Using OpenShot is very easy, and this tutorial will take you through the basics in under 5 minutes. After this tutorial, you will be able to make a simple photo slide-show with music.
Step 1 – Import media files¶
Before we can begin making a video, we need to import media files into OpenShot. Most video, image and music file formats will work. Drag and drop a few videos or images and a music file from your Desktop to OpenShot. Be sure to drop the files where the arrow in the illustration is pointing to.
Step 2 – Arrange Videos and Photos on Timeline¶
Next, drag each video or photo onto a track in the timeline (as seen in the illustration). The timeline represents your final video, so arrange your photos in whatever sequence you want them to appear in your video. If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create a smooth fade between them, displayed by blue rounded rectangles between the clips. Remember, you can rearrange the clips as many times as needed by simply dragging and dropping them.
Step 3 – Add Music to Timeline¶
To make our creation more interesting, we need to add some music. Click on the music file that you imported in step 1, and drag it onto the timeline. If the song is too long, grab the right edge of your music clip, and resize it smaller (that will make it end earlier). You could also insert the same file multiple times, if your music is too short.
Step 4 – Preview your Project¶
To preview what our video looks & sounds like, click the Play button under the preview window. You can also pause, rewind, and fast-forward your video project by clicking the corresponding buttons.
Step 5 – Export your Video¶
Once you are happy with your project, the next step is to export your video. This will convert your OpenShot project into a single video file, which will work on most media players (such as VLC) or websites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc…).
Click on the Export Video icon at the top of the screen (or use the File > Export Video menu). Choose from one of the many preset export options, and click the Export Video button.
You should now have a basic understanding of how OpenShot works. Importing, Arranging, Previewing, and Exporting. Hopefully this tutorial took less than 5 minutes for you to complete. Please read the rest of this guide for a more detailed understanding of OpenShot, and it’s advanced features. Enjoy!
Quick Tutorial¶
Using OpenShot is very easy, and this tutorial will take you through the basics in under 5 minutes. After this tutorial, you will be able to make a simple photo slide-show with music.
Step 1 – Import media files¶
Before we can begin making a video, we need to import media files into OpenShot. Most video, image and music file formats will work. Drag and drop a few videos or images and a music file from your Desktop to OpenShot. Be sure to drop the files where the arrow in the illustration is pointing to.
Step 2 – Arrange Videos and Photos on Timeline¶
Next, drag each video or photo onto a track in the timeline (as seen in the illustration). The timeline represents your final video, so arrange your photos in whatever sequence you want them to appear in your video. If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create a smooth fade between them, displayed by blue rounded rectangles between the clips. Remember, you can rearrange the clips as many times as needed by simply dragging and dropping them.
Step 3 – Add Music to Timeline¶
To make our creation more interesting, we need to add some music. Click on the music file that you imported in step 1, and drag it onto the timeline. If the song is too long, grab the right edge of your music clip, and resize it smaller (that will make it end earlier). You could also insert the same file multiple times, if your music is too short.
Step 4 – Preview your Project¶
To preview what our video looks & sounds like, click the Play button under the preview window. You can also pause, rewind, and fast-forward your video project by clicking the corresponding buttons.
Step 5 – Export your Video¶
Once you are happy with your project, the next step is to export your video. This will convert your OpenShot project into a single video file, which will work on most media players (such as VLC) or websites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc…).
Click on the Export Video icon at the top of the screen (or use the File > Export Video menu). Choose from one of the many preset export options, and click the Export Video button.
You should now have a basic understanding of how OpenShot works. Importing, Arranging, Previewing, and Exporting. Hopefully this tutorial took less than 5 minutes for you to complete. Please read the rest of this guide for a more detailed understanding of OpenShot, and it’s advanced features. Enjoy!
Main Window¶
OpenShot Video Editor has one main window which contains most of the information, buttons, and menus needed to edit your video project.
Overview¶
Contains buttons to open, save, and export your video project.
Switch between Project Files, Transitions, and Effects.
All audio, video, and image files that have been imported into your project.
This is the area that the video will playback on the screen.
This toolbar contains buttons used for snapping, inserting markers, and jumping between markers.
This slider will adjust the time-scale of your timeline.
The ruler shows the time-scale, and the red line is the play-head. The play-head represents the current playback position.
The timeline visualizes your video project, and each clip and transition in your project.
Filter the list of items shown (project files, transitions, and effects) by using these buttons and filter textbox. Enter a few letters of what you are looking for, and the results will be shown.
Left to Right: Jump to Start, Rewind, Play/Pause, Fast Forward, and Jump to End
Built-in Tutorial¶
When you first launch OpenShot, you will be presented with a friendly built-in tutorial. It will point out and explain the basics. Clicking Next will jump to the next topic. You can always view this tutorial again from the Help→Tutorial menu.
Tracks & Layers¶
OpenShot uses tracks to layer videos and images. The top most track is the top layer, and the bottom track is the bottom layer. If you are familiar with layers in a photo editing application, then you should be quite familiar with this concept. OpenShot will mix each layer together, just like a photo editing application. You can have an unlimited number of tracks, but typically a video project will not need more than 10 (or so) tracks.
For example, imagine a 3 track video project
Clips on this track will always be on top and visible
Clips in the middle (might or might not be visible, depending on what is above them)
Clips on this track will always be on the bottom
Keyboard Shortcuts¶
Here is a list of the default keyboard shortcuts supported by OpenShot. You can configure these shortcuts in the Preferences dialog. Learning a few of these shortcuts can save you a bunch of time!
How to Use OpenShot Video Editor Beginner’s Guide in 2022
Quick Navigation
Spot News: OpenShot just released the latest edition 2.5.1 with better optimized effects and performances.
