Filmora Video Editor

Pros

• Comes with many tools for editing and enhancing your raw video
• Strikes a balance between professional tools and an accessible interface
• There are many songs and effects that you can choose from to improve your video

Cons

• The free version has a watermark and some advanced tools are disabled

Wondershare Filmora Video Editor is a video editing tool that will clean up your raw video so that it looks professional. This is considered a mid-tier video editor because it's accessible to beginners but has many professional tools. There is both a free and paid version to choose from depending on your needs.

Primary Features

Filmora Video Editor has many tools to edit your videos and to add effects that make your video look amazing. You can perform all the basic tasks like cutting raw footage and keeping the parts you like, cropping footage, moving scenes around and merging clips. It can work with videos of any size, so feel free to use this for short online videos or full-length movies.

You can add music to your video. Not only can you insert any music that you like as long as it's used properly, but there are lots of royalty-free songs included in Filmora that you can pick from. There are also many sound effects you can pick from. Some are loud and great for cartoons while others are subtle and can add to the drama or ambiance. It all depends on which one you choose.

You can add subtitles with ease and this process should only take a few minutes. You may need to correct the subtitles and this can be done manually. You will also find numerous transition effects that signal when a new scene is starting. Much like the sound effects, you can choose between subtle or obvious transition effects.

There are many filters you can choose from to change the color balance and other elements of the shot. You can use overt filters to add a gray or sepia tone, or you can use other filters just to give some emotional weight to the shot. It's your choice and there are many options to choose from.

Accessible Interface

Wondershare Filmora has struck a good balance between accessibility and professional tools. Usually you either get highly accessible programs with few tools or lots of tools with a difficult interface. This program is good for most users because it offers a clean layout along with many different tools and features to take advantage of.

Most of the tools are accessible without diving any deeper into the program. They are right there and you can easily select them. This ensures that you can perform most tasks without having to go through endless menus and prompts. There are some advanced tools that will take a little digging, but often you'll get to them within one or two mouse clicks.

Using the tools is also simple. Most of them are just drag and drop. For example, you can select an effect and drag it over to where you want the effect to occur. You can also increase or decrease the length of effects by using the provided sliders.

While the interface is easy and accessible, this can also be used for professional videos. It may not be robust enough for Hollywood video editing, but it can be used for many amateur films.

Free and Paid Versions

You can choose between the free or paid version of this program. There are a few big differences between these versions and you might want to upgrade if you intend on sharing the videos. The biggest difference you'll notice when watching the finished video is the watermark.

The free version has a watermark on all the finished videos. While this may not be too bad if you have a small audience, are only intending to make this a free video online or want to learn about video editing tools. This will likely be a problem if you have a larger audience or want your video to be taken seriously. You can only remove the watermark by using the paid version.

There are also some tools that are only available with the paid version. These are mostly advanced tools and basic users probably won't need the upgrade. You can download the free version first and then see which tools are locked.

Pros

• Comes with many tools for editing and enhancing your raw video
• Strikes a balance between professional tools and an accessible interface
• There are many songs and effects that you can choose from to improve your video

Cons

• The free version has a watermark and some advanced tools are disabled