Video Editing Made Quick And Easy

Nick Peers reveals how easy it is to take your raw video footage and turn it into a polished movie.

- Nick Peers

Just how many photos and video clips have you accumulated over the years? Whether you’ve got dedicated equipment or just love snapping and filming on your phone, now is the time to do something creative with it. OpenShot is a brilliant video editing tool that’s relatively simple to learn, yet packed with features that allow you to turn last holiday’s rough video footage into a polished movie you’ll be happy to share with others. In this tutorial we’ll introduce you to all the key elements you need.

You can install OpenShot through the Software Centre, but it may not be the latest version. Instead, head to www.openshot.org/download where you’ll find the latest version provided as a 64-bit AppImage. Save this to a suitable folder (maybe AppImages inside your Home folder?), then right-click it and choose Properties > Permissions, ticking ‘Allow executing file as program’. Now double-click the .appimage file. You’ll be prompted to create a desktop shortcut – click Yes and a shortcut will appear on the ‘All’ tab of the app finder.

It can take a little while to initialise, so be patient and when the main screen appears, you’re ready to proceed. Run through the quick-start tutorial that will quickly provide an orientation around the application window.

Collect and add your files

Step one is simply to drag and drop your video, picture and audio files to the Project Files pane. OpenShot supports a wide range of formats – if it’s supported by FFmpeg, it’ll work in