opens, import your footage by clicking on Import and selecting one of the drop-down options.
Step 2. Add the Footage to the Timeline
Drag and drop the footage into your project’s timeline.
Step 3. Open the Color Tab
Double click on the video on the timeline to select it. Then, navigate to the top left panel and click on the Color tab.
Step 4. Create Your LUT
Under the Color tab, choose the ‘3D LUT’ in Basic to customize your own LUTs.
Since you’re creating your own LUT instead of using the pre-built LUTs, scroll down to adjust various things, such as the White Balance, Color, Light, HSL, and Vignette.
Tweak these settings until you’re satisfied with the results. To help you make the adjustments and balance the intensity of the colors in your footage, check the color histogram located at the top right corner of the window.
Step 5. Save Your LUT
If you’re satisfied with the results, click on the Save button locate in the menu bar.
You’ll need to name and save your LUT in the new window that opens. Give your LUT a descriptive name and click on OK to save it.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully created your own LUT.
How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Step 1. Import the Footage
Follow steps 1, 2, and 3 in the section on creating your own LUT to launch Filmora, import your footage, add it to the project timeline, and open the Color tab.
Step 2. Apply the Custom LUT
Under the Color tab, click on the All Presets drop-down menu to view all the available preset options.
Click on the Custom option to view the LUT you created. To apply the custom LUT, simply click on it to apply it to your footage.
Step 3. Save the Changes
If you’re pleased with the results, click on the OK button to save the changes.
Filmora will apply the custom LUT to the video in the Preview Monitor.
Step 4. Export the Footage
Finally, you can export the footage by clicking on the Export tab on the main menu and selecting one of the available options on the drop-down menu.
For Win 7 or later (64-bit)
For macOS 10.12 or later
Conclusion
LUTs can make the color grading process easier and quicker. They can prove incredibly useful, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the color grading workflow or hard-pressed for time. They can also elevate your footage and make it look more cinematic.
While many video editing applications come with several pre-installed LUTs, try to create your custom LUTs using the steps above. Creating your LUTs from scratch may take you slightly more time than using pre-created LUTs, but creating the perfect LUT could save you time grading future projects.
When creating your own LUTs, try to create and apply several different LUTs to see which one is suitable for your footage. There usually isn’t a one-size-fits-all LUT option, so creating and testing out different LUTs is the best way to find the perfect custom LUT for your projects.
Color grading can feel daunting, especially if you don’t have much experience grading footage. Fortunately, LUTs can help you grade your footage almost effortlessly. Like your favorite Snapchat or Instagram filters, a LUT can instantly transform dull-looking footage into something more vibrant. So, what is a LUT?
LUT is an acronym for “look up table.” A LUT is a preset color that you can apply to footage to transform how it looks. Video editors, colorists, and filmmakers use LUTs to speed up color grading. However, you don’t need to be an experienced professional to use them. With minimal color grading and video editing experience, you can easily apply LUTs to your footage.
LUTs are usually denoted by the .LUT, .CUBE, or. 3DL file extensions. You can create LUTs using several video editing and color grading applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Filmora. In this guide, we’ll explore how to create your own LUT and use custom LUTs in Filmora.
In this article
01 Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
03 How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Why We Need to Create Our Own LUT
Many video editing tools usually come with pre-installed LUTs that you can quickly apply to footage. However, you may need to create your own LUT in some cases. Here are some reasons why you may need to create your own LUT:
1. To Create a Particular Feeling
Clients may want their videos to evoke a particular emotion. If the pre-installed LUTs that come with your video editing software can’t evoke the particular feeling the client wants, you may need to create your own LUT. Some key questions to ask yourself when creating the LUT include:
- What is the genre of the video project?
- What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?
- Are there any colors or tones that you should emphasize?
- Once you ask yourself these questions, you’ll be able to create an appropriate LUT for the client.
For instance, if the genre of the video project is a comedy, you may want to create a LUT that highlights orange, yellow, and its tones to create a cheerful atmosphere.
On the other hand, if the project’s genre is an action video, you may want to create a LUT that highlights blue, green, and other similar tones to evoke a serious feeling.
2. To Showcase Several Looks
Color grading often comes down to preference. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution when grading footage, especially if the video project is on a neutral topic.
Creating custom LUTs can allow you to preview different looks for clients and allow them to choose the footage they like.
3. To Speed Up the Color Grading Process
Perhaps the biggest pro of LUTs is their ability to speed up the color grading process. Creating your own LUTs can allow you to use the same LUT for multiple projects that are similar and save time during color grading.
In addition, since color grading can take a considerable amount of time, creating your own LUTs can be helpful if you regularly work on projects with tight deadlines.
And if you’re working with an editor or team of editors, adding your own LUT to the footage can speed up editing and give the final cut a more refined look.
4. When Working with Multiple Editing Tools
Nearly all popular video editing applications support LUTs. If you regularly use several applications for editing and color grading, LUTs can help you quickly achieve the same colors across all the various applications you use.
All editing applications have different color grading tools, so it’s relatively challenging to achieve the same colors across several applications. Creating your own LUTs can make it easier to transfer color values between different software.
How to Create Your Own LUT
Creating LUTs is fairly simple. However, to create effective LUTs, ensure you prepare your source footage to avoid issues down the line when applying the LUT to your footage.
Here are some crucial things you should do when prepping your source footage:
- Ensure your exposure is perfect.
- Ensure your white balance is correct.
- Ensure your lighting reflects an accurate balance of highlights and shadows.
By ensuring these things are in order, you will be able to create a versatile LUT that you can apply across a wide variety of footage.
After prepping your source footage, you can then create your own LUT. Here’s how you can create a LUT in Filmora following a few simple steps:
Tips for Filmora New Version Users
Due to the updating of Filmora, some of the following operations may be different from the operations of the new version, new version users can click on the latest operation guide - Apply 3D LUT in color correction in the User Guide section.
Step 1. Import the Footage
Launch Filmora and click on New Project. In the New Project window that opens, import your footage by clicking on Import and selecting one of the drop-down options.
Step 2. Add the Footage to the Timeline
Drag and drop the footage into your project’s timeline.
Step 3. Open the Color Tab
Double click on the video on the timeline to select it. Then, navigate to the top left panel and click on the Color tab.
Step 4. Create Your LUT
Under the Color tab, choose the ‘3D LUT’ in Basic to customize your own LUTs.
Since you’re creating your own LUT instead of using the pre-built LUTs, scroll down to adjust various things, such as the White Balance, Color, Light, HSL, and Vignette.
Tweak these settings until you’re satisfied with the results. To help you make the adjustments and balance the intensity of the colors in your footage, check the color histogram located at the top right corner of the window.
Step 5. Save Your LUT
If you’re satisfied with the results, click on the Save button locate in the menu bar.
You’ll need to name and save your LUT in the new window that opens. Give your LUT a descriptive name and click on OK to save it.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully created your own LUT.
How to Use Custom LUTs in Filmora
Step 1. Import the Footage
Follow steps 1, 2, and 3 in the section on creating your own LUT to launch Filmora, import your footage, add it to the project timeline, and open the Color tab.
Step 2. Apply the Custom LUT
Under the Color tab, click on the All Presets drop-down menu to view all the available preset options.
Click on the Custom option to view the LUT you created. To apply the custom LUT, simply click on it to apply it to your footage.
Step 3. Save the Changes
If you’re pleased with the results, click on the OK button to save the changes.
Filmora will apply the custom LUT to the video in the Preview Monitor.
Step 4. Export the Footage
Finally, you can export the footage by clicking on the Export tab on the main menu and selecting one of the available options on the drop-down menu.
For Win 7 or later (64-bit)
For macOS 10.12 or later
Conclusion
LUTs can make the color grading process easier and quicker. They can prove incredibly useful, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the color grading workflow or hard-pressed for time. They can also elevate your footage and make it look more cinematic.
While many video editing applications come with several pre-installed LUTs, try to create your custom LUTs using the steps above. Creating your LUTs from scratch may take you slightly more time than using pre-created LUTs, but creating the perfect LUT could save you time grading future projects.
When creating your own LUTs, try to create and apply several different LUTs to see which one is suitable for your footage. There usually isn’t a one-size-fits-all LUT option, so creating and testing out different LUTs is the best way to find the perfect custom LUT for your projects.
Top 7 Best GoPro Video Editors for Mac
Have you ever used or seen small box-type cameras for recording videos? Well, those are called action cameras. Action cameras are compact go. They were basically made to shoot sports or any other activities videos. They are mountable on many surfaces so you can record freely during any activity. Many of them provide 4K videos at 60 fps or higher to provide crisp video quality or low resolution at 120 or 240 fps to record smooth slow-mo videos. Most of them are waterproof and have good video stabilization so you can record any sports hassle-free.
There are many action camera companies out there in the market but the one ruling the market at the moment is GoPro. It has some best action camera models with dozens of amazing features. It can also record in RAW format and GoPro max can also shoot 360 videos.
GoPro gives amazing results but sometimes videos aren’t up to your expectations and need a little bit of refinement. From sharpening to speed ramping there are many ways to enhance your GoPro videos. And for this purpose, you need a good video editing software which has all these features plus it also supports RAW and 360 video files. Here we have mentioned some noteworthy video editing softwares for you.
Wondershare - Filmora :
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
If you are looking for professional and easy-to-use software to edit your GoPro videos then Filmora Video Editor can be the right choice for you. It has many cool features to enhance your action cam footage. From stabilization to color grading to fish eye effect all can be done in this software. It has a simple and attractive UI.
It has hundreds of effects and cool transitions. It is a paid video editor which also provides a free version to check and practice your skills on. But the main disadvantage of the free version is that it leaves a watermark on export. If you don’t want to invest money in the beginning, till then you can practice on the free version and once you are satisfied with your skills then you can upgrade to a pro version.
Pricing: Wondershare Filmora offers three different plans. Monthly one at $9.99/a month, Yearly one at $69.99, and perpetual license for $79.99 where you can own the software’s specific version for perpetual. It also provides an educational plan for students and teachers.
For Win 7 or later (64-bit)
For macOS 10.14 or later
~ Features:
- It supports 4K files and a wide range of file formats.
- It has a simple UI that is suitable for beginners.
- It Supports 360 video files (in equirectangular format).
- Supports industry-standard plugins like Boris fx.
- Have features like standard motion tracking, masking, chroma key, e.t.c.
- The paid version has more features like Speed ramping, Auto-sync, keyframing, and animation.
- Have vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- The free version leaves a watermark on export.
- Have playback issues with 4k videos.
- Lacks some standard editing features.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Filmora” then select the desired aspect ratio and click “New Project’ to start editing. Click on the “Import panel” to import media files.
Edit: Drag and drop the clips to add them to the timeline. Drop the clips above or below to add them in layers. Click the top-left icon of the timeline to add layers. Select a clip and you will see a bunch of tools appear on the top bar of the timeline, use them to perform basic editing tasks like split, crop, speed ramping, keyframing, e.t.c.
Double-click on a clip to open its properties. . Click the blue “Ok” button to move back to the previous window.
Select the “Video” icon to transform the clip or to do motion tracking, stabilization, chroma-key, Masking, e.t.c.
Select the “Audio” icon to apply effects and enhance your audio.
Select the “Color” icon to do color correction and grading.
Select the “3D LUT” option to import a new customized lut.
Select the “Animation” icon to add preset animations or make custom animations by using keyframes.
Select the “Speed” icon to adjust the speed of the clip or to do speed ramping.
Click the blue “OK” button below to go back to the previous window.
Effects: On the horizontal bar at the top-left corner of the screen, all the effects, transitions, title present, and stock library are located. Drag and drop to apply them.
