You can customize the look and behavior of Premiere Pro, from determining the default length of transitions to setting the brightness of the user interface. Most of these preferences remain in effect until you change them. The preferences you set for scratch disks, however, are saved with your projects. Whenever you open a project, it automatically defaults to the scratch disks you selected for it when you set up that project.

Preferences are stored in the following location:

• For Windows: <drive>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro

• For Mac OS: <drive>/Users/<username>Library/Preferences/com.adobe.AdobePremierePro.plist

This excerpt from the Adobe Premiere Pro Classroom in a Book explains how to set up projects, sequences, and preferences when getting started with Premiere Pro. See Selecting Settings, Adjusting Preferences, and Managing Assets in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

In the General pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can customize settings for everything from playback preroll duration to bin behaviors.

• In Premiere Pro CS5.5, and earlier, preroll and postroll are the amount of seconds before and after an edit point when playing back footage for a number of editing functions, like using the Trim Monitor.

  In Premiere Pro CS6, preroll and postroll settings are found in Edit > Preferences > Playback (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Playback (Mac OS).

• In Premiere Pro CS6, there is a preference for Timeline mouse scrolling. You can choose vertical or horizontal scrolling. By default, mouse scrolling is horizontal for Windows and vertical for Mac OS. For Windows, press the Ctrl key to switch to vertical scrolling.

• You can specify whether Adobe Premiere Pro, by default, displays timeline playback by page scroll, by smooth scroll, or no scroll. In page scrolling, each new view of the timeline appears after the playhead moves offscreen. In smooth scrolling, the playhead remains in the middle of the screen, while the clips and time ruler move by.

• You can specify whether Adobe Premiere Pro, by default, shows clip keyframes, clip volume, handles, keyframes, track keyframes, track volume, or to hide keyframes for audio tracks. Select the desired option from the New Timeline Audio Tracks menu.

• You can specify whether Adobe Premiere Pro, by default, shows opacity handles, keyframes, or neither for video tracks. Select the desired option from the New Timeline Video Tracks menu.

• Bin behavior when double-clicking on a bin, or double-clicking with the Shift or Option keys can be controlled in the Bins preference.

• In Premiere Pro CS6, you can choose to show the match sequence settings to clip dialog.

In the Appearance pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can set the overall brightness of the user interface.

Automatch Time

The Automatch Time preference specifies the time, in the Audio Mixer, for any control that has been adjusted to return to its previous setting. Affected controls are Volume, Pan, Effect and Send parameter knobs in Audio, Submix and (except sends) Master track. Automatch Time preference affects properties in Touch mode, and in Read mode for effects with keyframes.

5.1 Mixdown Type

Specifies how Premiere Pro mixes source channels to 5.1 audio tracks.

Play Audio While Scrubbing

Enables audio scrubbing. In Premiere Pro CS6, you can create a keyboard shortcut called “Toggle Audio During Scrubbing” to toggle audio scrubbing on or off while scrubbing. Using a keyboard shortcut is preferable to returning to the Preferences dialog box each time you want to turn audio scrubbing on or off.

Mute Input During Timeline Recording

Check this box to prevent monitoring of the audio inputs while recording the timeline.

Default Track Format

Defines the type of track in which the clip audio channels are presented when a clip is added to a sequence—Mono, Stereo, Mono As Stereo, or 5.1.

Mono

Maps the source audio channels so that they’re placed on separate mono audio tracks. For example, when you select Mono from the Default Track Format menu, Premiere Pro maps each source channel to a separate mono track on capture or import. If you capture from a stereo source with this setting, Premiere Pro maps each of the source channels to a separate monaural track. You can apply the Mono track format to clips containing any number of audio channels. Importing a file containing 5.1 channels maps them to six audio tracks. When you add the clip to the sequence, the clips on the separate mono tracks remain linked together.

Stereo

Maps the source audio channels so that paired channels are placed on stereo audio tracks. You can apply the Stereo track format to clips containing any number of audio channels. If the clip doesn’t contain an even number of channels, a silent channel is created. The silent channel is paired with the unpaired channel when the clip is added to a sequence.

