Create Professional Videos on Linux with OpenShot

Credit: Jack Wallen

Open source has come a long, long way and video editing has not been left behind. You'll find a number of video editing tools on Linux, but none of them are both as user-friendly and create as high-quality video asOpenShot Video Editor.

With this easy to use tool you can have your edited videos up on Youtube (or presented to your company/organization) in no time. With a very small learning curve, and numerous features, OpenShot will make you and your company look very good. Let's take a look at how mult-track videos can be created in OpenShot.

The Goal

What I am going to show you is how to create a short video that will include multiple clips, images, sound, and transitions. You might think this task is a challenge, but once you understand how it works, it's simple. Let's take a look at the process.

How it Works

Essentially what you will do with OpenShot is:

1. Import images or videos into a project.
2. Import sound for your project.
3. Adding the images, videos, and sound into tracks.
4. Arrange the tracks so they suit your needs.
5. Add transitions and fades.
6. Export your project to a viewable video.

The hardest part of the list is knowing how to set up the transitions. Much of the rest is just dragging and dropping. We'll take this one step at a time. But before we get into the editing/creating process, we have to install OpenShot first.

Installation

The installation of OpenShot is simple:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool (such as Ubuntu Software Center).
2. Search for "openshot" (no quotes).
3. Click the Install button.
4. Enter your sudo password or administrator password.
5. Allow the installation to complete.

Once installed, you will find OpenShot in Applications > Sound & Video. Note that if you want to add animated titles to your videos you will have to have Blender also installed.

Step 1: Importing Images and Video

Figure 1

From the OpenShot main window (see Figure 1) click File > Import Files, navigate to the file(s) you want to import, and select them. If you want to select multiple files you can press the Ctrl key and select each file you want to import. When you have all the necessary files selected click the Add button.

When your files are imported into OpenShot they will be listed in the left pane. These files are then dragged into tracks at the bottom of the window. But before we do that, let's prepare our project to include a music track.

Step 2: Adding Music

You can import sound for your project as easily as you can images or video clips. This will make your project more complex and, for a more complex project, you might need to add tracks. To have transitioning images/videos and sound, I would recommend at least three tracks. To add a track simply right click a track and select Add Track Above or Add Track Below. Your music will be dragged onto a track just as your images and videos. Of course, music licensing does apply in this situation. If you are looking for a source for open source music you can try a site like OPSOUND. The music you will find on that site is mostly Copyleft protected and can be used, re-mixed, shared, and re-imagine.

Step 3: Adding Your Images, Videos, and Music to Tracks

Figure 2

Although this might seem very simple, there is a level of complexity to this step you might not suspect. The act of clicking and dragging is not the issue. For that you just click and drag the file from the left pane to the track you want to add it to. The complexity lies in where, precisely, you place the clip. NOTE: Once you drag an image, video, or sound to a track it is then referred to as a "clip".

I would suggest adding your music clip to the bottom track and then, using a bit of logic and forethought, add your video and image clips between the first two tracks. Think about it this way, if you are going to transition between clips, you will want those clips to live on different tracks. Say you have five clips to add and you plan on transitioning into and out of each different clip. For this layout you will want to play clips 1, 3, and 5 on the first track and clips 2 and 4 on the second track.

Step 4: Arranging Your Clips

Remember, for the first clip in the project it needs to be placed with its left edge at 00:00:00:0000. If you do not place the first clip there you will have black space at the beginning of your finished video. Figure 2 shows OpenShot with clips added.

As you can see, I have arranged the clips in such a way that:

• Clip 1 can be transitioned into Clip 2.
• Clip 2 can be transitioned into Clip 3.
• Music will play underneath all clips (and must be trimmed before the project is complete).

You might think you could just align the three clips on a single track. That is not the case as it would be impossible to arrange any transitions for each clip.

Step 5: Add Transitions and Fades

Now comes the fun part. You don't want your video to just jump from one clip to another without any semblance of transition. For these transitions you can use fades, transitions, or a combination of the two. To find out what type of transitions OpenShot offers, click on the Transitions tab. You will see a number of options available. As for fades, you have the following options:

• Slow fade in.
• Slow fade out.
• Slow fade in and out.
• Fast fade in.
• Fast fade out.
• Fast fade in and out.

To add a fade you simply right-click a clip and select the fade you want.