Export: Click the blue “Export” button to open export window, choose the desired settings than click “Export”. and don’t forget to save the project if you want to edit it again.
Free GoPro Video Editors for Mac:
If you are tight on budget but still want a professional video editor to edit your GoPro videos then here I have mentioned some free but powerful video editors. Whether you are a beginner or a professional content creator, these free softwares can get your job done.
Blackmagic - Davinchi Resolve:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a freelance video editor or an industry-level filmmaker, if you want to step up your game and stand out from your competition then you need a powerful video editor to help you out and Davinchi Resolve can be the right choice for you. From sports vlogging using action cams to Hollywood filmmaking using Red cinema cameras, Davinchi Resolve can handle and edit all this footage easily and smoothly. It is even used in the making of several Hollywood projects including Marvels’s feature films.
It is one of the best color grading software available in the market. It has advanced color grading tools that can help color grade your GoPro raw videos easily as raw videos look dull but provide greater flexibility. It is a timeline-based editor but its Fusion and Color grading panel provides a Node-based editing system which is hard to use but provides great flexibility once mastered.
Resolve has 6 different pages to deal with different editing parts:
“Edit” and “Cut” pages to deal with simple editing tasks. Its “Fusion” page allows users to do VFX and 3D compositing. The “Color Grading” page has all the professional grading tools. While the “Fairlight” page is designed to edit and enhance audio. And the “Deliver” page to export your files.
All these features are available for free without even giving a watermark. Although it has a studio version that provides some additional features to get more out of this amazing software.
- Davinchi Resolve Studio:
The free version has almost everything a professional video editor needs. but you can purchase the Studio version to get some really juicy features to enhance your video editing experience. It includes the Davinci neural engine, stereoscopic 3D tools, Dolby atmos audio mastering,e.t.c.
Pricing: Studio version is available at $ 295 for a lifetime license and with free updates.
~ Features:
- It supports a 4K resolution at 60fps. (while the Studio version supports up to 32K resolution at 120 fps.)
- It is a multi-feature software that provides editing, color grading, VFX, 3D compositing, and audio editing all in one place.
- It has the most advanced and powerful Node-based color grading system, which is also used by Hollywood film studios.
- Supports Raw and 360 videos from GoPro or other action cameras.
- Supports multi-cam editing up to 16 camera angles.
- Can make Compound clips and add adjustment layers.
- Fairlight panel has professional audio production tools like waveform editing, audio ducking, and Channel mapping. (Dolby Vision mastering and 3D spatial Panning [audio editing in 3D space] are available in the Studio version.)
- Supports third-party plugins.
- Has a 3D workspace and provides a virtual set extension for 3D modeling and compositing.
~ Cons:
- Its node-based editing style is quite difficult for beginners.
- Requires a high-end workstation to run smoothly otherwise will often crash during editing.
- Its node-based editing system is hard to learn.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Davinci Resolve’. Select a previously saved project or press “New project” to start a new one. Click “File” >> “Import” >> “Media” to import files or press “CTRL + I”.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to the timeline Use the tools present above the timeline to trim, cut or move your clips. Click the “Inspector” icon on the top-right corner of the window to open the Inspector tab. Here you will find the properties of all the clips, audio, transitions, effects, e.t.c. There are different editing tabs at the bottom of the window.
In the “Fusion” window, click “Nodes” to open the Node screen. Import a clip or use it from the editor timeline. Usually, a clip will have two nodes connected through a line. Above the nodes panel, different types of nodes are available. Drag any node in the panel and connect it through lines. or add a “merge” node to connect nodes.
Its color grading panel also has Node based editing system.
Effects: Click “Effects Library” then select any effect and drop it in the timeline to apply it. You can change its properties in the “Inspector” panel.
Click the diamond icon on the right side of the property to start keyframing then change the value of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Open the “Deliver” window, choose the desired settings then click “Add to Render Queue” to start exporting.
FXhome - Hitfilm Express:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux also.
If you are looking for a free but powerful video editor to edit your GoPro clips then Hitfilm Express can be the right choice for you. It is a free timeline-based editing software with professional-grade VFX tools. It is a timeline-based editor where you can add dozens of audio, videos, and text layers.
It has a composite shot sequence where you can do complex editing like editing 3D videos and elements, lights e.t.c. It has physic-base behaviors and effects also to enhance 3D compositing. For professional-level editing almost most of the effects and properties have keyframing options. It has different workspace modes to suit your editing needs.
It can also edit 360 videos recorded from your GoPro max. It has a “GoPro Lens Reframe” effect to adjust your 360 clips, but some 360 toolkits can only be available when you purchase Hitfilm pro or buy a 360 toolkit add-on. Similarly, you can purchase more add-ons according to your editing needs or you can purchase Hitfilm Pro to gain access to all add-ons and features. But can use these pro features for free but without exporting as exporting with a paid effect can give a watermark.
Hitfilm Pro:
Although Hitfilm express doesn’t give a watermark on export, but to use more features like 3D composition, LUTs, e.t.c you need to purchase add-ons, there are over 30+ add-ons available to purchase which you can purchase depending on your needs, but if you want to get all the features than its better to get your hands on Hitfilm Pro.
Pricing: Available for purchase at £ 309 or $ 388 for a lifetime license. With 12 months of free updates. It has 3 seat license which means It can run on 3 PCs simultaneously.
~ Features:
- It is a free editing software with no watermark.
- It can edit 3D videos and it can also import and edit 3D models and tracking data.
- It can edit 360 videos also.
- You can add effects and color grades as layers in the timeline also.
- Can add adjustment layers and create nested clips within nested clips to make complex editing easier.
- It has a motion track and locked-on stabilization features.
- Can do smooth keyframing and animation with the help of value graphs.
- It supports multi-cam editing also.
- Keyboard shortcuts make workflow quite easy and quick.
~ Cons:
- It has some playback issues while using 4K videos.
- It crashes sometimes, so it’s better to save the project frequently during editing.
- Hitfilm express doesn’t have a dark mode.
- Some common features are only available on the Pro version or add-ons.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Hitfilm”, Select “New Project” to open a blank project then click “open” to open an existing file or click “new” to create a new project. Then set project settings on pop-up then and click “ok”.
Then click the “Media” tab on the top-left corner of the screen. Then select the “Import” button to import videos, images, audio, or 3d models. You can also import previously made composite shots.
Edit: Drag and drop media files from the media tab to the timeline. or click the “New” tab to create a “Composite shot” or a solid plane layer. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to insert or delete layers. On the left side of the timeline, you will find some basic tools located on the vertical bar to do simple tasks.
In the “Viewer” tab, on the left side of the playback screen, you can find tools for masking and adding text.
In the “Controls” tab, you can adjust the properties of clips and other features related to the clip like masking, track, blend, transform, e.t.c.
Create a “Composite shot” to do complex editing like 3D compositing. Or select multiple layers then right-click and select “make Composite shot” to combine them for easy editing. Double-click the composite shot to open its contents.
Effects: From the “Effects” tab drag and drop effects on the clip to add them. Some effects can be added as layers which can affect all the layers beneath it. Properties of these effects can be adjusted in the “Control” tab.
To do keyframing, Click the circle icon on the left side of the property to start keyframing then change the values of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Click the “Export” icon then “Export now” located at the top right side of the timeline to open the export window. The export will start automatically.
Shotcut:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you are making videos from your GoPro or mobile phone just for fun that doesn’t require much editing then you can look for a free and simple video editor and “Shotcut” can be the right choice for this purpose.
It is a free and open-source video editor with many cool features to get your hands on. It doesn’t have any pro version. It is simple and easy to use but takes some time to understand. It supports multi-track timeline editing. It has a basic timeline design but you can customize your timeline to meet your editing needs. It has some good color grading options, you can also import your color luts. It has many cool features and effects. It supports 360 video editing and also has a few 360 video filters. It has audio effects also.
~ Features:
- All its features are for free and it doesn’t leave any watermark.
- It supports 4K resolution and a wide range of file formats.
- It also supports 360 video files.
- Has keyframing and chroma kry features.
- It has advanced color grading features.
- It provides standard animation and keyframing features.
~ Cons:
- It is a basic video editor and lacks some professional editing features.
- Have playback issues with 4K videos.
- It does have proper text editing tools.
- It is difficult to understand as its UI is different from other familiar video editors.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Shot Cut” then click the “Open Files” button on the top-left corner of the window to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop clips on an empty timeline panel to add tracks and drag the clip from corners to trim them. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to add a video or an audio track. You will find a bunch of tools above the timeline to do some basic tasks.
You can choose from 6 different workspace designs (available in the top-right corner of the window) to suit your editing styles.
On top of the window, you will see a bunch of icons like Timeline, filter, project, and properties. e.t.c. In the properties tab, you can change the aspect ratio and speed of the clip.
Effects: Click the “Filters” icon on top of the window to open the filters menu, Click “+” above it to add filters. Double click a filter to add it to the selected clip, then click the filter to open its properties menu. You can also add text from here.
Click the “Keyframes” icon on top of the window to open the Keyframes window. Select the “clock” icon on the filters to start keyframing then change the values at a specific time to add keyframes. Click the “Timeline” icon to go back to the previous window.
Export: Click the “Export” button on the top of the screen. Select a preset or click the “Advanced” button to change export settings then click “Export File”.
Paid GoPro Video Editor for Mac:
If you are a professional athlete or a vlogger using GoPro for all of your contents and want to invest some money on paid video editors to improve your content. Then here we have mentioned some paid video editors worthy of your investment.
Apple - Final Cut Pro:
It is available for Mac only.
If you are an Apple enthusiastic person and want everything Apple, then why look for any other video editor when you can have a powerful video editor “Final cut pro” made by Apple. It is a paid but professional software that can raise your GoPro videos to the next level. Whether it’s a 360 video or a RAW file recorded from your GoPro or from the RED cinema camera, all can be edited smoothly inside Final Cut Pro. It has dozens of useful features that a professional video editor looks for like 3D tracking, Motion Graphics, Color Grading, Audio Mixing, Multi-cam editing e.t.c.
Pricing: It is a one-time purchase software available at $ 299.9 for a lifetime license and all its future updates can be downloaded free of cost.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Support 360 and RAW video files.
- Edit videos in complete 360 and 3D spaces.
- Supports third-party video and audio plugins.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have professional color grading tools with HDR support.
- Its UI is easy to use.
~ Cons:
- It is designed for Apple devices only.
- Requires a powerful PC.
- Its UI is a bit different from other common video editors in the market.
- ~ Steps:
Import: Open “Final Cut Pro” then click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the screen, then select “Project” to create a new project. In the “Files” menu, click “import” then “media” to import your media files. Here most of the work is done with Keyboard commands.
Edit: Drag and Drop clips on the timeline. In the viewer panel, press “I” and “O” to add input and output points then drag the clip to add only a specific part of the clip. Press “Cmd + B” to split the clip at the desired location. Or add the clips above to add the layer.
Click the “Text” icon on the top-left corner of the screen to open the text page. Choose from presets or import your own Text presets and drag them to the timeline. Click the text to open “Text Editor” on the left side of the screen.
Select multiple clips then Right-click and select “New Compound Clip” to combine them. Double-click the compound clip to edit its components.
Effects: Click 2 icons on the top-right side of the timeline to open the effects and transition panel. Drag and drop on the clip to use them. You can change their properties in the “Effects editor” tab located in the same place as “Text Editor”.
In the editor tab, click the diamond icon beside any property to start keyframing, then change its property to add keyframes at the desired time.
