The secret Premiere Pro shortcut blowing creatives' minds

Tutvid screenshot of Premiere Pro Tutorial
(Image credit: Tutvid)

Creative software is so powerful and feature-rich these days that even a single programme can take years to master. And that's why it's super-exciting to come across secret shortcuts that can make a world of difference to your workflow. 

One of the best video editing software packages around, Premiere Pro is an impressive piece of kit – demonstrated recently by Emmy Award–winning documentary director and editor Christine Steele at Adobe Max 2020. As part of her presentation, Steele revealed two keyboard shortcuts – the 'Q' and 'W' keys – for top-tail editing (trimming the heads and tails of video clips). 

An incredulous audience watched on as, in the timeline, Steele hit the 'Q' button and everything between the playhead and previous edit was automatically trimmed. And the crowd was equally impressed when Steele pressed the 'W' key and everything between the playhead and next edit was trimmed and the gap closed. Magic! 

Premiere Pro is available as a standalone app, or as part of the Creative Cloud suite. Want to see the shortcuts in action? This video below from Premiere Gal shows them off in all their basic but brilliant glory:

If you want to get started with Adobe Premiere Pro, don't miss our round up of the best Adobe Creative Cloud discounts, or follow the links below: 

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Kerrie Hughes

Kerrie Hughes is Editor at Creative Bloq. One of the original CB crew, Kerrie joined the team back in 2013 after moving from her role as staff writer on 3D World. Since then she's written regularly for other creative publications. Kerrie's work for Creative Bloq involves managing the team and the site's content, developing and maintaining commercial partnerships, and finding innovative ways to bring Creative Bloq's audience the content they're looking for.