Video content is everywhere, and it's only getting more important. Social media platforms are hosting more video content than ever, video interviews are becoming more prevalent—even the classroom is getting more video-friendly. But editing your video content at a high level is still difficult, and often requires large apps or expensive software.

In this article, we'll show you how to edit using Kapwing, an online video editor. This guide is meant to help people who are already familiar with Kapwing but want to dive in to its capabilities.

We'll cover the most important things you'll need to know in order to edit your videos using Kapwing:

1. Kapwing tools
2. The content you can upload to Kapwing
3. Using the Kapwing Studio
4. Publishing and downloading

Kapwing has a suite of content creation tools designed for fast, simple, and collaborative video, GIF, and image editing.

• Kapwing's most powerful and comprehensive product is our video maker. In Kapwing, you can add visual elements, design on a visual canvas, edit clips together, add audio to videos, insert subtitles, and more. It brings together most of Kapwing's other task-based tools.  Most other landing pages—including the background noise remover, video trimmer, video translator, and video resizer—are just portals to the Studio.
• Kapwing's subtitle generator allows you to add subtitles to videos automatically in just a few clicks. Once you're done with a video, you can upload it to the Subtitle Maker to embed captions or make an SRT file. This one-off tool is the best way to quickly make captions on a video.
• Kapwing's free video converter helps you turn into media format into an MP3, MP4, JPG, or GIF. You can start here if you just want to extract a single frame, a soundtrack, or a GIF from a video.

The Content You Can Upload to Kapwing

Kapwing allows you to upload your content in almost any way you want. You can upload videos, images, and audio from almost any source online. All you have to do is copy the URL to the content you want to upload. Here are the methods for getting your media into Kapwing:

• Click "Upload" and select the file you want to upload from your system
• Drag and drop a file (either onto the Studio canvas or onto the Workspace)
• Copy/paste the URL of a video from YouTube, Google Drive, GIPHY, etc to import directly*
• Copy images to a clipboard and paste them onto the Studio canvas
• Use the "Images" search tool: Look for images on the open web from inside Kapwing. This tool returns Google Image Search's results for the same keyword.

*This looks different on different sites. On places like YouTube, you can simply copy the URL from the top of the browser window. But from storage locations like Google Drive, you'll need to get a shareable link to your content.

With Drive, you need to customize your sharing settings to ensure that the link is shareable, but with other locations (like Tumblr, MediaFire, DropBox, etc.) you can just find a "Share" button and copy the link.

This is also the best way to upload content from non-browser locations, like the mobile YouTube app.

To copy links, just right-click on the URL and select "Copy." If you're using a phone or tablet, select the URL and tap it again. In certain locations, you can also tap and hold on the content itself (this works with most photos).

You can also upload any content that you have on your device. If you already have your files saved, you just need to find them in your file browser. If you need several files for one project, it's a good idea to put them in a separate folder so they're easy to find.

Related: 12 Best Free Video Editing Softwares for Professionals

Using the Kapwing Studio

The Kapwing editor is Kapwing's primary feature, allowing you to use all of Kapwing's editing tools in one place. Once you've found the content that you need to start, go to Kapwing.com. If you haven't logged in, click on "Get Started" to access the Studio, and if you've logged into your Kapwing account, select "Create New Project."  

Now you need to upload your content. If you're starting with something from the internet, just right-click on the URL field and select "Paste." Kapwing will automatically start uploading your file to the Studio. And if you're using a file that you have on your device, select "Click to Upload" and find it in your file browser. You can also drag and drop the file into the Studio window.

Now you're ready to edit your project! Let's go over the most important video editing tools in the Kapwing Studio:

Adding Media

If you want to add another video, picture, or GIF, all you need to do is click on the "Media" button in the left sidebar. Under the "This Project" tab, use the "Add Media" button to upload more files from your device or paste another URL to retrieve online assets.

To add your new video, image, or GIF to the video, simply drag and drop it from the Media sidebar to the Timeline. More about using the Timeline later.