Press “Cmd + 6” to open the Color Grading tab, here you can color grade your clips.
Export: To export the edited video. Click “File” >> “Share” >> “Master file” to open export window. Choose the desired settings then click “Next” then “Save” to export the video.
Adobe - Premiere Pro:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a content creator or not, if you use a DSLR or an action camera for the first time, then maybe the output wouldn’t meet your expectations. In order to make it good, you need a video editor. And if you will ask your gathering about a good video editor, most of them will recommend you Adobe Premiere Pro, because it is such a versatile and well-known software available in the market. It is a subscription-based video editor.
It is an industry-level software with many professional and advanced features. From beginner video editing to film compositing, all can be done in this software. Whether you have a 360 video or a 4K video in Raw format recorded from your GoPro, just import it into premiere pro and start editing. It has a downloadable “GoPro FX Reframe” plugin to edit your 360 videos. It has different panels designed to deal with specific parts of post-production such as the Effects panel, Graphics panel, Sound panel, Colour Grading panel, e.t.c.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Have different panels to enhance different segments of post-production.
- Have an essential Effects panel to create motion effects and animations using keyframes.
- Supports hundreds of third-party extensions.
- Have useful features like warp stabilizer and denoiser.
- You can import or create your color LUTs.
- Have a creative cloud with 100 Gb of storage.
- The bundle also includes a mobile video editor and a stock library.
~ Cons:
- Real-time rendering. It will take some time to render before exporting if you work on a mid-range PC.
- Freezes or crashes sometimes.
- Cache data fill-up quickly and eats a lot of storage. (It’s better to clear it after every project)
Pricing: It is cloud-based software, therefore it can’t be purchased one time. It has a monthly subscription starting at $ 20.99/month. It includes “premiere rush” mobile video editor and 100 GB of cloud storage within the plan. It also has a “Creative cloud All apps” plan that includes all 30+ Softwares + 100Gb cloud storage along with premiere pro for $ 54.99 only. All plans also include Behance (adobe creative community), Adobe Fonts, and Adobe stock assets for free. Adobe also provides educational access at a much discounted price.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Premiere Pro”. Click “New Project” to start with then Click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the window then select the “Import files” button to import files. Or press “CTRL + I” to import files or drag your files from their location to premiere pro.
Edit: Drag and Drop the files to add them to the timeline. Drop a file above a clip to add as a layer. or drop over a clip to overwrite it. On the right side of the timeline, you can find a bunch of tools to do basic edits like trimming, splitting, speed ramping, masking, or adding text.
In the “Effects Control” tab you can transform the selected clip or change its properties.
Select multiple clips then right-click and select “make Nested clip” to combine them into a single clip for easy editing.
Slide between 8 different workspace styles designed for specific post-production tasks by clicking the buttons available on the top of the window.
Effects: Go to the “Effects” panel on the bottom-left window to apply an effect or transitions. Here you can find all audio, video, 2D, and 3D effects. Drag and Drop on a clip to apply it. Change the properties of these effects in the “Effects Control” panel.
To color grade, your clips move to the “Color” workspace. Here you will find all the color grading features: correction, curves, color wheels, creative tab, e.t.c. To import a LUT click the “creative tab” then click “Browse” to import a LUT.
Export: To Export go to the “Files” tab on top of the screen then select the “Export” button to open the export tab. Select the desired settings then click “Export”.
Power Director 365 :
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
If you are looking for a budget-friendly video editor that is powerful enough to edit your GoPro videos like a content creator then Power director can be the right choice for you. It has many unique and useful features. It has different plugins and design centers to do specific post-production tasks like Ad designer, Multicam editor, AI style plugins, e.t.c.
It also has a separate action cam center to fix or enhance action cam videos. IT also has chapter and subtitle rooms to add subtitles and chapters for your Youtube videos or films. It also has a vast stock and preset library to speed up your project.
Pricing: It has a subscription plan which is available at $69/year. It is now available at 30% off till 22nd May,2022.
~ Features:
- It supports 4K videos and a wide range of import formats.
- Have many built-in plugins and design centers.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have an action cam center to deal with action cam footage.
- Have separate aspect ratio mode for 360 videos.
- Also, have a chapter and subtitle room. many recording aspects of the video.
- Have a content-aware editing feature that detects the recording aspects.
- Can import presets and color LUTs.
- Have a vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- Have some playback issues with 4K videos. (create shadow files to overcome this issue to an extent).
- Its UI is a little bit complicated for beginners.
- Not ideal for fast pace editing.
~ Steps:
Import: Open Power director and a pop-up will appear, select desired aspect ratio then click “Full mode” to open the software. Or select 360 aspect ratio if you want to edit 360 videos.
Click the “Import Media” icon below the Files tab in the top-left corner of the window to import files or press “CTRL + Q” to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to any desired layer in the timeline. Click the icon on the top left corner of the timeline to add layers. When you select a clip in the timeline, some tools appear on the top timeline. Select any specific tool to edit your selected clip. Or click the “Plugins” button on the top-left of the window to open a specific designer tab.
Double-click on the clip to open ‘PIP designer”. Here you will find all the editing tools to edit or animate your clip.
After selecting a clip, in the “Plugins” menu click the “Action Camera Center” button to open an edit tab, Here you can fix your GoPro videos.
Effects: On the top-left corner of the window in a vertical bar you will find all the effects material lile Project library, titles, effects, transitions, overlays, e.t.c. Simply just drag and drop them on the timeline to use them. Here you can also do audio mixing and add subtitles and chapters.
Double click a clip or an overlay element to open the designer window. Here you can customize the clips and overlays to enhance your project.
Export: Click the blue “Produce” button on top of the screen to export your edited file. Select the desired mode and file format and add an export destination, then click “Start” to start exporting.
Which One Should I Choose Free or Paid GoPro Video Editor?
You can choose free or paid softwares depending on your requirements and budget. If a free software meets your requirements then stay on it otherwise move towards a paid alternative. If you have a GoPro and you make videos just for fun then use a free and simple video editor. Even if you are an experienced video editor, I would recommend you to go for free video editors which I have mentioned above as they are quite powerful and professional software but if you are harvesting a good amount of money from this field then you can upgrade to pro versions of these free softwares or get a paid software from start. As almost all of these softwares are professional and can get your job done, so it’s better to choose one, which is comfortable for you to work on.
FAQs about GoPro Video Editing:
- Q) Does GoPro has its own video editor?
Yes, GoPro has its own video editor “Quik”. It is available on mobile phones and desktops both. It is simple and easy to use. It provides basic features to edit your video. But the main disadvantage of this desktop software is that it supports only GoPro videos, you can’t import files from other devices. Although this isn’t the issue with Quik mobile app, here you can import videos from other devices also.
- Q) Can I make videos for social media with a GoPro?
It was basically made for recording sports and action videos. But as the market is revolutionized and new models are released it has covered a wide range of the video industry like vlogging, travel and cooking videos e.t.c. As new models of GoPros are waterproof, you can get some amazing underwater shots for your Instagram.
- Q) What is GoPro media format?
GoPro export files in popular file format MP4. MP4 is the most common file format and is supported by almost all the video editors. While it is efficient and takes less storage but isn’t supported in many devices.
- Q) How do I transfer files from my GoPro to Mac?
You can transfer your GoPro files through 3 methods:
- Eject the SD card from your GoPro and connect it to your Mac using a SD card adapter to transfer files.
- Connect your GoPro to Mac through USB connector and use “iphoto” or any other photo importer to import files.
For macOS 10.14 or later
~ Features:
- It supports 4K files and a wide range of file formats.
- It has a simple UI that is suitable for beginners.
- It Supports 360 video files (in equirectangular format).
- Supports industry-standard plugins like Boris fx.
- Have features like standard motion tracking, masking, chroma key, e.t.c.
- The paid version has more features like Speed ramping, Auto-sync, keyframing, and animation.
- Have vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- The free version leaves a watermark on export.
- Have playback issues with 4k videos.
- Lacks some standard editing features.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Filmora” then select the desired aspect ratio and click “New Project’ to start editing. Click on the “Import panel” to import media files.
Edit: Drag and drop the clips to add them to the timeline. Drop the clips above or below to add them in layers. Click the top-left icon of the timeline to add layers. Select a clip and you will see a bunch of tools appear on the top bar of the timeline, use them to perform basic editing tasks like split, crop, speed ramping, keyframing, e.t.c.
Double-click on a clip to open its properties. . Click the blue “Ok” button to move back to the previous window.
Select the “Video” icon to transform the clip or to do motion tracking, stabilization, chroma-key, Masking, e.t.c.
Select the “Audio” icon to apply effects and enhance your audio.
Select the “Color” icon to do color correction and grading.
Select the “3D LUT” option to import a new customized lut.
Select the “Animation” icon to add preset animations or make custom animations by using keyframes.
Select the “Speed” icon to adjust the speed of the clip or to do speed ramping.
Click the blue “OK” button below to go back to the previous window.
Effects: On the horizontal bar at the top-left corner of the screen, all the effects, transitions, title present, and stock library are located. Drag and drop to apply them.
Export: Click the blue “Export” button to open export window, choose the desired settings than click “Export”. and don’t forget to save the project if you want to edit it again.
Free GoPro Video Editors for Mac:
If you are tight on budget but still want a professional video editor to edit your GoPro videos then here I have mentioned some free but powerful video editors. Whether you are a beginner or a professional content creator, these free softwares can get your job done.
Blackmagic - Davinchi Resolve:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a freelance video editor or an industry-level filmmaker, if you want to step up your game and stand out from your competition then you need a powerful video editor to help you out and Davinchi Resolve can be the right choice for you. From sports vlogging using action cams to Hollywood filmmaking using Red cinema cameras, Davinchi Resolve can handle and edit all this footage easily and smoothly. It is even used in the making of several Hollywood projects including Marvels’s feature films.
It is one of the best color grading software available in the market. It has advanced color grading tools that can help color grade your GoPro raw videos easily as raw videos look dull but provide greater flexibility. It is a timeline-based editor but its Fusion and Color grading panel provides a Node-based editing system which is hard to use but provides great flexibility once mastered.
Resolve has 6 different pages to deal with different editing parts:
“Edit” and “Cut” pages to deal with simple editing tasks. Its “Fusion” page allows users to do VFX and 3D compositing. The “Color Grading” page has all the professional grading tools. While the “Fairlight” page is designed to edit and enhance audio. And the “Deliver” page to export your files.
All these features are available for free without even giving a watermark. Although it has a studio version that provides some additional features to get more out of this amazing software.
- Davinchi Resolve Studio:
The free version has almost everything a professional video editor needs. but you can purchase the Studio version to get some really juicy features to enhance your video editing experience. It includes the Davinci neural engine, stereoscopic 3D tools, Dolby atmos audio mastering,e.t.c.
Pricing: Studio version is available at $ 295 for a lifetime license and with free updates.
~ Features:
- It supports a 4K resolution at 60fps. (while the Studio version supports up to 32K resolution at 120 fps.)
- It is a multi-feature software that provides editing, color grading, VFX, 3D compositing, and audio editing all in one place.
- It has the most advanced and powerful Node-based color grading system, which is also used by Hollywood film studios.
- Supports Raw and 360 videos from GoPro or other action cameras.
- Supports multi-cam editing up to 16 camera angles.
- Can make Compound clips and add adjustment layers.
- Fairlight panel has professional audio production tools like waveform editing, audio ducking, and Channel mapping. (Dolby Vision mastering and 3D spatial Panning [audio editing in 3D space] are available in the Studio version.)
- Supports third-party plugins.
- Has a 3D workspace and provides a virtual set extension for 3D modeling and compositing.
