Level Up With These 15 Final Cut Pro Tips & Tricks

Welcome to part two of "Did You Know," the FCP game show where you learn way more about Final Cut while having a little fun. You don't need to have watched part one, and like always, tally up how many of these you knew and write your score in the comments. Be honest, or our resident Jabawaki will hack into your Final Cut Pro and make it slower than the way my mom drives when she's merging onto the highway.

1. Trim to a range instantly

Press R for the range tool, select the part of your clip you want to keep, then press Option Backslash to instantly trim off the unwanted parts, leaving exactly the segment you want. Pro tip: remap that function to just the backslash key so it's one simple button.

2. Assign audio roles

Confused about which audio is which on your timeline? Right-click the audio, go to Assign Audio Roles, and pick one of the three defaults or create your own via Edit Roles, hit the plus, type a name, and give it a color. Now you can tell your audio apart at a glance. Huge help on bigger projects.

3. Hold the tool key instead of switching

You know you can switch tools with their shortcut, like R for range. But if you hold the key down while using the tool, releasing it switches you straight back to the selection tool. Fewer presses, faster editing. Works for the blade tool, position tool, and so on. Hold and release.

4. Save effects presets

If you always use the same stack of effects and LUTs on your clips, hit the Save Effects Preset button at the bottom of the inspector, name it, and file it in any category. Next edit, find it in your effects and double-click to apply everything at once. Works for audio effects too. Huge timesaver.

5. Shift Z

Zoomed way into your timeline? Instead of Command Minus or pinching your trackpad, press Shift Z to snap your entire timeline into view.

6. Loop a section while you nudge

Trying to line up a sound effect with a transition without the play-move-play dance? Hit Command L to loop playback (see the arrow around the play button), then Shift and question mark to replay a few seconds around your playhead on repeat. While it loops, press period or comma to nudge the sound effect right or left until it lines up perfectly.

7. Paste only the attributes you want

Copy a clip with Command C, select the target clip, and press Shift Command V. A window pops up letting you choose exactly which effects and settings transfer over. Pick and paste.

8. Rename your masks

You can rename shape masks and color masks by double-clicking the name and typing, so you can tell which mask does what. I actually spoke with someone at Apple about extending this to all the color correction types, like you can in Color Finale 2 Pro, and they seemed receptive. Fingers crossed.

9. Range check zebras

Go to View, Range Check, Luma and Final Cut warns you with zebras when you've pushed your highlights or shadows too far, meaning you're erasing detail and should pull your exposure back into range. (This video isn't sponsored, but it is brought to you by everyone in the FCP Color Grading Masterclass, which goes deep on all of this plus Color Finale 2 Pro.)

10. Keywords are sticky notes

Press Command K to open the keyword editor and type what you want, like "happy" on a section of clip showing happy kids. On another clip section, Command K and select it again or press Control 1. Then expand your event, click the keyword collection, and every "happy" moment across your media is pre-trimmed and ready to use. That's a simple example; on big projects this helps tremendously. And it's one of Final Cut's genuine strong suits: as of right now, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve don't have range-based keywording.

11. Export just a section

Press R, drag a range selection over part of your timeline, then Command E to export just that. Handy for showing someone a section of your video or pulling out clips for stock footage.

12. Option-drag to duplicate

Forget copy and paste. Hold Option and drag to instantly duplicate whatever you grab. Great for reusing a transition elsewhere in your edit, and if you tweaked that transition in the inspector, the copy carries the exact same adjustments.

13. Un-compound a compound clip

Packed media into a compound clip and regret it, but you've edited too long (or closed FCP) to undo? You're not screwed. Go to Clip, Break Apart Clip Items and the compound clip unpacks everything and erases itself.

14. The lazy color fix

Don't want to touch the color tools? Add the Crisp Contrast effect plus the Vibrancy effect for saturation. Vibrancy even has a button that keeps your subject's skin from getting overly saturated. These don't come close to fine-tuning a look yourself, but for speeding up the look-building phase, worth a try.

15. The lazy audio fix

Same idea for voice audio: apply the Voice Over Enhancement effect for an instant improvement, and maybe hit Voice Isolation too. Not perfect, but a quick solution when you don't want to fine-tune.

Write your honest score in the comments, and have a great rest of your day!