How to Render in Adobe Premiere Pro (Complete Beginner Guide)
Adobe Premiere Pro is a versatile video editing app. It’s used by many people to create videos and films. With it, you can edit footage, and apply effects, animations, and more.
When you edit in Premiere Pro, you want to enjoy a smooth editing process. Premiere Pro render features are meant to deliver this. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to render in Premiere Pro.
Let’s learn how to render in Premiere Pro!
How to Render in Premiere Pro (Step by Step)
So, what does rendering do in Premiere Pro? Rendering creates a playback preview clip. It’s important when you’re using complex projects with footage and dramatic effects.
Do you need to render before exporting in Premiere Pro? Technically speaking, no. But it's highly recommended. That's because it gives you a more error free and accurate preview of your project.
If you’ve ever experienced jerky or slow payback, you probably haven’t rendered your footage. Premiere Pro render tools smooth effects and apply them fully. They also let you preview the true finished result that you’ll soon share with the world.
Premiere Pro render settings should be an essential part of your editing workflow. While not required, they’re a key part of creating videos that you’re impressed with. If you don’t render, you may see playback issues. And effects that you’ve added may not look their best.
To learn how to render Premiere Pro projects, we’ll work with the Modern City Buildings and Road Infrastructure stock footage from Envato Elements. Download it if you want to follow along.
1. Select a Section of Footage to Render
With our footage added to Premiere Pro, notice that I’ve added a few effects in the Timeline. The Timeline is found below the video preview section, which itself is called the Program Monitor.


Notice the yellow line at the top of the Timeline. This is telling you that your clip isn’t rendered. You may at times see a red line instead. This is a more serious alert.
While it’s best to render yellow clips, red clips aren’t likely to play back well without rendering. Whichever you see, rendering is a good idea.
Let’s begin by choosing what to render. Rendering your entire project is a wise idea. But it can often take a long time. That’s because of the computing processing power needed to run a render. It’s best to break your projects into smaller sections to render.


To do this, move the playhead to where you want to start rendering. The playhead is the vertical blue line in the Timeline to select frames.
Press the I key on your keyboard. Next, drag the playhead to the end of your desired section. Press the O key. Now, you have a selected section of your project ready for rendering.
2. Choose Rendering Settings
To choose rendering settings, come to the Sequence dropdown menu. This is found in the upper left of Premiere, on the menu bar. When you click on it, you’ll see the four render settings that Premiere Pro offers. They’re grouped near the top:
- Render Effects In to Out. This focuses heavily on effects that you’ve added. Use it if you’re seeing playback issues with these specific elements.
- Render In to Out. All visual aspects of your selection will be rendered.
- Render Selection. Areas with a red bar that you’ve selected will be rendered.
- Render Audio. Only audio is rendered while visual aspects remain untouched.


Render In to Out captures all areas of your video, so it’s often an ideal option. Keep in mind, though: it can take a long time if your project is lengthy.
This is why it’s best to select only sections of your project at once. By breaking a long video into small segments, you’ll expedite the rendering process.
3. Render in Premiere Pro
Here, let’s choose to Render In to Out. Click it, and a menu will appear with a progress bar. It measures the speed and timing of your rendering. When it completes, look in your Timeline again!


Now, you’ll see a green bar. That means your selected segment has been rendered in Premiere. As you can see, it’s an easy process. But it’s one that pays immense dividends as you work to build spectacular videos.
What does rendering do in Premiere Pro? Now you know that it gives you a smooth and accurate preview. These Premiere Pro render steps will help you save more time later, avoiding rework and cumbersome fixes.
The Top Source for Premium Adobe Premiere Pro Templates (With Unlimited Downloads)
As video creators, we always want to be more efficient. That’s where premium Adobe Premiere Pro templates from Envato Elements come in. With thousands available, the options are tremendous.


The Elements offer is unbeatable: unlimited downloads. For a flat, low monthly rate, you can download and use as many premium Adobe Premiere templates as you want.
Plus, you’ll enjoy millions of other digital assets - like fonts, stock footage, and more. These pair perfectly with Premiere Pro templates to help you craft stunning videos effortlessly.


Choose premium Elements templates and enjoy:
- Inspired, movie-style designs. Want videos that are truly cinematic? The studio-quality offerings from Elements deliver.
- Easy-to-use features. Not an expert with Premiere Pro? Thanks to premium templates, you don’t need to be. Drop in your own content and the templates do the rest.
- Themed designs. Templates can be found for videos on any topic within the vast Elements library.
As you can see, you can’t afford to miss Envato Elements! Join today and get started.
Practice These Premiere Pro Render Steps Today
Do you need to render before exporting in Premiere Pro? We say, "yes!" It's the best way to avoid errors and give you a smoother experience while editing.
In this tutorial, you learned the value of Premiere Pro render processes. When you render in Premiere, you’re completing a key part of the editing workflow. Edits will be accurately shown with full effects. Exports will be ready to run at higher quality. And you’ll ensure your playback is always smooth.
Be sure to adopt rendering as a key part of your Premiere Pro editing! It’s a key to success.



