Lightworks has a pleasing interface and lays everything out clearly. You should be able to adjust quickly to it if you have used any other video editing software. However, one thing missing from the interface is the standard set of menu options across the top. I also dislike the interface’s lack of clear help options; I’d like more beyond the aforementioned welcome video and sporadic tooltips. The online knowledge base isn’t complete or searchable.
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Like most video editing software, Lightworks has three main panels for source media, the preview player, and the timeline (across the bottom). On the right, you see settings and metadata for what you’re working on in the other panels, along with the Export choice (less prominent than in most apps). I like that you can change the relative sizes of the panels with the mouse arrows.
The interface features four tabs for the interface mode based on the main video editing activities: Log (for organizing source media), Edit, VFX (video effects), and Audio. You can choose among several layouts, including Analyse (sic), Assemble, Audio, Compare, and Portrait.
In the left source panel under Project Contents, you can connect third-party cloud storage accounts like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive.
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To get clips into a project, drag them from a file window or click the Import Clips button.
(Credit: Lightworks/PCMag)
After importing videos, you can pre-trim them with blue, diamond-shaped In and Out markers. You can also view them in a larger window by double-clicking them or hitting Source; watching them in full-screen is also an option. The thumbnails don’t scrub as they do in Final Cut and Premiere Pro, however. The Assemble layout shows two preview windows, one for the source and one for the project sequence.
(Credit: Lightworks/PCMag)
As with most video editing programs, getting clips into the timeline is a simple matter of dragging them from the source panel. Lightworks also shows buttons for either overwriting the current timeline content or appending it, but only from the Source view. You don’t get these insertion options when you have multiple tiles selected in the Project Contents view, and there’s no right-click option for placing clips onto the timeline.
You do get other right-click options when you select multiple clips in Project Contents, however, including “Make Sequence From Selection.” Another option is to create multicam bins (see below).
(Credit: Lightworks/PCMag)
Lightworks makes excellent use of keyboard shortcuts, in addition to letting you emulate those from other major video editing applications. Undo functionality in Lightworks is limited, though, and might not work for all actions, such as adding clips to a sequence. It at least works for most basic editing functions like clip moving, splitting, and trimming.
