Review & Guide of OpenShot Video Editor (2024 Edition)

What do most YouTubers use to edit their videos?

Windows Movie Maker? Adobe Premiere Pro? Lightworks? Shotcut?

Yes, but not limited those.

In this page, we will talk about another free video editor, OpenShot Video Editor, which is the free video editing software for beginners and advancers.

Here, you will get the review, guide and its alternatives to OpenShot Video Editor in full details.

Part 1. OpenShot Video Editor review

OpenShot Video Editor is the free video editing software for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X/11/12. It has many features for beginners and professionals to edit photos, video and audio easily. Apart from its basic features, you can also check the rating from users.

Pros:

• 1. Support for many video, audio, and image formats in output and format.
• 2. It supports curve-based Key frame animations.
• 3. Clip, resize, snap, rotate, cut, scaling, etc. video.
• 4. Edit title with templates, creations and subtitles.
• 5. Timeline editing, time mapping, etc.
• 6. Speed up/down, forward and backward the video file.
• 7. Mix audio and edit audio file.
• 8. It supports digital effects on video like brightness, hue, greyscale, chroma key, and more.

Cons:

• 1. Incredibly slow when you apply some effects.
• 2. Needs plug-ins to use some effects like 3D animated titles.
• 3. Works crash for bugs occasionally.

When you are reading here, let's show the guide of this free video editor. After all it is free and worthy of trial.

Part 2. OpenShot Video Editor guide

For using this software, you need to free download this free video editor from its official site: https://www.openshot.org/download/

Then you just need to install and run it immediately. Here is another point some of you may dislike, that its file size is too big.

Step 1: Import photo and music

You can drag and drop some images and music files into this software. Or click the add button to add files to this program.

Step 2: Put photos in order on Timeline

After importing photos, you need to drag each photo into the timeline area.

If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create a smooth fade between them, displayed by blue rounded rectangles between the clips.

Moreover, you can add transition effects, titles, etc. into your files.

Step 3: Add music

After you set all effect for your videos, you can add music to this software.

Like photos importing, etc.

Note: Only you make all photos edited well, then just add music, because music file length is related with the whole file.

Step 4: Preview and export video

Click the Play button to start to preview effects in real-time. Then you can save video as project file for next editing, video file as MP4, MOV, FLV, AVI, etc. to play or share on VLC, YouTube, Vimeo, etc., even DVD/Blu-ray etc. by clicking "File" > "Export Video".

Part 3. OpenShot Video Editor alternatives

Like mentioned in part 2, Openshot Video Editor has its limited features for users.

So here we also find another 5 alternatives to it, so that you can find the best video editor based on your own needs.

AnyMP4 Video Converter Ultimate

AnyMP4 Video Converter Ultimate is the best OpenShot Video Editor, which is compatible with Windows and Mac computer. It is the all-in-one video editor and converter. It does not only offer the editing features like watermark, crop, clip, merge, filters, etc., the tool also lets you use its toolbox to shrink the file size, and edit the metadata information.

Pros:

• Watermark, crop, rotate, flip, clip, merge video files, and add filters freely.
• Edit and convert video, audio and DVD files over 300 formats without watermark.
• Edit audio ID3 tag and video metadata information to present what you want to show.
• Compress the large file size into smaller.
• Create animated GIF images from a video file.

Cons:

• The free trial version has limit of time length.

Now, let's check how to use the video editor to edit your video effects with eases.

Step 1. Add video file

Run this software, initiate the window and click Add Files to import one or more video files.

Step 2. Edit video effects like OpenShot Video Editor

Click the edit button in the main interface (like the start image), and start edit your video effects.

Under the editing window, where you can rotate the sideways videos, crop video to get rid of the black edges, add various filter effects to create a stylish video file, add you own text or image watermark as the logo, insert your own narration as the background audio, and edit the subtitle that you want to appear in the video.

Besides, you can also click the scissors image from the main interface to start split or cut down the video segments.

Navigate the toolbox tab in the main interface, where you can compress the large file size, create the animated GIF images and edit the metadata information for the video and audio file easily.

Step 3. Export the files

While all the settings are made well, just click Convert All to start exporting the edited files.

If you would like, you can select the output format as you wish.

Moreover, you can click Merge into one file next to Convert All to combine all the editing files into one collection.

Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is all about simplicity, including its functions and operations. It is the free video editor as the replacement of Openshot Video Editor on Windows computer.

Pros:

• 1. The interface is simple to edit video for beginners.
• 2. Various AutoMovie themes for your video effects.
• 3. Trim, and split video files.
• 4. Speed up, and slow down video playback freely.
• 5. Stablize video on Windows 8 and 8.1.

Cons:

• 1. Fail to upgrade its download currently.
• 2. Lack of video editing features.

Lightworks

Lightworks is a professional non-linear editing system for editing and mastering digital video in various formats.

Pros:

• 1. The UI of Lightworks is archaic.
• 2. It is the freeware to edit videos.
• 3. It has hundreds of various video effects.
• 4. It gets some pretty nice transitions for the software.

Cons:

• 1. It takes the very complicated job of editing videos for beginners.
• 2. It doesn't work with 4k MTS files

Shotcut

Shotcut is a free, and open source video editor for FreeBSD, Linux, OS X and Windows, which is similar to OpenShot Video Editor.

Pros:

• 1. Customize video and audio filters.
• 2. Supports timeline video editing.
• 3. New sketch, mask and audio visualization filters.
• 4. Undo your editing for regret.

Cons:

• 1. No ready-made export profiles for devices.
• 2. No way to preview a filter before applying.

PowerDirector

PowerDirector is a video editing software developed from CyberLink. It enables you to edit video with new standard formats, like H.265 video and 360-degree footage.

Pros:

• 1. It provides users with professional and simplifies video editor.
• 2. Trim, join, and overlay video clips and effects.
• 3. Various effects like fine-tune sound, screen effects, etc.
• 4. Enhance your footage with intelligent color correction.

Cons:

• 1. There is no Mac version for users.
• 2. Number of options can make interface overwhelming.

Part 4. FAQs of OpenShot Video Editor

Conclusion

This page tells the story of OpenShot Video Editor, including its review and guide. Surely, you can get the another 5 alternatives to this free video editing software for create your own videos easily.