The keyer works, if you’ve lit your green screen halfway well. Some were apparently written outside CyberLink and ported in, though there’s not (yet) an open plug-in architecture in PowerDirector. They are not bad at all for the price, but you can’t search them efficiently. A lot of these lack a professional level of subtlety and are missing some desirable control handles (although a few auto-calculate how much footage lap is need to make them work well). You can choose from among 150+ transitions and 125+ effects. You can also use the more old-school approach of timecode synch, or even time-of-day if your cams are set-up accurately. Up to four sources, each on its own track, synchronize based on their audio. PowerDirector recently added support for MultiCam editing. I'm guessing you’ll grow tired of that quickly and jump back on the timeline.Īnd on that timeline, you can wrangle up to 100 tracks (not that you’ll use them all). The trouble is, it’s only thumbnails, butt-cut (where the end of one clip abuts the start of the next) together. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping clips depicted by thumbnails. PowerDirector lets you edit using an alternate Storyboard mode. But it’s not the only way to crochet a storyline. We old-fart editors tend to be very protective of our treasured timeline paradigm. It’s not artificially intelligent editing, but in this you can grab a glimpse of that future. Likewise, you can ask PowerDirector to Analyze Content for bits of action you may want to exclude (camera bumps and lighting blips) or specifically include (expressive people and dramatic pans or zooms). You’ll be keen on being able to drop multiple Ins and Outs on each source clip very cool for documentarians laboring to stitch-up a narrative from fly-on-the-wall footage or extended interviews.
It's better, even, than a few big pro foundries like Avid Media Composer. But PowerDirector does this extremely well. In most editors, the scaling and scrolling of your workspace, to show what you’re actually working on, is frequently a bit dicey.
Plus, now that it’s available for Mac, there are many more potential users for whom it’s well worth considering.Stepping into the adult (non-magic) Full Editor, you get an appealing timeline that’s easy to get around. But, PowerDirector is one of the best mid-level editing applications available, well suited to small or medium businesses, or home filmmaking enthusiasts. Nor does it have the depth of the more high-end editing suites, with its color grading options particularly limited.
It’s not the cheapest software – Filmora, Premiere Elements, and Pinnacle Studio are all slightly more affordable. 365 also includes access to a large library of stock video, audio, and stills. The advanced tools, such as using motion tracking and blending modes with masks, are restricted to PowerDirector Ultimate, which costs $139.99, and PowerDirector 365, a subscription plan which costs $69.99/year. PowerDirector Ultra costs $99.99 and includes most editing features. A trial version, PowerDirector Essentials, is free, though only includes basic features. This only improves with every update, and PowerDirector 19 has some useful new tools, such as mask designing and hold keyframes.
Its attractive and efficient interface makes it easy to start editing, and once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll find it has an incredibly wide array of features. PowerDirector is an incredibly versatile application. It’s still not perfect, but the added refinement enables you to match clips more precisely than the automation alone can.Īnimated sketches can draw attention to part of an image (Image credit: CyberLink) CyberLink PowerDirector 19: Should I buy it? As well as for overall change, there are sliders for hue, saturation, and brightness.
Thankfully, the latest update now includes manual adjustment options.
However, in particular skin tones, color match can struggle with making all elements consistent. This is a quick way of correcting your color, for example if you’ve shot the same scene with two cameras, and need them to look the same. You select two clips, and the application automatically adjusts the second to give it the same look as the first. One useful color tool, which has been improved in PowerDirector 19, is color match. However, it would be nice to have a full set of color wheels, as some competitors such as Lightworks and Pinnacle Studio include. To efficiently grade your clips, there’s a color adjustment tool with a number of sliders – hue, saturation, brightness, and so on. It’s easy to switch between keyframe types (Image credit: CyberLink ) CyberLink PowerDirector 19: Color tools