How to Edit Videos on a Laptop?
Summary: Are you looking for methods for editing videos on your laptop? Here we will teach you the basics of how to edit videos on a laptop using a few different editors.
- • Convert videos to 1000+ format without loss
- • Compress the high-quality video and audio while retaining original quality
- • Embedded with video editing functions like cropping, effect, and watermark
When some people think about video editing they imagine a complicated setup that uses expensive and difficult to understand software. While that may be in the case in some scenarios, most people (including professionals) use a fairly standard desktop computer or even a laptop for their editing needs. Being able to do quick edits on a laptop is a big advantage thanks to the fact that you can carry it around with you wherever you go. That’s precisely why today we’re going to teach you the basics of how to edit videos on a laptop using a few different tools.
Part 1: The Best Tool to Convert and Edit Videos on Laptops
We’re starting off with the professional editing option, namely DVDFab Video Converter. Although its name might suggest that it’s just a video converter, the software is actually also a very solid option for editing videos on both Windows and Mac. The fact that it can convert between many types of video formats in addition to offering powerful editing tools can be a big bonus in many situations. Learning how to use this software is extremely easy even if you have no prior experience with video editing. Take a look at the example below to get an idea of how to edit videos on a laptop using DVDFab Video Converter.
1. Launch the main DVDFab client and select the Converter module from the top menu. Load the videos you want to edit and/or convert using the drag & drop method or the “Add/+” buttons.
2. This is an optional step but if you want to also convert the video you’ll first need to go to the Profile Switcher in the upper left corner and select the format you want for the output. If conversion isn’t necessary, simply skip to the next step.
3. Now let’s take a look at some tools you can use for laptop video editing. Begin by opening up the Video Edit menu, which contains a number of useful tools. Here, you can use the first set of icons to add and edit text or image watermarks and even subtitles. Meanwhile, the second row of tools let you change color proprieties like saturation, brightness, and contrast (first icon), crop and change the aspect ratio of the video (second icon) and use the trimming tool to create short clips from a longer video (third icon). For more options, exit this menu and click the Advanced Setting button to open up a different menu where you can further customize your videos.
4. Once you’re happy with how the new video looks, go to the bottom menu to pick a destination folder. Finally, click the green button labeled Start and wait until the software finishes processing your video.
Part 2: Other Methods to Edit Videos on a Laptop on Windows and Mac
Windows Movie Maker
If you’re using Windows and you’re just starting to learn how to edit videos on a laptop, your first instinct might be to simply use the good old Windows Movie Maker. The app has been around forever and is even available on Windows 10 so that’s not a bad choice. The new version even includes basic video effects and transitions along with tools that can be used to change the aspect ratio, color proprieties or rotation of the video. This isn’t the best laptop video editing software but it’s a decent place to start.
Photos App
The Photos App is meant to be a replacement for Windows Movie Maker and improves upon its predecessor in pretty much every way. The user interface is a lot sleeker and easier to navigate this time around and you have some additional editing tools at your disposal to play with. These include a number of neat filters, 3D effects, drawing tools, automatic video remix feature, and more. The Photos App is one of the best ways to learn how to edit videos on a laptop, however, it’s worth noting that the app was designed for Windows 10 and doesn’t work on older versions of the operating system.
iMovie
If you’re looking for laptop video editing software that works with Apple’s operating system you should probably just start with iMovie. iMovie is for all intents and purposes the MacOS equivalent of the Windows Photos App and comes with similar features. The app comes with its own set of special effects and filters that you can use and even supports 4K quality videos. You also have the basic stuff like trimming, cropping and rotating tools as well as great integration with a wide variety of iPhones.
Conclusion
At first, it may seem difficult to learn how to edit videos on a laptop but that’s actually not really the case. Both Windows and Mac now have great built-in free tools that can help you get started and if iMovie and the Photos App are not your style, you can always pick a professional tool instead, such as DVDFab Video Converter. Despite being a premium piece of software, there’s actually also a free trial available so you can check it out right now without spending anything and then decide later if you want to upgrade and gain access to all its great features.
If you also want to edit videos on your iPhone, please check how to edit videos on iPhone.