Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0

Tasks panel overview

The Tasks panel appears by default for all workspaces. It is the central location for adding and organizing media; finding, applying, and adjusting effects and transitions; creating DVD and Blu-ray disc menus, and sharing your finished projects. It is organized into three main task workspaces: Edit, Create Menus, and Share. Within each workspace are all the tools you need to accomplish tasks.

Edit workspace displaying Effect Properties view

Edit workspace

When you’re ready to acquire, organize, arrange, or edit your media, click Edit in the Tasks panel. The Edit workspace lets you add movie themes and templates to your movies, apply effects and transitions, and create and add titles. In addition, the Properties view appears within the Tasks panel when you choose Window > Properties or when you click the Edit Effects button from the Effect view or the Edit Transition button from the Transition view.

From the Edit workspace you can access the following in the Tasks panel:
Media 
Lets you view, sort, and select media from all that you have captured or imported into your project. The Media view itself has three views:
Project view
Lists all the media you’ve added to your project. You can view media in List view or Icon view.

Organizer view
Displays all the media currently stored and organized in the shared Photoshop Elements/Adobe Premiere Elements Organizer. You can use tags to organize photos into groups and share directly between the two applications.

Get Media view
Provides access to all the different methods for acquiring source footage for your project, such as camcorders, Internet, and folders on your hard disk.

Themes
Displays movie themes that you can use to instantly and dramatically enhance your movies. Themes make it easy to create professional-looking movies because they contain effects, transitions, overlays, title and closing-credit sequences, intros, intro videos, sound effects, and more. You can apply all the options in a theme, or you can click the Edit Movie Theme Options button and choose the options you want.

Effects  
Shows effects and presets you can use in your movie. You can search for an effect by typing its name into the search field. To see only specific types of effects, choose an option from the first menu: Video Effects, Audio Effects, Presets, My Presets, or Favorites. You can also view specific categories by choosing a category, such as Adjust or Channel, from the second menu (Show All is the default). To edit an effect before applying it, select it and click Edit Effects to open Properties view.

Transitions
Shows transitions you can use in your movie. You can search for a transition by typing its name into the search field. To see only specific types of transitions, choose an option from the first menu: Video Transitions, Audio Transitions, or Favorites. You can also view specific categories by choosing a category, such as 3D or Slide, from the second menu (Show All is the default). To edit a transition before applying it, select it and click Edit Transitions to open Properties view.

Titles 
Shows preformatted titles you can use in your movie. You can search for a title by typing its name into the search field. To see only specific types of titles, choose an option from the first menu: Entertainment, General, Happy Birthday, and so on. And then, if you want to narrow the choices more, choose a specific theme, such as Blue Notes or Ladybug picnic, from the second menu (Show All is the default).

Create Menus workspace

When you’re ready to add menus to your movie for DVD or Blu-ray disc, click Create Menus. From this workspace you can access your media and the menu templates.

Note: When you click Create Menus in the Tasks panel, the Monitor panel switches to the Disc Layout view where you can drag and drop templates and media to personalize your menus.
Media 
Displays the same view you see when choosing Media from the Edit workspace. From this view you can view, sort, and select media from all that you have captured or imported into your project.

Templates
Lets you preview and choose preformatted templates you can use for menus. To see only specific types of templates, choose an option from the first menu: Entertainment, General, Happy Birthday, and so on, and then, if you want to narrow the choices more, choose a specific theme, such as Blue Notes or Popcorn, from the second menu (Show All is the default).

Share workspace

When you’re ready to burn a DVD or Blu-ray disc, or save your movie for viewing online, or on a mobile phone, PC, videotape, or other device, click Share. This workspace provides all the tools necessary to save your file for sharing with others.

Quick Share lets you create and reuse preset sharing options, making sharing quick and easy. For example, if you frequently share projects by burning them to DVD, you can set up your optimal settings for burning a DVD, and save those settings as a Quick Share. The next time you want to burn a project to DVD, use the Quick Share preset you created instead of setting all the DVD options again.