~ Cons:
- Its node-based editing style is quite difficult for beginners.
- Requires a high-end workstation to run smoothly otherwise will often crash during editing.
- Its node-based editing system is hard to learn.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Davinci Resolve’. Select a previously saved project or press “New project” to start a new one. Click “File” >> “Import” >> “Media” to import files or press “CTRL + I”.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to the timeline Use the tools present above the timeline to trim, cut or move your clips. Click the “Inspector” icon on the top-right corner of the window to open the Inspector tab. Here you will find the properties of all the clips, audio, transitions, effects, e.t.c. There are different editing tabs at the bottom of the window.
In the “Fusion” window, click “Nodes” to open the Node screen. Import a clip or use it from the editor timeline. Usually, a clip will have two nodes connected through a line. Above the nodes panel, different types of nodes are available. Drag any node in the panel and connect it through lines. or add a “merge” node to connect nodes.
Its color grading panel also has Node based editing system.
Effects: Click “Effects Library” then select any effect and drop it in the timeline to apply it. You can change its properties in the “Inspector” panel.
Click the diamond icon on the right side of the property to start keyframing then change the value of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Open the “Deliver” window, choose the desired settings then click “Add to Render Queue” to start exporting.
FXhome - Hitfilm Express:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux also.
If you are looking for a free but powerful video editor to edit your GoPro clips then Hitfilm Express can be the right choice for you. It is a free timeline-based editing software with professional-grade VFX tools. It is a timeline-based editor where you can add dozens of audio, videos, and text layers.
It has a composite shot sequence where you can do complex editing like editing 3D videos and elements, lights e.t.c. It has physic-base behaviors and effects also to enhance 3D compositing. For professional-level editing almost most of the effects and properties have keyframing options. It has different workspace modes to suit your editing needs.
It can also edit 360 videos recorded from your GoPro max. It has a “GoPro Lens Reframe” effect to adjust your 360 clips, but some 360 toolkits can only be available when you purchase Hitfilm pro or buy a 360 toolkit add-on. Similarly, you can purchase more add-ons according to your editing needs or you can purchase Hitfilm Pro to gain access to all add-ons and features. But can use these pro features for free but without exporting as exporting with a paid effect can give a watermark.
Hitfilm Pro:
Although Hitfilm express doesn’t give a watermark on export, but to use more features like 3D composition, LUTs, e.t.c you need to purchase add-ons, there are over 30+ add-ons available to purchase which you can purchase depending on your needs, but if you want to get all the features than its better to get your hands on Hitfilm Pro.
Pricing: Available for purchase at £ 309 or $ 388 for a lifetime license. With 12 months of free updates. It has 3 seat license which means It can run on 3 PCs simultaneously.
~ Features:
- It is a free editing software with no watermark.
- It can edit 3D videos and it can also import and edit 3D models and tracking data.
- It can edit 360 videos also.
- You can add effects and color grades as layers in the timeline also.
- Can add adjustment layers and create nested clips within nested clips to make complex editing easier.
- It has a motion track and locked-on stabilization features.
- Can do smooth keyframing and animation with the help of value graphs.
- It supports multi-cam editing also.
- Keyboard shortcuts make workflow quite easy and quick.
~ Cons:
- It has some playback issues while using 4K videos.
- It crashes sometimes, so it’s better to save the project frequently during editing.
- Hitfilm express doesn’t have a dark mode.
- Some common features are only available on the Pro version or add-ons.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Hitfilm”, Select “New Project” to open a blank project then click “open” to open an existing file or click “new” to create a new project. Then set project settings on pop-up then and click “ok”.
Then click the “Media” tab on the top-left corner of the screen. Then select the “Import” button to import videos, images, audio, or 3d models. You can also import previously made composite shots.
Edit: Drag and drop media files from the media tab to the timeline. or click the “New” tab to create a “Composite shot” or a solid plane layer. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to insert or delete layers. On the left side of the timeline, you will find some basic tools located on the vertical bar to do simple tasks.
In the “Viewer” tab, on the left side of the playback screen, you can find tools for masking and adding text.
In the “Controls” tab, you can adjust the properties of clips and other features related to the clip like masking, track, blend, transform, e.t.c.
Create a “Composite shot” to do complex editing like 3D compositing. Or select multiple layers then right-click and select “make Composite shot” to combine them for easy editing. Double-click the composite shot to open its contents.
Effects: From the “Effects” tab drag and drop effects on the clip to add them. Some effects can be added as layers which can affect all the layers beneath it. Properties of these effects can be adjusted in the “Control” tab.
To do keyframing, Click the circle icon on the left side of the property to start keyframing then change the values of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Click the “Export” icon then “Export now” located at the top right side of the timeline to open the export window. The export will start automatically.
Shotcut:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you are making videos from your GoPro or mobile phone just for fun that doesn’t require much editing then you can look for a free and simple video editor and “Shotcut” can be the right choice for this purpose.
It is a free and open-source video editor with many cool features to get your hands on. It doesn’t have any pro version. It is simple and easy to use but takes some time to understand. It supports multi-track timeline editing. It has a basic timeline design but you can customize your timeline to meet your editing needs. It has some good color grading options, you can also import your color luts. It has many cool features and effects. It supports 360 video editing and also has a few 360 video filters. It has audio effects also.
~ Features:
- All its features are for free and it doesn’t leave any watermark.
- It supports 4K resolution and a wide range of file formats.
- It also supports 360 video files.
- Has keyframing and chroma kry features.
- It has advanced color grading features.
- It provides standard animation and keyframing features.
~ Cons:
- It is a basic video editor and lacks some professional editing features.
- Have playback issues with 4K videos.
- It does have proper text editing tools.
- It is difficult to understand as its UI is different from other familiar video editors.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Shot Cut” then click the “Open Files” button on the top-left corner of the window to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop clips on an empty timeline panel to add tracks and drag the clip from corners to trim them. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to add a video or an audio track. You will find a bunch of tools above the timeline to do some basic tasks.
You can choose from 6 different workspace designs (available in the top-right corner of the window) to suit your editing styles.
On top of the window, you will see a bunch of icons like Timeline, filter, project, and properties. e.t.c. In the properties tab, you can change the aspect ratio and speed of the clip.
Effects: Click the “Filters” icon on top of the window to open the filters menu, Click “+” above it to add filters. Double click a filter to add it to the selected clip, then click the filter to open its properties menu. You can also add text from here.
Click the “Keyframes” icon on top of the window to open the Keyframes window. Select the “clock” icon on the filters to start keyframing then change the values at a specific time to add keyframes. Click the “Timeline” icon to go back to the previous window.
Export: Click the “Export” button on the top of the screen. Select a preset or click the “Advanced” button to change export settings then click “Export File”.
Paid GoPro Video Editor for Mac:
If you are a professional athlete or a vlogger using GoPro for all of your contents and want to invest some money on paid video editors to improve your content. Then here we have mentioned some paid video editors worthy of your investment.
Apple - Final Cut Pro:
It is available for Mac only.
If you are an Apple enthusiastic person and want everything Apple, then why look for any other video editor when you can have a powerful video editor “Final cut pro” made by Apple. It is a paid but professional software that can raise your GoPro videos to the next level. Whether it’s a 360 video or a RAW file recorded from your GoPro or from the RED cinema camera, all can be edited smoothly inside Final Cut Pro. It has dozens of useful features that a professional video editor looks for like 3D tracking, Motion Graphics, Color Grading, Audio Mixing, Multi-cam editing e.t.c.
Pricing: It is a one-time purchase software available at $ 299.9 for a lifetime license and all its future updates can be downloaded free of cost.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Support 360 and RAW video files.
- Edit videos in complete 360 and 3D spaces.
- Supports third-party video and audio plugins.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have professional color grading tools with HDR support.
- Its UI is easy to use.
~ Cons:
- It is designed for Apple devices only.
- Requires a powerful PC.
- Its UI is a bit different from other common video editors in the market.
- ~ Steps:
Import: Open “Final Cut Pro” then click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the screen, then select “Project” to create a new project. In the “Files” menu, click “import” then “media” to import your media files. Here most of the work is done with Keyboard commands.
Edit: Drag and Drop clips on the timeline. In the viewer panel, press “I” and “O” to add input and output points then drag the clip to add only a specific part of the clip. Press “Cmd + B” to split the clip at the desired location. Or add the clips above to add the layer.
Click the “Text” icon on the top-left corner of the screen to open the text page. Choose from presets or import your own Text presets and drag them to the timeline. Click the text to open “Text Editor” on the left side of the screen.
Select multiple clips then Right-click and select “New Compound Clip” to combine them. Double-click the compound clip to edit its components.
Effects: Click 2 icons on the top-right side of the timeline to open the effects and transition panel. Drag and drop on the clip to use them. You can change their properties in the “Effects editor” tab located in the same place as “Text Editor”.
In the editor tab, click the diamond icon beside any property to start keyframing, then change its property to add keyframes at the desired time.
Press “Cmd + 6” to open the Color Grading tab, here you can color grade your clips.
Export: To export the edited video. Click “File” >> “Share” >> “Master file” to open export window. Choose the desired settings then click “Next” then “Save” to export the video.
Adobe - Premiere Pro:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a content creator or not, if you use a DSLR or an action camera for the first time, then maybe the output wouldn’t meet your expectations. In order to make it good, you need a video editor. And if you will ask your gathering about a good video editor, most of them will recommend you Adobe Premiere Pro, because it is such a versatile and well-known software available in the market. It is a subscription-based video editor.
It is an industry-level software with many professional and advanced features. From beginner video editing to film compositing, all can be done in this software. Whether you have a 360 video or a 4K video in Raw format recorded from your GoPro, just import it into premiere pro and start editing. It has a downloadable “GoPro FX Reframe” plugin to edit your 360 videos. It has different panels designed to deal with specific parts of post-production such as the Effects panel, Graphics panel, Sound panel, Colour Grading panel, e.t.c.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Have different panels to enhance different segments of post-production.
- Have an essential Effects panel to create motion effects and animations using keyframes.
- Supports hundreds of third-party extensions.
- Have useful features like warp stabilizer and denoiser.
- You can import or create your color LUTs.
- Have a creative cloud with 100 Gb of storage.
- The bundle also includes a mobile video editor and a stock library.
~ Cons:
- Real-time rendering. It will take some time to render before exporting if you work on a mid-range PC.
- Freezes or crashes sometimes.
- Cache data fill-up quickly and eats a lot of storage. (It’s better to clear it after every project)
Pricing: It is cloud-based software, therefore it can’t be purchased one time. It has a monthly subscription starting at $ 20.99/month. It includes “premiere rush” mobile video editor and 100 GB of cloud storage within the plan. It also has a “Creative cloud All apps” plan that includes all 30+ Softwares + 100Gb cloud storage along with premiere pro for $ 54.99 only. All plans also include Behance (adobe creative community), Adobe Fonts, and Adobe stock assets for free. Adobe also provides educational access at a much discounted price.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Premiere Pro”. Click “New Project” to start with then Click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the window then select the “Import files” button to import files. Or press “CTRL + I” to import files or drag your files from their location to premiere pro.
Edit: Drag and Drop the files to add them to the timeline. Drop a file above a clip to add as a layer. or drop over a clip to overwrite it. On the right side of the timeline, you can find a bunch of tools to do basic edits like trimming, splitting, speed ramping, masking, or adding text.
In the “Effects Control” tab you can transform the selected clip or change its properties.
Select multiple clips then right-click and select “make Nested clip” to combine them into a single clip for easy editing.
Slide between 8 different workspace styles designed for specific post-production tasks by clicking the buttons available on the top of the window.
