Introduction/Comparison of Mainstream Software in the Post‑production Workflow: How Should Beginners Choose? What Do Presets/Templates/LUTs Mean?

There are many film and television post‑production software options. If you’re a beginner who has just entered the post‑production field, this article will help you quickly establish a direction and find the software that suits you.

When producing a film, no matter how long it is, at the core everything revolves around four main modules: editing, VFX, audio, and color grading. The table below (not shown here) organizes the mainstream software framework for you, helping you quickly build a macro‑level understanding.

In recent years, with the explosion of short videos and new media, CapCut (Jianying) has risen rapidly. But note that CapCut focuses on producing short films and short videos, and excels at variety‑show style and internet‑style motion graphics and effects. When it comes to long‑form content, it cannot compete with PR, FCPX, DaVinci, or even AVID. Among these, AVID is a professional editing software dedicated to films and TV series, so it’s not mainstream among general users. In summary, the optimal mainstream software choices in post‑production today are PR, FCPX, and DaVinci (although DaVinci mainly focuses on color grading, in recent years its editing panel has been continuously optimized, and its efficiency is now comparable to the other two). To sum up: these three pieces of software can all handle long‑form projects (a large portion of theatrical films and web dramas are completed with these three), and they can of course handle short‑form content without any problem.

Considering the many stages of film and TV post‑production—for example, after editing you still need audio, color grading, and VFX processing—overall, Adobe Premiere Pro is an excellent entry point. Its value lies not only in its own functions, but also in its role as the “coordination hub” within the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem.

PR is developed by Adobe and works seamlessly with its own PS, AE, AU and other specialized tools in corresponding versions. This means when you want to process a piece of footage (for example, reduce its noise, add effects, etc.), you can copy it directly into other Adobe software without having to pre‑export it first, which greatly improves work efficiency.

A PR‑Centered Collaborative Workflow

After completing a rough cut in PR, you can seamlessly call on the Adobe family of professional tools for fine‑tuned processing.

Auxiliary Elements That Extend PR’s Capabilities

Thanks to its large user base, PR benefits from a rich third‑party resource ecosystem, which can greatly boost both efficiency and creative results.

How to Start Learning

• If you’re just getting started:
  It’s recommended to begin with the PR + AU combination, focusing on telling a good story (editing) and handling the sound well (audio). This is the most fundamental core.

• If you want to enhance visual effects:
  After you’ve mastered the basics of PR, start learning AE. Begin with motion graphics and text animation, then gradually move into VFX compositing.

• If you’re interested in film‑level color:
  Once you are familiar with the editing workflow, you can dive deeper into learning DaVinci.

To sum up, there is no absolute good or bad software; what matters most is finding what suits you. Some people love Apple’s macOS and therefore always edit with FCPX. Others are used to the Windows operating system and stick with PR for editing. But the operational logic of editing software never fundamentally changes.

The software is not what’s important; what’s always important is the way you think.