Video is one of the killer content-marketing formats for business to retain the existing client base and lure in the new ones, and the best time capsule for individuals to recall the sweetest moments in life. That’s why many people are looking into how to use OpenShot Video Editor.
Openshot is an open-source and free video editing software that goes compatible with all major operating systems, like macOS, Windows, and Linux. Despite being completely free of cost, OpenShot packs a wallop. It enables all basic and over the average editing toolkits, and receives update frequently. To learn more about the features, pros, and cons of OpenShot, you can read our in-depth review of Shotcut. In this article, we’ll focus on how to use OpenShot to trim, rotate, add text, speed up videos, and apply other edits to make catchy videos.
How to Use Shotcut to Edit Your Video
Open up your browser, visit the official download site of OpenShot Video Editor, and then choose the platform you are running to download the matched installer file. Follow up the setup guide to install OpenShot Video Editor on your computer. To successfully install and run this free video editor, you need to have:
Step 1. Import Media in OpenShot
Let’s get everything started by feeding the source media into OpenShot:
Launch up OpenShot. Click on View, tap Views, and choose Simple View. Navigate to the Project Files tab, and right-click on a blank space before selecting Import Files. Select the video, audio, and picture files that need to be polished by OpenShot. Once finished the uploading process, drag and drop on the timeline appearing at the bottom of the screen.
OpenShot allows you to add multiple video tracks, you can:
Step 2. Trim/Split Videos in OpenShot
You might need to reset the start and end time of your video by trimming and separate a video into multiple small pieces by splitting.
Step 3. Crop Videos in OpenShot
Suppose you have captured a certain frame but wish to present only cropped out portions in your final file. In such cases, you can avail the video cropping option of OpenShot by just following the steps mentioned below:
Step 4. Rotate/Flip Videos in OpenShot
We often end up recording in the wrong orientation. This makes it imperative to rotate video for allowing a seamless audio visual experience to your clients. You can do that by simply following the steps lined out below.
Step 5. Add Text in OpenShot
It becomes possible to emphasize certain discussions of the cast by adding text to the video clip. This can also prove to be extremely beneficial while creating tutorials. You can do the same by simply following the steps laid down below:
OpenShot Video Editor needs much CPU and memory resources when adding text overlay onto videos. Therefore, this process may slow down your computer or cause an immediate crash of OpenShot. Suppose you simply need to add some plain subtitles, we recommend you to use a CPU and memory friendly video editor, as like, VideoProc Vlogger to get the job done fast and flawlessly.
Step 6. Add Transition to Videos in OpenShot
OpenShot prepared tons of transition effects. And you can utilize them to acquire natural transfer from one scene to another or add creative flavor to your videos.
Step 7. Speed Up/Down Videos in OpenShot
Revamping the speed of the recorded frames is helpful to hike up the engagement meter of your audience. In OpenShot, you can speed up/down videos in an extremely easy manner.
Tips: You can reverse video in OpenShot by pressing Time > Normal, and press Backwards.
Step 8. Export Videos for YouTube, Twitter, Apple TV…
1. Go to File > Export Project > Export Video to enter the video properties setting panel.
2. Change the File Name.
3. Press Browse to define a new Folder Path.
4. OpenShot brings you dozens of output presets.
If you are a beginner, click on Simple, choose Profile, and then,
As for pro user, you can click on Advanced to customize video codec, bitrate, pixel ratio, audio channel layout, and a few other parameters.
5. Hit Export to start to render and export video from OpenShot.
Conclusion
Now that you have understood how to use OpenShot, you can easily take on all your video editing chores in a seamless manner. However, what we want to remind you is OpenShot Video Editor is a computer resource hog. It runs extremely slow and laggy on a low-end computer. What’s worse, it goes crashes frequently no matter how great your hardware is.
Assume that you are not yet ready to make any investment to a better PC or Mac, we recommend you to use the GPU-accelerated video editor – VideoProc Vlogger. It comes with a complete video editing toolset that allows you to edit video by trimming, cutting, cropping, watermarking, deshaking, adding effects/transitions, editing texts, and more. Thanks to the support of the GPU acceleration tech and multi-threaded decoding, this speedy video editor can work even on a less-robust or old Mac or PC without blasting up your CPU or memory resource.
About The Author
Cecilia Hwung is the marketing manager of Digiarty Software and the editor-in-chief of VideoProc team. She pursues common progress with her team and expects to share more creative content and useful information to readers. She has strong interest in copywriting and rich experience in video editing tips.
VideoProc is a primary branch of Digiarty Software that is a leading multimedia software company founded in 2006. It endeavors to provide easier hardware-accelerated video audio editing and conversion solutions. The installed base of the VideoProc product has reached 4.6 million units from 180 countries since its release 3 years ago.
Titles¶
Adding text and titles is an important aspect of video editing, and OpenShot comes with an easy to use Title Editor. Use the Title menu (located in the main menu of OpenShot) to launch the Title Editor. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T.
Overview¶
Choose a Template
Choose from any available vector title template
Preview your title as you make changes
Change the text, colors, or edit in an advanced SVG image editor (such as Inkscape)
Save and add the title to your project
Custom Titles¶
OpenShot can use any vector SVG image file as a title template. Just add an SVG image file to your .openshot_qt/title_templates/ folder, and it will appear the next time you open the Title Editor interface. You can also right click on any SVG files in your Project Files panel, and choose Edit Title or Duplicate Title.
3D Animated Titles¶
Adding a 3D animated title is just as easy, using our Animated Title dialog. Use the Title menu (located in the main menu of OpenShot) to launch the Animated Title editor. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+B.
Choose a Template
Choose from any available 3D title templates
Preview your title as you make changes
Change the text, colors, and advanced properties
Render the 3D animation, and add it to your project