Effects: Go to the “Effects” panel on the bottom-left window to apply an effect or transitions. Here you can find all audio, video, 2D, and 3D effects. Drag and Drop on a clip to apply it. Change the properties of these effects in the “Effects Control” panel.
To color grade, your clips move to the “Color” workspace. Here you will find all the color grading features: correction, curves, color wheels, creative tab, e.t.c. To import a LUT click the “creative tab” then click “Browse” to import a LUT.
Export: To Export go to the “Files” tab on top of the screen then select the “Export” button to open the export tab. Select the desired settings then click “Export”.
Power Director 365 :
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
If you are looking for a budget-friendly video editor that is powerful enough to edit your GoPro videos like a content creator then Power director can be the right choice for you. It has many unique and useful features. It has different plugins and design centers to do specific post-production tasks like Ad designer, Multicam editor, AI style plugins, e.t.c.
It also has a separate action cam center to fix or enhance action cam videos. IT also has chapter and subtitle rooms to add subtitles and chapters for your Youtube videos or films. It also has a vast stock and preset library to speed up your project.
Pricing: It has a subscription plan which is available at $69/year. It is now available at 30% off till 22nd May,2022.
~ Features:
- It supports 4K videos and a wide range of import formats.
- Have many built-in plugins and design centers.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have an action cam center to deal with action cam footage.
- Have separate aspect ratio mode for 360 videos.
- Also, have a chapter and subtitle room. many recording aspects of the video.
- Have a content-aware editing feature that detects the recording aspects.
- Can import presets and color LUTs.
- Have a vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- Have some playback issues with 4K videos. (create shadow files to overcome this issue to an extent).
- Its UI is a little bit complicated for beginners.
- Not ideal for fast pace editing.
~ Steps:
Import: Open Power director and a pop-up will appear, select desired aspect ratio then click “Full mode” to open the software. Or select 360 aspect ratio if you want to edit 360 videos.
Click the “Import Media” icon below the Files tab in the top-left corner of the window to import files or press “CTRL + Q” to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to any desired layer in the timeline. Click the icon on the top left corner of the timeline to add layers. When you select a clip in the timeline, some tools appear on the top timeline. Select any specific tool to edit your selected clip. Or click the “Plugins” button on the top-left of the window to open a specific designer tab.
Double-click on the clip to open ‘PIP designer”. Here you will find all the editing tools to edit or animate your clip.
After selecting a clip, in the “Plugins” menu click the “Action Camera Center” button to open an edit tab, Here you can fix your GoPro videos.
Effects: On the top-left corner of the window in a vertical bar you will find all the effects material lile Project library, titles, effects, transitions, overlays, e.t.c. Simply just drag and drop them on the timeline to use them. Here you can also do audio mixing and add subtitles and chapters.
Double click a clip or an overlay element to open the designer window. Here you can customize the clips and overlays to enhance your project.
Export: Click the blue “Produce” button on top of the screen to export your edited file. Select the desired mode and file format and add an export destination, then click “Start” to start exporting.
Which One Should I Choose Free or Paid GoPro Video Editor?
You can choose free or paid softwares depending on your requirements and budget. If a free software meets your requirements then stay on it otherwise move towards a paid alternative. If you have a GoPro and you make videos just for fun then use a free and simple video editor. Even if you are an experienced video editor, I would recommend you to go for free video editors which I have mentioned above as they are quite powerful and professional software but if you are harvesting a good amount of money from this field then you can upgrade to pro versions of these free softwares or get a paid software from start. As almost all of these softwares are professional and can get your job done, so it’s better to choose one, which is comfortable for you to work on.
FAQs about GoPro Video Editing:
- Q) Does GoPro has its own video editor?
Yes, GoPro has its own video editor “Quik”. It is available on mobile phones and desktops both. It is simple and easy to use. It provides basic features to edit your video. But the main disadvantage of this desktop software is that it supports only GoPro videos, you can’t import files from other devices. Although this isn’t the issue with Quik mobile app, here you can import videos from other devices also.
- Q) Can I make videos for social media with a GoPro?
It was basically made for recording sports and action videos. But as the market is revolutionized and new models are released it has covered a wide range of the video industry like vlogging, travel and cooking videos e.t.c. As new models of GoPros are waterproof, you can get some amazing underwater shots for your Instagram.
- Q) What is GoPro media format?
GoPro export files in popular file format MP4. MP4 is the most common file format and is supported by almost all the video editors. While it is efficient and takes less storage but isn’t supported in many devices.
- Q) How do I transfer files from my GoPro to Mac?
You can transfer your GoPro files through 3 methods:
- Eject the SD card from your GoPro and connect it to your Mac using a SD card adapter to transfer files.
- Connect your GoPro to Mac through USB connector and use “iphoto” or any other photo importer to import files.
For macOS 10.14 or later
~ Features:
- It supports 4K files and a wide range of file formats.
- It has a simple UI that is suitable for beginners.
- It Supports 360 video files (in equirectangular format).
- Supports industry-standard plugins like Boris fx.
- Have features like standard motion tracking, masking, chroma key, e.t.c.
- The paid version has more features like Speed ramping, Auto-sync, keyframing, and animation.
- Have vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- The free version leaves a watermark on export.
- Have playback issues with 4k videos.
- Lacks some standard editing features.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Filmora” then select the desired aspect ratio and click “New Project’ to start editing. Click on the “Import panel” to import media files.
Edit: Drag and drop the clips to add them to the timeline. Drop the clips above or below to add them in layers. Click the top-left icon of the timeline to add layers. Select a clip and you will see a bunch of tools appear on the top bar of the timeline, use them to perform basic editing tasks like split, crop, speed ramping, keyframing, e.t.c.
Double-click on a clip to open its properties. . Click the blue “Ok” button to move back to the previous window.
Select the “Video” icon to transform the clip or to do motion tracking, stabilization, chroma-key, Masking, e.t.c.
Select the “Audio” icon to apply effects and enhance your audio.
Select the “Color” icon to do color correction and grading.
Select the “3D LUT” option to import a new customized lut.
Select the “Animation” icon to add preset animations or make custom animations by using keyframes.
Select the “Speed” icon to adjust the speed of the clip or to do speed ramping.
Click the blue “OK” button below to go back to the previous window.
Effects: On the horizontal bar at the top-left corner of the screen, all the effects, transitions, title present, and stock library are located. Drag and drop to apply them.
Export: Click the blue “Export” button to open export window, choose the desired settings than click “Export”. and don’t forget to save the project if you want to edit it again.
Free GoPro Video Editors for Mac:
If you are tight on budget but still want a professional video editor to edit your GoPro videos then here I have mentioned some free but powerful video editors. Whether you are a beginner or a professional content creator, these free softwares can get your job done.
Blackmagic - Davinchi Resolve:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a freelance video editor or an industry-level filmmaker, if you want to step up your game and stand out from your competition then you need a powerful video editor to help you out and Davinchi Resolve can be the right choice for you. From sports vlogging using action cams to Hollywood filmmaking using Red cinema cameras, Davinchi Resolve can handle and edit all this footage easily and smoothly. It is even used in the making of several Hollywood projects including Marvels’s feature films.
It is one of the best color grading software available in the market. It has advanced color grading tools that can help color grade your GoPro raw videos easily as raw videos look dull but provide greater flexibility. It is a timeline-based editor but its Fusion and Color grading panel provides a Node-based editing system which is hard to use but provides great flexibility once mastered.
Resolve has 6 different pages to deal with different editing parts:
“Edit” and “Cut” pages to deal with simple editing tasks. Its “Fusion” page allows users to do VFX and 3D compositing. The “Color Grading” page has all the professional grading tools. While the “Fairlight” page is designed to edit and enhance audio. And the “Deliver” page to export your files.
All these features are available for free without even giving a watermark. Although it has a studio version that provides some additional features to get more out of this amazing software.
- Davinchi Resolve Studio:
The free version has almost everything a professional video editor needs. but you can purchase the Studio version to get some really juicy features to enhance your video editing experience. It includes the Davinci neural engine, stereoscopic 3D tools, Dolby atmos audio mastering,e.t.c.
Pricing: Studio version is available at $ 295 for a lifetime license and with free updates.
~ Features:
- It supports a 4K resolution at 60fps. (while the Studio version supports up to 32K resolution at 120 fps.)
- It is a multi-feature software that provides editing, color grading, VFX, 3D compositing, and audio editing all in one place.
- It has the most advanced and powerful Node-based color grading system, which is also used by Hollywood film studios.
- Supports Raw and 360 videos from GoPro or other action cameras.
- Supports multi-cam editing up to 16 camera angles.
- Can make Compound clips and add adjustment layers.
- Fairlight panel has professional audio production tools like waveform editing, audio ducking, and Channel mapping. (Dolby Vision mastering and 3D spatial Panning [audio editing in 3D space] are available in the Studio version.)
- Supports third-party plugins.
- Has a 3D workspace and provides a virtual set extension for 3D modeling and compositing.
~ Cons:
- Its node-based editing style is quite difficult for beginners.
- Requires a high-end workstation to run smoothly otherwise will often crash during editing.
- Its node-based editing system is hard to learn.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Davinci Resolve’. Select a previously saved project or press “New project” to start a new one. Click “File” >> “Import” >> “Media” to import files or press “CTRL + I”.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to the timeline Use the tools present above the timeline to trim, cut or move your clips. Click the “Inspector” icon on the top-right corner of the window to open the Inspector tab. Here you will find the properties of all the clips, audio, transitions, effects, e.t.c. There are different editing tabs at the bottom of the window.
In the “Fusion” window, click “Nodes” to open the Node screen. Import a clip or use it from the editor timeline. Usually, a clip will have two nodes connected through a line. Above the nodes panel, different types of nodes are available. Drag any node in the panel and connect it through lines. or add a “merge” node to connect nodes.
Its color grading panel also has Node based editing system.
Effects: Click “Effects Library” then select any effect and drop it in the timeline to apply it. You can change its properties in the “Inspector” panel.
Click the diamond icon on the right side of the property to start keyframing then change the value of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Open the “Deliver” window, choose the desired settings then click “Add to Render Queue” to start exporting.
FXhome - Hitfilm Express:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux also.
If you are looking for a free but powerful video editor to edit your GoPro clips then Hitfilm Express can be the right choice for you. It is a free timeline-based editing software with professional-grade VFX tools. It is a timeline-based editor where you can add dozens of audio, videos, and text layers.
It has a composite shot sequence where you can do complex editing like editing 3D videos and elements, lights e.t.c. It has physic-base behaviors and effects also to enhance 3D compositing. For professional-level editing almost most of the effects and properties have keyframing options. It has different workspace modes to suit your editing needs.
It can also edit 360 videos recorded from your GoPro max. It has a “GoPro Lens Reframe” effect to adjust your 360 clips, but some 360 toolkits can only be available when you purchase Hitfilm pro or buy a 360 toolkit add-on. Similarly, you can purchase more add-ons according to your editing needs or you can purchase Hitfilm Pro to gain access to all add-ons and features. But can use these pro features for free but without exporting as exporting with a paid effect can give a watermark.
Hitfilm Pro:
Although Hitfilm express doesn’t give a watermark on export, but to use more features like 3D composition, LUTs, e.t.c you need to purchase add-ons, there are over 30+ add-ons available to purchase which you can purchase depending on your needs, but if you want to get all the features than its better to get your hands on Hitfilm Pro.
Pricing: Available for purchase at £ 309 or $ 388 for a lifetime license. With 12 months of free updates. It has 3 seat license which means It can run on 3 PCs simultaneously.