Mono As Stereo

Maps the source audio channels so each is placed on a stereo audio track. Premiere Pro duplicates the audio from each mono source channel and places it in the left and right channels of a stereo track. You can apply the Mono As Stereo format to clips containing any number of audio channels.

5.1

Maps the source audio channels so that one or more groups of six channels are placed into separate 5.1 surround audio tracks. If the number of source channels is not a multiple of six, Premiere Pro creates a 5.1 surround audio track with silence on one or more channels.

Linear Keyframe Thinning

Creates keyframes only at points that don’t have a linear relationship to the start and end keyframes. For example, suppose you are automating a fade from 0 dB to –12 dB. With this option selected, Premiere Pro creates keyframes only at the points that represent an increase in value from the beginning (0 dB) and ending (–12 dB) keyframes. If you don’t select this option, Premiere Pro may create several incremental keyframes of identical values between those two points, depending on the speed at which you change the value. This option is selected by default.

Minimum Time Interval Thinning

Creates keyframes only at intervals larger than the value you specify. Enter a value between 1 and 2000 milliseconds.

In the Audio Hardware pane of the Preferences dialog box, you specify the computer audio device and settings, including the ASIO settings (Windows only), or buffer size setting (Mac OS only) that Premiere Pro uses for recording audio.

In the Audio Output Mapping pane of the Preferences dialog box, you specify the target speaker in your computer sound system for each supported audio channel.

By default, Premiere Pro automatically saves your project every 20 minutes and retains the last five versions of the project file on the hard disk. You can revert to a previously saved version at any time. Archiving many iterations of a project consumes relatively little disk space because project files are much smaller than source video files. It’s best to save project files to the same drive as your application. Archived files are saved in the Premiere Pro Auto-Save folder.

In the Device Control pane of the Preferences dialog box, you specify the settings Premiere Pro uses to control a playback/recording device, such as a VTR or camcorder.

In the Label Colors pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can change the default colors and color names. You can label assets with these colors and color names in the Project panels.

In the Label Defaults pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can change the default colors assigned to bins, sequences, and different types of media.

Indeterminate Media Timebase

Specifies the framerate for imported still-image sequences.

Timecode

Specifies whether Premiere Pro shows the original timecode imported clips, or assigns new timecode to them, starting at 00:00:00.

Frame Count

Specifies whether Premiere Pro assigns a 0, or a 1 to the first frame of an imported clip, or assigns a number by timecode conversion.

Write XMP ID To Files On Import

Check this box to write ID information into XMP metadata fields.

Enable Clip And XMP Metadata Linking

Check this box to link clip metadata to XMP metadata, so that changing one changes the other.

Growing Files (CS6)

Premiere Pro CS6 supports growing files for OP1A MXF files. The preference allows users to opt whether Premiere automatically refreshes as they grow, and if so, how frequently. This preference allows you to edit with these files in your project immediately.

In the Memory pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can specify the amount of RAM reserved for other applications, and for Premiere Pro. For example, as you reduce the amount of RAM reserved for other applications, the amount of RAM left available for Premiere Pro increases.

Some sequences, such as those containing high-resolution source video or still images, require large amounts of memory for the simultaneous rendering of multiple frames. These assets can force Premiere Pro to cancel rendering and to give a Low Memory Warning alert. In these cases, you can maximize the available memory by changing the Optimize Rendering For preference from Performance to Memory. Change this preference back to Performance when rendering no longer requires memory optimization.

In the Playback Settings pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can select the default player for audio or video, and set preroll and postroll preferences. You can also access device settings for third-party capture cards.

Set up DV and third-party devices for output by clicking the Settings button. If a third-party capture card is installed, click the Settings button to daccess the Mercury Transmit dialog box for video formats, and pixel formats.

A checkbox is available for disabling video output when in the background.

Choose an audio device in the Audio Device menu.

Preroll and postroll preferences are included in Playback Settings preferences instead of General preferences.

In the Titler pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can change the letters Premiere Pro shows in the Titler Style Swatches panel and in the font browser.

The Trim Monitor includes Large Trim Offset buttons. Clicking one of these buttons moves a trim point earlier or later. In the Trim pane of the Preferences dialog box, you can specify the number of frames that the Large Trim Offset buttons move trim points.