How to Make a Montage With Adobe Premiere

Photo montages are simple, yet effective, video tools.

The Adobe Premiere video-editing software application can edit anything from a simple home movie to a professional Hollywood film. Although the program is primarily designed for editing video clips, it can also combine a series of photos into a montage. A photo montage consists of several images, usually linked by transitional effects, occurring in a sequential order. While there are many complex and advanced techniques that can be used in Premiere to create a photo montage, you can create a basic photo montage using the program's Timeline section.

Instructions

1. Open Adobe Premiere. Click "File," then click "New" to create a new project.

2. Click "File" in the toolbar menu, then select "Import." Navigate to the folder that houses the images you want to use for the montage. Click on the folder once to highlight it, then click the "Import folder" button. Premiere automatically adds the folder to the Project panel on the left-hand side of the screen.

3. Click the down-arrow located to the left of the photo folder in the Project panel. The folder expands, revealing the names of the images in the folder. Drag and drop the images from the folder into the "Video 1" track in the Timeline section near the bottom of the screen.

4. Click and drag the photos in the Timeline to arrange them in the desired order.

5. Click the "Edit" button in the menu toolbar, then hover the cursor over "Preferences." Select "General" to open the General Preferences dialog box.

6. Check the box next to the "Default scale to frame size" option. Type "90" into the "Still Image Default Duration" frames box. Click "OK" to save the changes and close the dialog box.

7. Click the "Automate to Sequence" button, which looks like a series of ascending rectangles and is located at the bottom of the Project panel. When you hover the cursor over the button, its name appears above the cursor. Check the box next to "Apply Default Video Transition" to ensure that transitions appear between each photograph.

8. Change the transition by clicking the "Effect" tab in the box located in the lower right-hand corner of the Adobe Premiere window. Click the arrow next to "Video Transitions" to expand the category. Right-click the transition that you want to use, then select "Set Selected as Default Transition." Press the space bar to watch the completed photo montage.

References

• Vimeo: Make a Basic Photo Montage in Premiere Pro