~ Features:
- It is a free editing software with no watermark.
- It can edit 3D videos and it can also import and edit 3D models and tracking data.
- It can edit 360 videos also.
- You can add effects and color grades as layers in the timeline also.
- Can add adjustment layers and create nested clips within nested clips to make complex editing easier.
- It has a motion track and locked-on stabilization features.
- Can do smooth keyframing and animation with the help of value graphs.
- It supports multi-cam editing also.
- Keyboard shortcuts make workflow quite easy and quick.
~ Cons:
- It has some playback issues while using 4K videos.
- It crashes sometimes, so it’s better to save the project frequently during editing.
- Hitfilm express doesn’t have a dark mode.
- Some common features are only available on the Pro version or add-ons.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Hitfilm”, Select “New Project” to open a blank project then click “open” to open an existing file or click “new” to create a new project. Then set project settings on pop-up then and click “ok”.
Then click the “Media” tab on the top-left corner of the screen. Then select the “Import” button to import videos, images, audio, or 3d models. You can also import previously made composite shots.
Edit: Drag and drop media files from the media tab to the timeline. or click the “New” tab to create a “Composite shot” or a solid plane layer. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to insert or delete layers. On the left side of the timeline, you will find some basic tools located on the vertical bar to do simple tasks.
In the “Viewer” tab, on the left side of the playback screen, you can find tools for masking and adding text.
In the “Controls” tab, you can adjust the properties of clips and other features related to the clip like masking, track, blend, transform, e.t.c.
Create a “Composite shot” to do complex editing like 3D compositing. Or select multiple layers then right-click and select “make Composite shot” to combine them for easy editing. Double-click the composite shot to open its contents.
Effects: From the “Effects” tab drag and drop effects on the clip to add them. Some effects can be added as layers which can affect all the layers beneath it. Properties of these effects can be adjusted in the “Control” tab.
To do keyframing, Click the circle icon on the left side of the property to start keyframing then change the values of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Click the “Export” icon then “Export now” located at the top right side of the timeline to open the export window. The export will start automatically.
Shotcut:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you are making videos from your GoPro or mobile phone just for fun that doesn’t require much editing then you can look for a free and simple video editor and “Shotcut” can be the right choice for this purpose.
It is a free and open-source video editor with many cool features to get your hands on. It doesn’t have any pro version. It is simple and easy to use but takes some time to understand. It supports multi-track timeline editing. It has a basic timeline design but you can customize your timeline to meet your editing needs. It has some good color grading options, you can also import your color luts. It has many cool features and effects. It supports 360 video editing and also has a few 360 video filters. It has audio effects also.
~ Features:
- All its features are for free and it doesn’t leave any watermark.
- It supports 4K resolution and a wide range of file formats.
- It also supports 360 video files.
- Has keyframing and chroma kry features.
- It has advanced color grading features.
- It provides standard animation and keyframing features.
~ Cons:
- It is a basic video editor and lacks some professional editing features.
- Have playback issues with 4K videos.
- It does have proper text editing tools.
- It is difficult to understand as its UI is different from other familiar video editors.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Shot Cut” then click the “Open Files” button on the top-left corner of the window to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop clips on an empty timeline panel to add tracks and drag the clip from corners to trim them. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to add a video or an audio track. You will find a bunch of tools above the timeline to do some basic tasks.
You can choose from 6 different workspace designs (available in the top-right corner of the window) to suit your editing styles.
On top of the window, you will see a bunch of icons like Timeline, filter, project, and properties. e.t.c. In the properties tab, you can change the aspect ratio and speed of the clip.
Effects: Click the “Filters” icon on top of the window to open the filters menu, Click “+” above it to add filters. Double click a filter to add it to the selected clip, then click the filter to open its properties menu. You can also add text from here.
Click the “Keyframes” icon on top of the window to open the Keyframes window. Select the “clock” icon on the filters to start keyframing then change the values at a specific time to add keyframes. Click the “Timeline” icon to go back to the previous window.
Export: Click the “Export” button on the top of the screen. Select a preset or click the “Advanced” button to change export settings then click “Export File”.
Paid GoPro Video Editor for Mac:
If you are a professional athlete or a vlogger using GoPro for all of your contents and want to invest some money on paid video editors to improve your content. Then here we have mentioned some paid video editors worthy of your investment.
Apple - Final Cut Pro:
It is available for Mac only.
If you are an Apple enthusiastic person and want everything Apple, then why look for any other video editor when you can have a powerful video editor “Final cut pro” made by Apple. It is a paid but professional software that can raise your GoPro videos to the next level. Whether it’s a 360 video or a RAW file recorded from your GoPro or from the RED cinema camera, all can be edited smoothly inside Final Cut Pro. It has dozens of useful features that a professional video editor looks for like 3D tracking, Motion Graphics, Color Grading, Audio Mixing, Multi-cam editing e.t.c.
Pricing: It is a one-time purchase software available at $ 299.9 for a lifetime license and all its future updates can be downloaded free of cost.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Support 360 and RAW video files.
- Edit videos in complete 360 and 3D spaces.
- Supports third-party video and audio plugins.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have professional color grading tools with HDR support.
- Its UI is easy to use.
~ Cons:
- It is designed for Apple devices only.
- Requires a powerful PC.
- Its UI is a bit different from other common video editors in the market.
- ~ Steps:
Import: Open “Final Cut Pro” then click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the screen, then select “Project” to create a new project. In the “Files” menu, click “import” then “media” to import your media files. Here most of the work is done with Keyboard commands.
Edit: Drag and Drop clips on the timeline. In the viewer panel, press “I” and “O” to add input and output points then drag the clip to add only a specific part of the clip. Press “Cmd + B” to split the clip at the desired location. Or add the clips above to add the layer.
Click the “Text” icon on the top-left corner of the screen to open the text page. Choose from presets or import your own Text presets and drag them to the timeline. Click the text to open “Text Editor” on the left side of the screen.
Select multiple clips then Right-click and select “New Compound Clip” to combine them. Double-click the compound clip to edit its components.
Effects: Click 2 icons on the top-right side of the timeline to open the effects and transition panel. Drag and drop on the clip to use them. You can change their properties in the “Effects editor” tab located in the same place as “Text Editor”.
In the editor tab, click the diamond icon beside any property to start keyframing, then change its property to add keyframes at the desired time.
Press “Cmd + 6” to open the Color Grading tab, here you can color grade your clips.
Export: To export the edited video. Click “File” >> “Share” >> “Master file” to open export window. Choose the desired settings then click “Next” then “Save” to export the video.
Adobe - Premiere Pro:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a content creator or not, if you use a DSLR or an action camera for the first time, then maybe the output wouldn’t meet your expectations. In order to make it good, you need a video editor. And if you will ask your gathering about a good video editor, most of them will recommend you Adobe Premiere Pro, because it is such a versatile and well-known software available in the market. It is a subscription-based video editor.
It is an industry-level software with many professional and advanced features. From beginner video editing to film compositing, all can be done in this software. Whether you have a 360 video or a 4K video in Raw format recorded from your GoPro, just import it into premiere pro and start editing. It has a downloadable “GoPro FX Reframe” plugin to edit your 360 videos. It has different panels designed to deal with specific parts of post-production such as the Effects panel, Graphics panel, Sound panel, Colour Grading panel, e.t.c.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Have different panels to enhance different segments of post-production.
- Have an essential Effects panel to create motion effects and animations using keyframes.
- Supports hundreds of third-party extensions.
- Have useful features like warp stabilizer and denoiser.
- You can import or create your color LUTs.
- Have a creative cloud with 100 Gb of storage.
- The bundle also includes a mobile video editor and a stock library.
~ Cons:
- Real-time rendering. It will take some time to render before exporting if you work on a mid-range PC.
- Freezes or crashes sometimes.
- Cache data fill-up quickly and eats a lot of storage. (It’s better to clear it after every project)
Pricing: It is cloud-based software, therefore it can’t be purchased one time. It has a monthly subscription starting at $ 20.99/month. It includes “premiere rush” mobile video editor and 100 GB of cloud storage within the plan. It also has a “Creative cloud All apps” plan that includes all 30+ Softwares + 100Gb cloud storage along with premiere pro for $ 54.99 only. All plans also include Behance (adobe creative community), Adobe Fonts, and Adobe stock assets for free. Adobe also provides educational access at a much discounted price.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Premiere Pro”. Click “New Project” to start with then Click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the window then select the “Import files” button to import files. Or press “CTRL + I” to import files or drag your files from their location to premiere pro.
Edit: Drag and Drop the files to add them to the timeline. Drop a file above a clip to add as a layer. or drop over a clip to overwrite it. On the right side of the timeline, you can find a bunch of tools to do basic edits like trimming, splitting, speed ramping, masking, or adding text.
In the “Effects Control” tab you can transform the selected clip or change its properties.
Select multiple clips then right-click and select “make Nested clip” to combine them into a single clip for easy editing.
Slide between 8 different workspace styles designed for specific post-production tasks by clicking the buttons available on the top of the window.
Effects: Go to the “Effects” panel on the bottom-left window to apply an effect or transitions. Here you can find all audio, video, 2D, and 3D effects. Drag and Drop on a clip to apply it. Change the properties of these effects in the “Effects Control” panel.
To color grade, your clips move to the “Color” workspace. Here you will find all the color grading features: correction, curves, color wheels, creative tab, e.t.c. To import a LUT click the “creative tab” then click “Browse” to import a LUT.
Export: To Export go to the “Files” tab on top of the screen then select the “Export” button to open the export tab. Select the desired settings then click “Export”.
Power Director 365 :
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
If you are looking for a budget-friendly video editor that is powerful enough to edit your GoPro videos like a content creator then Power director can be the right choice for you. It has many unique and useful features. It has different plugins and design centers to do specific post-production tasks like Ad designer, Multicam editor, AI style plugins, e.t.c.
It also has a separate action cam center to fix or enhance action cam videos. IT also has chapter and subtitle rooms to add subtitles and chapters for your Youtube videos or films. It also has a vast stock and preset library to speed up your project.
Pricing: It has a subscription plan which is available at $69/year. It is now available at 30% off till 22nd May,2022.
~ Features:
- It supports 4K videos and a wide range of import formats.
- Have many built-in plugins and design centers.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have an action cam center to deal with action cam footage.
- Have separate aspect ratio mode for 360 videos.
- Also, have a chapter and subtitle room. many recording aspects of the video.
- Have a content-aware editing feature that detects the recording aspects.
- Can import presets and color LUTs.
- Have a vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- Have some playback issues with 4K videos. (create shadow files to overcome this issue to an extent).
- Its UI is a little bit complicated for beginners.
- Not ideal for fast pace editing.
~ Steps:
Import: Open Power director and a pop-up will appear, select desired aspect ratio then click “Full mode” to open the software. Or select 360 aspect ratio if you want to edit 360 videos.
Click the “Import Media” icon below the Files tab in the top-left corner of the window to import files or press “CTRL + Q” to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to any desired layer in the timeline. Click the icon on the top left corner of the timeline to add layers. When you select a clip in the timeline, some tools appear on the top timeline. Select any specific tool to edit your selected clip. Or click the “Plugins” button on the top-left of the window to open a specific designer tab.
Double-click on the clip to open ‘PIP designer”. Here you will find all the editing tools to edit or animate your clip.
After selecting a clip, in the “Plugins” menu click the “Action Camera Center” button to open an edit tab, Here you can fix your GoPro videos.
Effects: On the top-left corner of the window in a vertical bar you will find all the effects material lile Project library, titles, effects, transitions, overlays, e.t.c. Simply just drag and drop them on the timeline to use them. Here you can also do audio mixing and add subtitles and chapters.