You can, of course, make a complete video with nothing but fading in and out of your tracks. But what fun is that? Let's add transitions. To do this select the transition you want to add and then drag it to the clip you want to apply it to. Right? Ah...would it were that simple. All transitions have two directions: up or down. You can think of them this way:

• Up - transition into.
• Down - transition out of.

Here's the time line of our very short video:

1. Fade into clip one.
2. Transition out of clip one.
3. Transition into clip two.
4. Transition out of clip two.
5. Transition into clip three.
6. Fade out of clip three.

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows all of the transitions added to the clips (as well as the music clip trimmed).

• Up: Transition into.
• Down: Transition out of.

As you can see, only the second clip has transitions both into and out of.  When you add a transition, the default direction is up (into). In order to change the direction of the transition all you have to do is right-click the transition icon and select "Switch Direction". 

You will also want to make sure your "transition into" arrows point exactly to the left edge of the clip they effect. Conversely, you want to make sure your "transition out of" arrows point exactly to the right edge of the clip they effect.

Step 6: Exporting Your Video

Now that you have tweaked and approved your creation, it's time to export it to a viewable format. Let's export our project to a format suitable for Youtube viewing. Fortunately, OpenShot has a pre-set configuration for Youtube videos, so you won't have to worry too much about digging in deep with audio and video settings.

In order to export your video you will first want to save your project. Do this by clicking File > Save Project. When the Save Project window opens you will need to give the project a name, select the save folder, estimate the project's length in minutes, and select the Project Profile. There are quite a lot of profiles to choose from (ranging from PAL to NTSC to Widescreen, to HDV, and everything in between.) The default Project Profile is DV NTSC.

Figure 4

After you have saved your project click File > Export Video. In this new window (see Figure 4) you will configure the following:

• Give the exported video a name.
• Locate the folder where the export will be saved to.
• Select a profile (for Youtube videos select Web).
• Target: The site the exported video should be formatted for.
• Video Profile: Your choices here will depend upon the Target you select. For Youtube videos there is only one choice.
• Quality: Low, Medium, or High. NOTE: The higher the quality, the larger the resultant file.

After you make your selections, click Export Video. Depending upon the length of your video, this process can take some time. For a short five minute video I had a render time of over twenty minutes. You should not only give youself plenty of time, you should also allow your machine to render the video before you do any more work (NOTE: This will, of course, depend upon the speed and power of your machine.)

When the video is exported you will have an MPEG video ready for uploading to Youtube!

Let Your Imagination Take Off

Of course we only grazed the surface of what OpenShot can do. But by demonstrating the simple task of creating a short, image-only video you should now have enough understanding of the program to help you create the videos your imagination and creativity have dreamed up.

Thank You

I will remember it forever, do the right thing and do things right, thank you very much indeed.

黄磊

才发现孙莉才是最大的人生赢家——前半生享受了黄磊美好的肉体、帅气的外貌，后半生还能享受豪宅、365天不重样的美食，还有一对遗传了他高智商的女儿。

最近黄磊和何炅合开公司的事情曝光了，两个老师都变成了老板↓↓

两个人都转发了微博，还自嘲是小何炅和老狐狸

但是关于经营业务，两只狐狸一句也没透露，所以说，这个工作室以后到底要做什么？这可真是个谜。

其实黄磊自己早就开了个公司，据说专营吃喝玩乐环保等生活方式，公司装修得很有格调，开业的时候孙红雷也去捧场了↓↓

现在的黄磊可算得上是个隐形富豪，坐拥独栋别墅豪宅，据说还有入股影视公司↓↓

随便一搜就是要投资上亿办大学的新闻↓↓

还在乌镇开了间酒吧↓↓

多多上的学校也被曝一年光是学费就13万

不过他过的可一点都不像富豪。

全中国的丈母娘都想要女儿找个经济上过得去，对自己女儿好，会过日子的男人。这标准估计是比照着黄磊说的——他们家日子过的，那叫有滋有味，老婆偶尔心血来潮，想下个厨都烟火气十足↓↓

人还特高兴，觉得老婆心愿很好↓↓

从此孙莉不用动手，家里每天都有鸡汤香——黄磊经常头天晚上炖乌鸡汤，第二天就找来酸菜做火锅，过年时就做上十多个菜摆满一张桌子招呼亲朋，总之菜色坚决不重样，也坚决不让老婆下厨。黄磊说：“钻戒和婚纱都没有，但‘酸菜’天天有。”

