Premiere Pro Effects and Color Grading (beginner guide)

Apply visual effects to clips and perform basic color correction with Lumetri Color. Here’s how to do it in Premiere Pro on macOS, step by step — part of the free Premiere Pro beginner curriculum.

Lesson 5 of the Premiere Pro curriculum. Next up: Audio and Titles.

What you’ll do

• Switch to the Color workspace (top workspace bar) to see the Lumetri Color panel and Lumetri Scopes side by side with the Timeline and Program Monitor
• Select a clip in the Timeline — the Lumetri Color panel (left side in Color workspace) shows six sections: Basic Correction, Creative, Curves, Color Wheels & Match, HSL Secondary, Vignette
• Use Basic Correction to fix exposure and white balance: adjust Temperature (blue-orange), Tint (green-magenta), Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, and Saturation
• Read the Lumetri Scopes panel (right side in Color workspace): Waveform shows luma levels 0-100, well-exposed footage has waveform between 10 and 90 IRE
• Apply the Warp Stabilizer effect: find it in Effects panel > Distort > Warp Stabilizer, drag it onto a shaky clip and let it analyze
• Use the Properties panel (Window > Properties) to see all effects applied to a selected clip — toggle effects on/off with the eye icon, delete effects with the trash icon
• Understand keyframing: click the stopwatch icon next to any parameter to enable keyframing, then move the playhead and change the value to create animation
• Apply Enhance Speech (AI audio cleanup) from the Essential Sound panel: tag a dialogue clip as Dialogue type, then click Enhance Speech

Do it hands-free with Skilly

Reading steps is one thing; doing them while the menus are in front of you is another. Skilly is a voice-first tutor for macOS: you ask out loud — “where’s the effects panel?” — and it answers while moving your cursor to the exact button, watching your actual Premiere Pro window. It’s the same Premiere Pro curriculum these lessons come from, taught live instead of read. Free to start.

Keep going

This is one stage of the full Premiere Pro beginner curriculum. Continue with Audio and Titles.