What are your go-to tools and software for video editing, and why do you prefer them over others?

For video editing, my go-to tools are Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. I primarily prefer Premiere Pro due to its seamless integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps, making it easier to manage projects and assets. The flexibility, speed, and comprehensive features like multi-camera editing, extensive effects, and customizable workspaces are ideal for both quick edits and more complex projects. Although DaVinci Resolve offers excellent color grading tools, I find Premiere Pro’s overall workflow and interface more intuitive for my editing style. I use both, but Premiere Pro remains my top choice.

When it comes to video editing, We at MARIMIX studios rely on a core set of tools to deliver high-quality results. Here’s a breakdown of our go-to software and why we prefer each for specific tasks:

1. Final Cut Pro X (FCPX)

• Why I Use It: Final Cut Pro X is our main editing tool due to its user-friendly interface and smooth, efficient workflow. FCPX is optimized for Mac, and our studio build with 4 MAC powerful computers allowing for faster render times and seamless playback, even with 4K/6K/8K high-resolution footage.

• Strengths: Its magnetic timeline speeds up the workflow by letting us rearrange clips easily without creating gaps. The extensive library of effects and templates is also very useful, allowing us to add high-quality, built-in effects quickly.

• When we Use It: We rely on FCPX for the core assembly and structural editing of a project, especially when we are working on long-form content or need to make frequent adjustments quickly. This is the place we take all the elements we crate on other softwares, and combine them to make the "Final Cut"  .  So what are our other tools? there you go.. 

2. Adobe After Effects

• Why weUse It: After Effects is unparalleled for motion graphics, visual effects, and dynamic titles. Its layering system and powerful effects controls make it our top choice for complex animations and advanced compositing work.

• Strengths: With After Effects, we can create custom animations, apply detailed tracking, and utilize advanced visual effects that would be difficult to achieve elsewhere. Its integration with Adobe Creative Cloud also enables smooth transitions of assets between other Adobe programs, like Photoshop.

• When we Use It: We primarily use After Effects for creating animations, titles, and visual effects that need more precision and customization than FCPX offers.

3. Adobe Photoshop

• Why we Use It: Photoshop is indispensable for graphic design and photo editing. It gives me full control over images, allowing us to edit, manipulate, and export assets for videos.

• Strengths: With Photoshop’s extensive toolset, we can create and refine any graphic element, from color correction and background removal to creating custom overlays, enhancing thumbnails, or even preparing assets for animation in After Effects.

• When we Use It: We use Photoshop for any graphic creation or manipulation needed for the video, especially detailed image editing, and preparing elements for animations in After Effects.

4. Adobe Audition

• Why We Use It: Adobe Audition is our go-to tool for audio editing and sound design. Its comprehensive audio capabilities make it perfect for enhancing voiceovers, reducing background noise, and adding sound effects, ensuring that every audio element in our projects is crisp and polished.

• Strengths: With Audition’s precise editing tools, we can easily clean up audio, adjust levels, and apply high-quality effects for a professional finish. 

• When We Use It: We turn to Audition for any audio adjustments needed in a project—whether it’s cleaning up dialogue, adding sound effects, or mixing multiple audio tracks for the best balance and clarity in the final video.

5. DaVinci Resolve

• Why we Use It: DaVinci Resolve is our preferred tool for color grading due to its industry-standard color correction tools and exceptional control over color adjustments.

• Strengths: Resolve’s node-based workflow allows for precise color grading, and its advanced tools for noise reduction, sharpening, and detailed adjustments make it ideal for high-quality final touches. The software also has a powerful editor and audio suite, making it versatile if we need to handle multiple tasks in one platform.

• When we Use It: We often export our footage to Resolve for final color grading once the main edit is done. Its tools allow us to create a polished, cinematic look that enhances the overall impact of the video.

By combining these tools, we can work efficiently while leveraging the unique strengths of each program. This setup allows us to deliver polished and engaging videos with professional-quality graphics, effects, and color.

Our studio works in combination with Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve.

Premiere pro is great for any quick edits for social media - as it's connected to Adobe Could and you can work with After Effects to achieve really quick results. It has a good overall friendly user interface, but is lacking on the color side of things.

Davinci Resolve is great for bigger projects - collaborations and mostly color grading. It's far superior to Premiere Pro but it's a bit more professional and not so user-friendly for beginners. But once you get a hang of the Color panel, you will upgrade the knowledge and see better end-results in no-time.

At Visual Studios, we mainly use Final Cut Pro X given its best in class performance, rock-solid stability, great interface, tight integration with Apple Motion templates, and wide ecosystem of third party plug-ins. Additionally, Resolve is an excellent option for color grading, compositing, motion tracking and for its integration of certain AI-powered tools, namely for transcribing and captioning workflows.

At Dashti Media, we use Final Cut Pro X to edit together any client content, even our own. 

It's an easy interface that's pretty straightforward and saves your project as you edit, so you don't have to worry about losing any of your work.

If you're looking for an editing platform to get started and learn, CapCut is also great. You won't be able to get as detailed as you would in Final Cut, but it does a great job at splicing clips together and creating captions with their AI caption generator.

I always use Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing. It’s my go-to because it’s super versatile and user-friendly. The interface is easy to navigate, and I can customize my workspace however I want. It also has all the advanced tools I need, like color grading and audio mixing. Plus, it integrates smoothly with other Adobe apps like Photoshop and After Effects, which makes adding effects and graphics a breeze. And since Adobe keeps it updated, I always have the latest features. It just works well for everything I need.

DaVinci Resolve Studio and Fusion are amazing! There's no subscription, and you can do just about anything with them. For quick YouTube vlogs or similar projects, FCPX is a great choice.