要拴住一个女人，首先就要拴住她的胃，孙莉对此赞赏有加↓↓

养家做饭一手包办，很体谅老婆，对孙莉身为家庭主妇的贡献非常认同↓↓

小日子过得太滋润就变成了这样↓↓

身材保持原样，只负责貌美如花的老婆还出来爆料↓↓

因为爱做饭，也做得好吃，黄磊一直有一个外号叫做黄小厨，还开了个公众号，里面都是这样的内容↓↓

爱吃又爱做，又做饭又养家，对待老婆像春天般温暖

对待学生却像冬天般“严寒”，当然，依然除了孙莉——孙莉也是他在学校里认识的。

大家都知道黄老板，哦不，黄老师是硕士留校任教，本科时和王劲松、姜武是同班同学，带的第一个班是北京电影学院表演系97班，班上学生有海清、黄海波等。黄老师有个大名鼎鼎的绰号叫“黄加课”——从这个绰号就能看出他的执教风格了。上《康熙来了》(视频)是这么说的↓↓

这么挑剔的黄老师，当年去台北讲课的时候还猛夸大S是天生演员

大S这份荣幸还真不是人人都有。谢娜当年去报考北影时就很不幸地遇到了黄磊，然后，这次报考成为了她一辈子挥之不去的心理阴影

心理阴影面积实在太大，以至于一回忆当日情景，谢娜的演技就超水平发挥，瞬间黄磊上身↓↓

而且因为伤害过太多幼小的心灵，黄老师甚至已经不记得有这回事了，谢娜说“不记得”的时候还重复了两遍……同情谢娜三十秒（后来当然是没考上，没能继续接受黄老师的严厉指点）

黄磊能把来报考的学生直接虐出“心理阴影”，身为他第一届学生的海清当然也好不到哪去，甚至自曝过黄磊一瞪眼，她就吓 得想下跪，身体完全不受控制——其实黄磊只比她大7岁。

虽然如此，2001年，30岁的黄磊上《艺术人生》节目时，扎着马尾的海清作为班级代表，给黄磊老师写了一封信，在读信的过程中，师生齐洒泪

一直到毕业好多年之后，参加活动时海清还是帮黄磊拿包和衣服，吃饭的时候还给黄老师夹菜、倒酒，平时一有什么表演方面的困惑，还会给他打电话。今年教师节还在微博上放了张给黄老师按腿的照片，简直不能更“谄媚”↓↓

两人最近还在电视剧里出演夫妻了，海清表示：在片场，一切听黄老师教导！但是两人在戏里还有这样那样的亲热戏、吻戏……尴尬症都要犯了

当然，不是每个学生都像海清那么乖，比如，黄海波也是黄磊的学生

人的解释是这样的，为什么听起来还挺有道理……

其实黄老师相当事儿妈，据海清爆料，他的衣服、手机几乎是班里学生的公共财产，班里女学生20天不排便他都要管，还亲自买蜂蜜给学生喝！多妈也控诉，黄老师还会对不到1岁的多多叨叨叨叨，不停讲道理

会不会限制女儿朋友的性别？“事儿妈”黄老师表示现在还不会（以后会……）

一出手就不同凡响，直接为女儿多多办了个“乌镇戏剧节”，原话是：“希望可以影响世界，让这个世界可以善待我的孩子”

事事都操心“事儿妈”老爸智商奇高，前阵子在《极限挑战》里就大出了一把风头，经常1v4，1v5还完胜，导致民间群众大打出手↓↓

能从一张照片推断出照片中的人是出租车司机

到屋顶有脚印，一秒推测这里有人来过！一定是剧组人员摆放道具时留下的～

高智商据说也遗传给了多多，才9岁已经会用英文写剧本

黄爸爸年轻的时候还有颜值

女明星们全都迷他迷得不要不要的

结果写到最后，才发现孙莉才是最大的人生赢家——前半生享受了黄磊美好的肉体、帅气的外貌，后半生还能享受豪宅、365天不重样的美食，还有一对遗传了他高智商的女儿；如果觉得日子太平淡，相爱20周年他还会搞个仪式，出国游拍个温馨的全家福视频等等……总之你所能想到的，黄磊全都做到了——多少人想跟孙莉换一换？