Double click a clip or an overlay element to open the designer window. Here you can customize the clips and overlays to enhance your project.
Export: Click the blue “Produce” button on top of the screen to export your edited file. Select the desired mode and file format and add an export destination, then click “Start” to start exporting.
Which One Should I Choose Free or Paid GoPro Video Editor?
You can choose free or paid softwares depending on your requirements and budget. If a free software meets your requirements then stay on it otherwise move towards a paid alternative. If you have a GoPro and you make videos just for fun then use a free and simple video editor. Even if you are an experienced video editor, I would recommend you to go for free video editors which I have mentioned above as they are quite powerful and professional software but if you are harvesting a good amount of money from this field then you can upgrade to pro versions of these free softwares or get a paid software from start. As almost all of these softwares are professional and can get your job done, so it’s better to choose one, which is comfortable for you to work on.
FAQs about GoPro Video Editing:
- Q) Does GoPro has its own video editor?
Yes, GoPro has its own video editor “Quik”. It is available on mobile phones and desktops both. It is simple and easy to use. It provides basic features to edit your video. But the main disadvantage of this desktop software is that it supports only GoPro videos, you can’t import files from other devices. Although this isn’t the issue with Quik mobile app, here you can import videos from other devices also.
- Q) Can I make videos for social media with a GoPro?
It was basically made for recording sports and action videos. But as the market is revolutionized and new models are released it has covered a wide range of the video industry like vlogging, travel and cooking videos e.t.c. As new models of GoPros are waterproof, you can get some amazing underwater shots for your Instagram.
- Q) What is GoPro media format?
GoPro export files in popular file format MP4. MP4 is the most common file format and is supported by almost all the video editors. While it is efficient and takes less storage but isn’t supported in many devices.
- Q) How do I transfer files from my GoPro to Mac?
You can transfer your GoPro files through 3 methods:
- Eject the SD card from your GoPro and connect it to your Mac using a SD card adapter to transfer files.
- Connect your GoPro to Mac through USB connector and use “iphoto” or any other photo importer to import files.
For macOS 10.14 or later
~ Features:
- It supports 4K files and a wide range of file formats.
- It has a simple UI that is suitable for beginners.
- It Supports 360 video files (in equirectangular format).
- Supports industry-standard plugins like Boris fx.
- Have features like standard motion tracking, masking, chroma key, e.t.c.
- The paid version has more features like Speed ramping, Auto-sync, keyframing, and animation.
- Have vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- The free version leaves a watermark on export.
- Have playback issues with 4k videos.
- Lacks some standard editing features.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Filmora” then select the desired aspect ratio and click “New Project’ to start editing. Click on the “Import panel” to import media files.
Edit: Drag and drop the clips to add them to the timeline. Drop the clips above or below to add them in layers. Click the top-left icon of the timeline to add layers. Select a clip and you will see a bunch of tools appear on the top bar of the timeline, use them to perform basic editing tasks like split, crop, speed ramping, keyframing, e.t.c.
Double-click on a clip to open its properties. . Click the blue “Ok” button to move back to the previous window.
Select the “Video” icon to transform the clip or to do motion tracking, stabilization, chroma-key, Masking, e.t.c.
Select the “Audio” icon to apply effects and enhance your audio.
Select the “Color” icon to do color correction and grading.
Select the “3D LUT” option to import a new customized lut.
Select the “Animation” icon to add preset animations or make custom animations by using keyframes.
Select the “Speed” icon to adjust the speed of the clip or to do speed ramping.
Click the blue “OK” button below to go back to the previous window.
Effects: On the horizontal bar at the top-left corner of the screen, all the effects, transitions, title present, and stock library are located. Drag and drop to apply them.
Export: Click the blue “Export” button to open export window, choose the desired settings than click “Export”. and don’t forget to save the project if you want to edit it again.
Free GoPro Video Editors for Mac:
If you are tight on budget but still want a professional video editor to edit your GoPro videos then here I have mentioned some free but powerful video editors. Whether you are a beginner or a professional content creator, these free softwares can get your job done.
Blackmagic - Davinchi Resolve:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a freelance video editor or an industry-level filmmaker, if you want to step up your game and stand out from your competition then you need a powerful video editor to help you out and Davinchi Resolve can be the right choice for you. From sports vlogging using action cams to Hollywood filmmaking using Red cinema cameras, Davinchi Resolve can handle and edit all this footage easily and smoothly. It is even used in the making of several Hollywood projects including Marvels’s feature films.
It is one of the best color grading software available in the market. It has advanced color grading tools that can help color grade your GoPro raw videos easily as raw videos look dull but provide greater flexibility. It is a timeline-based editor but its Fusion and Color grading panel provides a Node-based editing system which is hard to use but provides great flexibility once mastered.
Resolve has 6 different pages to deal with different editing parts:
“Edit” and “Cut” pages to deal with simple editing tasks. Its “Fusion” page allows users to do VFX and 3D compositing. The “Color Grading” page has all the professional grading tools. While the “Fairlight” page is designed to edit and enhance audio. And the “Deliver” page to export your files.
All these features are available for free without even giving a watermark. Although it has a studio version that provides some additional features to get more out of this amazing software.
- Davinchi Resolve Studio:
The free version has almost everything a professional video editor needs. but you can purchase the Studio version to get some really juicy features to enhance your video editing experience. It includes the Davinci neural engine, stereoscopic 3D tools, Dolby atmos audio mastering,e.t.c.
Pricing: Studio version is available at $ 295 for a lifetime license and with free updates.
~ Features:
- It supports a 4K resolution at 60fps. (while the Studio version supports up to 32K resolution at 120 fps.)
- It is a multi-feature software that provides editing, color grading, VFX, 3D compositing, and audio editing all in one place.
- It has the most advanced and powerful Node-based color grading system, which is also used by Hollywood film studios.
- Supports Raw and 360 videos from GoPro or other action cameras.
- Supports multi-cam editing up to 16 camera angles.
- Can make Compound clips and add adjustment layers.
- Fairlight panel has professional audio production tools like waveform editing, audio ducking, and Channel mapping. (Dolby Vision mastering and 3D spatial Panning [audio editing in 3D space] are available in the Studio version.)
- Supports third-party plugins.
- Has a 3D workspace and provides a virtual set extension for 3D modeling and compositing.
~ Cons:
- Its node-based editing style is quite difficult for beginners.
- Requires a high-end workstation to run smoothly otherwise will often crash during editing.
- Its node-based editing system is hard to learn.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Davinci Resolve’. Select a previously saved project or press “New project” to start a new one. Click “File” >> “Import” >> “Media” to import files or press “CTRL + I”.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to the timeline Use the tools present above the timeline to trim, cut or move your clips. Click the “Inspector” icon on the top-right corner of the window to open the Inspector tab. Here you will find the properties of all the clips, audio, transitions, effects, e.t.c. There are different editing tabs at the bottom of the window.
In the “Fusion” window, click “Nodes” to open the Node screen. Import a clip or use it from the editor timeline. Usually, a clip will have two nodes connected through a line. Above the nodes panel, different types of nodes are available. Drag any node in the panel and connect it through lines. or add a “merge” node to connect nodes.
Its color grading panel also has Node based editing system.
Effects: Click “Effects Library” then select any effect and drop it in the timeline to apply it. You can change its properties in the “Inspector” panel.
Click the diamond icon on the right side of the property to start keyframing then change the value of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Open the “Deliver” window, choose the desired settings then click “Add to Render Queue” to start exporting.
FXhome - Hitfilm Express:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux also.
If you are looking for a free but powerful video editor to edit your GoPro clips then Hitfilm Express can be the right choice for you. It is a free timeline-based editing software with professional-grade VFX tools. It is a timeline-based editor where you can add dozens of audio, videos, and text layers.
It has a composite shot sequence where you can do complex editing like editing 3D videos and elements, lights e.t.c. It has physic-base behaviors and effects also to enhance 3D compositing. For professional-level editing almost most of the effects and properties have keyframing options. It has different workspace modes to suit your editing needs.
It can also edit 360 videos recorded from your GoPro max. It has a “GoPro Lens Reframe” effect to adjust your 360 clips, but some 360 toolkits can only be available when you purchase Hitfilm pro or buy a 360 toolkit add-on. Similarly, you can purchase more add-ons according to your editing needs or you can purchase Hitfilm Pro to gain access to all add-ons and features. But can use these pro features for free but without exporting as exporting with a paid effect can give a watermark.
Hitfilm Pro:
Although Hitfilm express doesn’t give a watermark on export, but to use more features like 3D composition, LUTs, e.t.c you need to purchase add-ons, there are over 30+ add-ons available to purchase which you can purchase depending on your needs, but if you want to get all the features than its better to get your hands on Hitfilm Pro.
Pricing: Available for purchase at £ 309 or $ 388 for a lifetime license. With 12 months of free updates. It has 3 seat license which means It can run on 3 PCs simultaneously.
~ Features:
- It is a free editing software with no watermark.
- It can edit 3D videos and it can also import and edit 3D models and tracking data.
- It can edit 360 videos also.
- You can add effects and color grades as layers in the timeline also.
- Can add adjustment layers and create nested clips within nested clips to make complex editing easier.
- It has a motion track and locked-on stabilization features.
- Can do smooth keyframing and animation with the help of value graphs.
- It supports multi-cam editing also.
- Keyboard shortcuts make workflow quite easy and quick.
~ Cons:
- It has some playback issues while using 4K videos.
- It crashes sometimes, so it’s better to save the project frequently during editing.
- Hitfilm express doesn’t have a dark mode.
- Some common features are only available on the Pro version or add-ons.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Hitfilm”, Select “New Project” to open a blank project then click “open” to open an existing file or click “new” to create a new project. Then set project settings on pop-up then and click “ok”.
Then click the “Media” tab on the top-left corner of the screen. Then select the “Import” button to import videos, images, audio, or 3d models. You can also import previously made composite shots.
Edit: Drag and drop media files from the media tab to the timeline. or click the “New” tab to create a “Composite shot” or a solid plane layer. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to insert or delete layers. On the left side of the timeline, you will find some basic tools located on the vertical bar to do simple tasks.
In the “Viewer” tab, on the left side of the playback screen, you can find tools for masking and adding text.
In the “Controls” tab, you can adjust the properties of clips and other features related to the clip like masking, track, blend, transform, e.t.c.
Create a “Composite shot” to do complex editing like 3D compositing. Or select multiple layers then right-click and select “make Composite shot” to combine them for easy editing. Double-click the composite shot to open its contents.
Effects: From the “Effects” tab drag and drop effects on the clip to add them. Some effects can be added as layers which can affect all the layers beneath it. Properties of these effects can be adjusted in the “Control” tab.
To do keyframing, Click the circle icon on the left side of the property to start keyframing then change the values of that property to add keyframes at desired time period.
Export: Click the “Export” icon then “Export now” located at the top right side of the timeline to open the export window. The export will start automatically.
Shotcut:
It is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you are making videos from your GoPro or mobile phone just for fun that doesn’t require much editing then you can look for a free and simple video editor and “Shotcut” can be the right choice for this purpose.
It is a free and open-source video editor with many cool features to get your hands on. It doesn’t have any pro version. It is simple and easy to use but takes some time to understand. It supports multi-track timeline editing. It has a basic timeline design but you can customize your timeline to meet your editing needs. It has some good color grading options, you can also import your color luts. It has many cool features and effects. It supports 360 video editing and also has a few 360 video filters. It has audio effects also.
~ Features:
- All its features are for free and it doesn’t leave any watermark.
