Adobe Premiere Elements 11 review

There’s a new section of the effects library called FilmLooks, which includes 12 templates (slightly stingy in our opinion) with names such as Horror, News reel, Vintage and Red Noir. They’re not strictly new effects, but rather, templates that draw on the existing effects to give film-like colours.

The FilmLooks effects includes some stylish colour-processing templates – we’d like to see more than 12 of them

It’s a smart idea, but it makes editing them a little tricky as the controls may be spread across three or four effects. Premiere Elements’ effects library is generally excellent but it can’t compete with Pinnacle Studio 16 Ultimate for film-simulation effects.

The Time Remapping tool can switch to slow motion half-way through a clip.

Also new is a Time Remapping tool, which creates variable fast-motion, slow-motion and reverse effects. Time zones are defined within a clip and allocated a speed from 1/8x to 8x, and there are options to ease in and out for smoother speed changes.

Audio sync is lost, though, and it’s not possible to create continuously variable speed ramps. Meanwhile, reversing sections doesn’t really make sense within the otherwise excellent controls. There’s a Frame Blending option for smoother slow motion, but it simply fades between frames rather than generating new intermediary ones based on motion detection. Overall, it’s not quite up to the slick standards of the best this editor has to offer, but it’s a welcome inclusion nonetheless.

There’s still some room for improvement, and other editors excel in different areas. However, Premiere Elements’ flair for sophisticated animated sequences is now available without the accompanying irritations. That makes it a superb choice for ambitious users who might one day want to upgrade to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6; however, most home users will be better catered for by Serif MoviePlus X6.