There aren’t many video editors who haven’t used Adobe’s Premiere Pro at some point in their career. For many content creators, it’s how they got started, and it’s a programme that continues to set the standard for professional video editing software for both newcomers and those who have been in the industry for many years. Premiere Pro has gone through several different updates over the years that have tweaked its usability and performance, but with the release of its latest version in 2024, it has introduced a slew of new features that aim to cater to a wider audience, including performance enhancements, AI tools to improve workflow and a revamped and improved user interface.
We’ll look at these in closer detail in this review as well as ask whether, with its latest update, Adobe has continued to provide the go-to software for people looking to find their feet with video editing.
Design and interface
With a drive to improve accessibility over the years, workspace customisation options have been further expanded and there’s the ability to tailor the interface to specific workflow needs in this latest release.
There’s a streamlined approach to the design that aims to minimise clutter, and along with CPU-based performance increases that we’ll touch on later, it makes for a generally speedier user experience all round.
The depths of features have been added to rather but although perhaps daunting for novices, they’re largely more accessible – we found this to be down to the improved and revamped onboarding process, with better interactive tutorials, tooltips that are now directly integrated into the interface and the ability for beginners to be provided with real-time guidance as they edit. As someone who has used Premiere Pro a lot in the past but hasn’t revisited it for quite some time and has an approach that is now more tailored to different pieces of software, they also come in handy for quick reminders of what functionality is available in the interface.
Usability and performance
Performance is a critical factor for any video-editing software when assessing its usability, and Adobe has made optimisation front and centre in its latest releases. It shows – the 2024 version of the software boasts enhanced hardware acceleration, particularly for Apple chips, and enhancements in GPU acceleration noticeably improve playback, rendering and export times. There are also improved multi-frame rendering speeds, offering faster processing for exporting and previewing complex timelines with multiple effects and layers.
Adobe has also introduced a new background rendering feature which provides editors with the ability to continue working on their projects while rendering takes place in the background. Although we didn’t test this to its full potential, to do this Adobe will have had to further increase the software’s performance and stability, so it’s heartening to see they are serious about improving Premiere Pro’s steadiness, which is further bolstered with more frequent autosaves and better crash recovery in this latest version.
Features and functionality
The increased role of artificial intelligence continues to play a pivotal role in Adobe’s product suite, and there are some nice new additions to the new version of Premiere Pro in the realm of AI that can help with workflow efficiency.
There’s an auto reframe feature that has been refined to better analyse footage and automatically adjust aspect ratios for different platforms, and an enhanced Speech to Text feature provides more accurate transcriptions and supports multiple languages. We found that the latter feature also cleans up and improves dialogue audio quality very well, making voices clearer and reducing background noise without requiring extensive manual editing.
Leveraging Adobe Sensei AI there’s also an auto colour feature, offering a one-click correction feature making it easier for editors to achieve a polished look without extensive colour grading expertise. Good for beginners, although we tend to think that editors who know what they’re doing in this regard would overlook this feature in terms of manual editing. Generative Fill in collaboration with Photoshop has also been rolled out and is especially useful for vertical formats – there’s even a beta version of a ‘direct export to TikTok’ to streamline social media uploading.
Revisiting the sound panel, Adobe has upgraded it with more advanced noise reduction and reverb removal tools, including a new ‘auto ducking’ feature which intelligently lowers the volume of background music when dialogue or other key audio elements are detected. Again, a simple bit of AI enhancement, but one that we can see being genuinely useful for editors.
In terms of features beyond new AI enhancements, there are also subtle improvements to the colour grading in general that offer more precise control, and a broader range of options for achieving the desired look. The Lumetri panel has also been enhanced with more intuitive controls.
Should I buy Adobe Premiere Pro 2024?
Premiere Pro offers a comprehensive set of tools that enhance productivity, creativity, and collaboration when video editing and the new 2024 version makes the platform even more accessible. It’s well suited for people with a wide range of editing needs, from professional-grade production to social media content, and if you’re an editing beginner, the improved onboarding tools make it a lot easier to get started.
As a major upgrade, the 2024 version of Premiere Pro is available through the Creative Cloud and is a worthwhile update. We found that it also successfully offered impressive performance increases on earlier versions thanks to tweaks for newer chips and greater GPU optimisation. Adobe has claimed the platform is up to 5 times faster than previous versions – and we certainly noticed the difference in overall stability.