- It supports 4K resolution and a wide range of file formats.
- It also supports 360 video files.
- Has keyframing and chroma kry features.
- It has advanced color grading features.
- It provides standard animation and keyframing features.
~ Cons:
- It is a basic video editor and lacks some professional editing features.
- Have playback issues with 4K videos.
- It does have proper text editing tools.
- It is difficult to understand as its UI is different from other familiar video editors.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Shot Cut” then click the “Open Files” button on the top-left corner of the window to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop clips on an empty timeline panel to add tracks and drag the clip from corners to trim them. Right-click on the left side of the timeline to add a video or an audio track. You will find a bunch of tools above the timeline to do some basic tasks.
You can choose from 6 different workspace designs (available in the top-right corner of the window) to suit your editing styles.
On top of the window, you will see a bunch of icons like Timeline, filter, project, and properties. e.t.c. In the properties tab, you can change the aspect ratio and speed of the clip.
Effects: Click the “Filters” icon on top of the window to open the filters menu, Click “+” above it to add filters. Double click a filter to add it to the selected clip, then click the filter to open its properties menu. You can also add text from here.
Click the “Keyframes” icon on top of the window to open the Keyframes window. Select the “clock” icon on the filters to start keyframing then change the values at a specific time to add keyframes. Click the “Timeline” icon to go back to the previous window.
Export: Click the “Export” button on the top of the screen. Select a preset or click the “Advanced” button to change export settings then click “Export File”.
Paid GoPro Video Editor for Mac:
If you are a professional athlete or a vlogger using GoPro for all of your contents and want to invest some money on paid video editors to improve your content. Then here we have mentioned some paid video editors worthy of your investment.
Apple - Final Cut Pro:
It is available for Mac only.
If you are an Apple enthusiastic person and want everything Apple, then why look for any other video editor when you can have a powerful video editor “Final cut pro” made by Apple. It is a paid but professional software that can raise your GoPro videos to the next level. Whether it’s a 360 video or a RAW file recorded from your GoPro or from the RED cinema camera, all can be edited smoothly inside Final Cut Pro. It has dozens of useful features that a professional video editor looks for like 3D tracking, Motion Graphics, Color Grading, Audio Mixing, Multi-cam editing e.t.c.
Pricing: It is a one-time purchase software available at $ 299.9 for a lifetime license and all its future updates can be downloaded free of cost.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Support 360 and RAW video files.
- Edit videos in complete 360 and 3D spaces.
- Supports third-party video and audio plugins.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have professional color grading tools with HDR support.
- Its UI is easy to use.
~ Cons:
- It is designed for Apple devices only.
- Requires a powerful PC.
- Its UI is a bit different from other common video editors in the market.
- ~ Steps:
Import: Open “Final Cut Pro” then click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the screen, then select “Project” to create a new project. In the “Files” menu, click “import” then “media” to import your media files. Here most of the work is done with Keyboard commands.
Edit: Drag and Drop clips on the timeline. In the viewer panel, press “I” and “O” to add input and output points then drag the clip to add only a specific part of the clip. Press “Cmd + B” to split the clip at the desired location. Or add the clips above to add the layer.
Click the “Text” icon on the top-left corner of the screen to open the text page. Choose from presets or import your own Text presets and drag them to the timeline. Click the text to open “Text Editor” on the left side of the screen.
Select multiple clips then Right-click and select “New Compound Clip” to combine them. Double-click the compound clip to edit its components.
Effects: Click 2 icons on the top-right side of the timeline to open the effects and transition panel. Drag and drop on the clip to use them. You can change their properties in the “Effects editor” tab located in the same place as “Text Editor”.
In the editor tab, click the diamond icon beside any property to start keyframing, then change its property to add keyframes at the desired time.
Press “Cmd + 6” to open the Color Grading tab, here you can color grade your clips.
Export: To export the edited video. Click “File” >> “Share” >> “Master file” to open export window. Choose the desired settings then click “Next” then “Save” to export the video.
Adobe - Premiere Pro:
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
Whether you are a content creator or not, if you use a DSLR or an action camera for the first time, then maybe the output wouldn’t meet your expectations. In order to make it good, you need a video editor. And if you will ask your gathering about a good video editor, most of them will recommend you Adobe Premiere Pro, because it is such a versatile and well-known software available in the market. It is a subscription-based video editor.
It is an industry-level software with many professional and advanced features. From beginner video editing to film compositing, all can be done in this software. Whether you have a 360 video or a 4K video in Raw format recorded from your GoPro, just import it into premiere pro and start editing. It has a downloadable “GoPro FX Reframe” plugin to edit your 360 videos. It has different panels designed to deal with specific parts of post-production such as the Effects panel, Graphics panel, Sound panel, Colour Grading panel, e.t.c.
~ Features:
- It supports up to 8K resolution.
- Have different panels to enhance different segments of post-production.
- Have an essential Effects panel to create motion effects and animations using keyframes.
- Supports hundreds of third-party extensions.
- Have useful features like warp stabilizer and denoiser.
- You can import or create your color LUTs.
- Have a creative cloud with 100 Gb of storage.
- The bundle also includes a mobile video editor and a stock library.
~ Cons:
- Real-time rendering. It will take some time to render before exporting if you work on a mid-range PC.
- Freezes or crashes sometimes.
- Cache data fill-up quickly and eats a lot of storage. (It’s better to clear it after every project)
Pricing: It is cloud-based software, therefore it can’t be purchased one time. It has a monthly subscription starting at $ 20.99/month. It includes “premiere rush” mobile video editor and 100 GB of cloud storage within the plan. It also has a “Creative cloud All apps” plan that includes all 30+ Softwares + 100Gb cloud storage along with premiere pro for $ 54.99 only. All plans also include Behance (adobe creative community), Adobe Fonts, and Adobe stock assets for free. Adobe also provides educational access at a much discounted price.
~ Steps:
Import: Open “Premiere Pro”. Click “New Project” to start with then Click the “Files” button on the top-left corner of the window then select the “Import files” button to import files. Or press “CTRL + I” to import files or drag your files from their location to premiere pro.
Edit: Drag and Drop the files to add them to the timeline. Drop a file above a clip to add as a layer. or drop over a clip to overwrite it. On the right side of the timeline, you can find a bunch of tools to do basic edits like trimming, splitting, speed ramping, masking, or adding text.
In the “Effects Control” tab you can transform the selected clip or change its properties.
Select multiple clips then right-click and select “make Nested clip” to combine them into a single clip for easy editing.
Slide between 8 different workspace styles designed for specific post-production tasks by clicking the buttons available on the top of the window.
Effects: Go to the “Effects” panel on the bottom-left window to apply an effect or transitions. Here you can find all audio, video, 2D, and 3D effects. Drag and Drop on a clip to apply it. Change the properties of these effects in the “Effects Control” panel.
To color grade, your clips move to the “Color” workspace. Here you will find all the color grading features: correction, curves, color wheels, creative tab, e.t.c. To import a LUT click the “creative tab” then click “Browse” to import a LUT.
Export: To Export go to the “Files” tab on top of the screen then select the “Export” button to open the export tab. Select the desired settings then click “Export”.
Power Director 365 :
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
If you are looking for a budget-friendly video editor that is powerful enough to edit your GoPro videos like a content creator then Power director can be the right choice for you. It has many unique and useful features. It has different plugins and design centers to do specific post-production tasks like Ad designer, Multicam editor, AI style plugins, e.t.c.
It also has a separate action cam center to fix or enhance action cam videos. IT also has chapter and subtitle rooms to add subtitles and chapters for your Youtube videos or films. It also has a vast stock and preset library to speed up your project.
Pricing: It has a subscription plan which is available at $69/year. It is now available at 30% off till 22nd May,2022.
~ Features:
- It supports 4K videos and a wide range of import formats.
- Have many built-in plugins and design centers.
- Supports Multi-cam editing.
- Have an action cam center to deal with action cam footage.
- Have separate aspect ratio mode for 360 videos.
- Also, have a chapter and subtitle room. many recording aspects of the video.
- Have a content-aware editing feature that detects the recording aspects.
- Can import presets and color LUTs.
- Have a vast stock library.
~ Cons:
- Have some playback issues with 4K videos. (create shadow files to overcome this issue to an extent).
- Its UI is a little bit complicated for beginners.
- Not ideal for fast pace editing.
~ Steps:
Import: Open Power director and a pop-up will appear, select desired aspect ratio then click “Full mode” to open the software. Or select 360 aspect ratio if you want to edit 360 videos.
Click the “Import Media” icon below the Files tab in the top-left corner of the window to import files or press “CTRL + Q” to import files.
Edit: Drag and drop files to add them to any desired layer in the timeline. Click the icon on the top left corner of the timeline to add layers. When you select a clip in the timeline, some tools appear on the top timeline. Select any specific tool to edit your selected clip. Or click the “Plugins” button on the top-left of the window to open a specific designer tab.
Double-click on the clip to open ‘PIP designer”. Here you will find all the editing tools to edit or animate your clip.
After selecting a clip, in the “Plugins” menu click the “Action Camera Center” button to open an edit tab, Here you can fix your GoPro videos.
Effects: On the top-left corner of the window in a vertical bar you will find all the effects material lile Project library, titles, effects, transitions, overlays, e.t.c. Simply just drag and drop them on the timeline to use them. Here you can also do audio mixing and add subtitles and chapters.
Double click a clip or an overlay element to open the designer window. Here you can customize the clips and overlays to enhance your project.
Export: Click the blue “Produce” button on top of the screen to export your edited file. Select the desired mode and file format and add an export destination, then click “Start” to start exporting.
Which One Should I Choose Free or Paid GoPro Video Editor?
You can choose free or paid softwares depending on your requirements and budget. If a free software meets your requirements then stay on it otherwise move towards a paid alternative. If you have a GoPro and you make videos just for fun then use a free and simple video editor. Even if you are an experienced video editor, I would recommend you to go for free video editors which I have mentioned above as they are quite powerful and professional software but if you are harvesting a good amount of money from this field then you can upgrade to pro versions of these free softwares or get a paid software from start. As almost all of these softwares are professional and can get your job done, so it’s better to choose one, which is comfortable for you to work on.
FAQs about GoPro Video Editing:
- Q) Does GoPro has its own video editor?
Yes, GoPro has its own video editor “Quik”. It is available on mobile phones and desktops both. It is simple and easy to use. It provides basic features to edit your video. But the main disadvantage of this desktop software is that it supports only GoPro videos, you can’t import files from other devices. Although this isn’t the issue with Quik mobile app, here you can import videos from other devices also.
- Q) Can I make videos for social media with a GoPro?
It was basically made for recording sports and action videos. But as the market is revolutionized and new models are released it has covered a wide range of the video industry like vlogging, travel and cooking videos e.t.c. As new models of GoPros are waterproof, you can get some amazing underwater shots for your Instagram.
- Q) What is GoPro media format?
GoPro export files in popular file format MP4. MP4 is the most common file format and is supported by almost all the video editors. While it is efficient and takes less storage but isn’t supported in many devices.
- Q) How do I transfer files from my GoPro to Mac?
You can transfer your GoPro files through 3 methods:
- Eject the SD card from your GoPro and connect it to your Mac using a SD card adapter to transfer files.
- Connect your GoPro to Mac through USB connector and use “iphoto” or any other photo importer to import files.
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- Title: In 2024, How To Be A Successful YouTuber
- Author: Chloe
- Created at : 2024-05-20 03:38:32
- Updated at : 2024-05-21 03:38:32
- Link: https://ai-editing-video.techidaily.com/in-2024-how-to-be-a-successful-youtuber/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
