Sony Vegas vs Adobe Premiere – which software to use for video editing? Are both programs equally suitable for beginner filmmakers and YouTube bloggers?
Premiere is aimed at experienced users who use hotkeys while working. It offers in-depth color and audio settings.
Vegas Pro is more intuitive, with the ability to customize the interface. Besides, it has a more convenient timeline.
What Is Vegas Pro?
Vegas Pro, formerly known as Sony Vegas is a professional video editor oriented at advanced film makers, Instagram and YouTube bloggers. Unlike the majority of video editing software for Windows, Vegas Pro offers an intuitive interface, with uncluttered workspace and the ability to customize it (remove or add the necessary widgets).
The program copes with the creation of visual special effects, 3D-captions and compositing, and even allows you to create DVD and Blu-ray. You can switch between an unlimited number of different image sources using a mouse or keyboard, which allows you to edit materials shot with multiple cameras at once.
Vegas Pro: Strengths and Weaknesses
Customizable interface. Sony Vegas Pro has a minimalistic and intuitive interface and allows each user to customize it in accordance with peculiar preferences. You can choose which functions and settings you need, and delete the rest. This is a very important feature, as additional tools can interfere with your work.
Convenient timeline. Just place a cursor in the right place on the timeline, and you will immediately get a still image in the selected position. This makes trimming very easy. Besides, you can work with sound more conveniently, because you see the timeline of the entire track and you can easily adjust it without even listening to the same track 100 times.
Masks of any shape. Unlike some free video editing software which come with a limited range of masks, Vegas Pro offers rectangular and oval masks, as well as provides the ability to work with arbitrary tools to create your own masks of any shape. This can become the decisive factor for those comparing Adobe Premiere vs Sony Vegas.
Mixing and encoding of surround sound. Vegas Pro mixes 5.1 surround sound. Using the automatic feature and your own ideas, you can create a smart soundtrack for your videos. Don’t forget to adjust the volume settings for individual frames or the entire project.
Auto saving. Even the most experienced users can sometimes make mistakes, which can negatively affect their work. The result of long video editing can be partially or fully ruined. That’s why, Vegas Pro decided to protect users by introducing automatic saving of the projects every 5 minutes.
Incompatible with Mac OS. One of the most annoying problems with Vegas Pro is that it isn’t cross-platform. The video editor is available only for Windows.
No professional Vegas effects. Unlike Adobe Premiere, which contains a number of built-in animation effects, and allows working together with After Effects, Vegas Pro is rather weak in this regard.
What Is Adobe Premiere?
Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the most effective video editors for non-linear editing. The program offers a number of tools for deep video editing and fine tuning, as well as semi-automatic effects for quick adjustments. It also supports all new video formats, including VR, as well as allows editing footage in 8K.
One of the favorite features of professional filmmakers is tight integration with Adobe After Effects. You can edit several video files at the same time with the help of the pre-selected LUT. Then continue making more precise edits using masks, HSL, curves, and tools for sound settings.
Adobe Premiere: Strengths and Weaknesses
A well-thought-out user interface. If you compare Affinity Photo vs Lightroom, you will notice that the former has workplaces called personas. Each of them comes with a set of icons that you need for solving a particular task. Just like in Photoshop, there is a toolbar on the left. At the top, you will see the context menu and the top panel. There are also extra panels on the right. You can customize the interface by adding any of 25 panels.
+1,000,000 LUTs. There is a huge variety of professional and free LUTs for Premiere Pro, using which you can add grunge, matte, bright, cinematic, cold and other effects with one click. However, before applying them, I recommend learning “What is a LUT”, how these tools work and what results you should expect.
Advanced effects. The software contains a number of advanced built-in effects, which gives it an edge over the rival in the Vegas Pro vs Adobe Premiere competition. You can add blur and sharpness, adjust shadows and lights, work levels, improve colors and apply masks.
Deep audio editing. To improve the sound, you can use a soundtrack mixer that emulates a full-featured sound mixing display with fading, panning, and motion effects. The program saves your changes in real time. I also like the possibility to use third-party VSP plugins.
Tight integration with other Adobe editors. The biggest advantage of Premiere is that you can jump from this program to other software developed by Adobe – Photoshop, After Effects, etc. Sony Vegas has nothing to offer in return.
Lumetri Color Tools. This tool offers a separate panel with many color management features, as well as a large selection of LUTs and HDR filters. You can adjust white balance, exposure, contrast, glare, shadow and black dot using keyframes. Besides, it is possible to change saturation, vibration, faded film, and sharpness. The variations in the curves and the color wheel are really impressive.
No licensed, unlimited version. Unlike Vegas Pro, you need to get a subscription to access Premiere. Moreover, you have to update the subscription every month. This is quite inconvenient, and more expensive.
You can't customize the UI. The thing that makes this program less attractive in the Premiere Pro vs Sony Vegas comparison is that you can’t customize the UI. When I used this software for the first time and started to edit a video for Instagram, I spent several hours to find the necessary tools and understood that most of the available functions are needless for novice users.
Vegas Pro vs Adobe Premiere: Price
The monthly price of Premiere license is $20.99. The annual plan costs $239.99. It is rather expensive and not every filmmaker can afford to buy this video editor.
Though Adobe frequently offers nice Creative Cloud discounts (https://fixthephoto.com/adobe-discounts.html Adobe Creative Cloud Discounts) that allow getting the program for less money, I still don’t like the subscription payment system.
- Premiere Pro - $20.99 / month
- All Apps - $52.99 / month
The Sony Vegas Pro price goes as high as $599 or you can upgrade an old version for $249.
- Vegas Pro 2024 - $599
- Upgrade Vegas Pro to 2024 - $249
Vegas Pro vs Adobe Premiere – Who Wins?
Comparing these 2 professional video editing programs, I can say that they are very similar in terms of functionality – they work with all formats, have advanced tools and deep color correction settings, support multiple cameras and have convenient timelines. However, there are some important differences.
Vegas Pro offers a licensed version for which you pay once; Adobe doesn’t support this pricing policy. Besides, the video editor took away a huge part of the potential audience (beginner users) from Premiere, allowing them to fully customize the interface, delete and add different toolbars and modules.
Premiere Pro has its advantages, such as batch processing thanks to 1,000,000+ LUTs, tight integration with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Audition, which gives it even more control over video settings, as well as the largest database of training lessons, forums and articles created by professional videographers.
Freebies for Vegas Pro and Premiere Pro
Fortunately, the majority of video editing programs support LUTs created for simple color correction. Our experts have collected the most efficient LUTs, using which you can give your videos warm tones or mimic the atmosphere of a sunny day even if you recorded in gloomy weather. These tools are also helpful while editing footage shot at night. Find out about the fastest way of how to install LUTs in Premiere.