Adding/Removing/Editing Audio

Kapwing also gives you access to the best online audio editor. To mute a video, select the clip from the Timeline then use the Volume slider in the Edit toolbar on the right to turn the volume all the way down.

To add music, a voice over, or any other audio track, click "Audio" from the left toolbar. In this window, you can upload audio files from your device or from web sources like YouTube and SoundCloud.

If you're using Chrome or Firefox as your web browser, you can also record a voice over right in the Kapwing Studio!

Once you've added your audio track, you can trim it, choose the starting point, adjust volume, and loop it. If you haven't muted your video, the new audio track will play on top of the existing audio – if you'd like to hear only the new track, just mute the video!

Adding and Editing Text

Adding text is just as easy in the Kapwing Studio. Simply select the layer you'd like to add text to in the Timeline and select "Text" from the left toolbar. Double-click on the text box to add and edit your text.

In the Edit toolbar on the right, you can enter your text and choose its font, style, arrangement, and color when the text box is selected.

You can click and drag anywhere on the text box to reposition it, and you can click and drag a corner of the box to resize and rearrange the text inside the box. The rotation button on the bottom edge of the box allows you to rotate your text box to any angle. You can also enter a precise hex value for your text's color and edit its outline.

Click "Animate" to add exciting and eye-catching animations to your text!

To adjust when and for how long your text is visible, make sure the correct layer is selected and then reposition within the "Timeline." You can drag and drop the beginning and end buttons for each layer to change when each layers appears on the project.

Adding and Editing Pictures and Other Design Elements

If you want to add pictures or any other design elements, click on either "Images" or "Elements" in the left toolbar.

Here, you can search the internet for pictures, vector images, stickers, and GIFs that you can import directly to your Studio project. You can also the Upload option in the Media library to paste a link or search your file browser for images. And if your pictures are easily available, just drag and drop them into the Studio window!

Once they're in the Studio, you can resize, crop, reposition, rotate, and adjust your elements. Spice up your video to your heart's content!

Cropping, Resizing, and Rotation

The Studio gives you tons of options to crop and resize your content.

If you want to change the size or dimensions of your canvas, first deselect all layers. Now, you can select one of the preset aspect ratios from the right side of the window, or add additional padding to any side of the canvas. You can also click and drag a corner of your content, deselect it by clicking anywhere outside it, and click "Remove Padding" on the right side of the window to trim the canvas to the dimensions of your content.

If you'd like to enter exact dimensions for your project, select "Custom Size" from the right menu. Here, you can enter the precise dimensions you'd like for your project, or choose other preset aspect ratios.

If you want to change the size and dimensions of your content and would also like to control what parts are shown, click on a layer and select "Crop" from the right menu. Now, you can click and drag the corners and edges of your content and shift the object's "mask" to control the visible portion of your content.

Trimming, Filtering, Adjusting Speed

Nothing is easier than trimming a video in the Kapwing Studio.

Once your video has been uploaded to the Studio, make sure it's selected in the Timeline. Now, simply drag the beginning and end of the video within the Timeline to trim it to your desired length.

You can also use the Split tool in the toolbar above the Timeline to cut the video up and then delete the parts of the video you don't want to use. Drag and rearrange video clips within the Timeline until it's how you like it.

You can even add precise, custom visual adjustments to your photos and videos in the Studio! Just click on the layer you'd like to edit and choose "Adjust" from the menu on the right side of the window. Here, you can change the opacity, brightness, contrast, saturation, and blur of your photo or video.

If you want to change the playback speed of your video, select the video layer and click on the "+" and "-" buttons under "Speed" on the right side of the Studio. You can make your video play at any rate from .25x to 4x speed!

Publishing and Downloading

Once you're done creating and editing your project, you're ready to process it! The default output file for videos is MP4, so if you'd like to process your video as a GIF instead, click the Settings button near the top right corner of the window (it looks like a little gear). In the Settings menu, you can change your output file to a GIF.

You can also click the drop down next to the green "Export Video" button to select from your export options: MP4, GIF, and Image. If you select Image, you'll have the option to choose a single frame from the video to export as a JPEG.

When your video is completely ready, click the green "Export Video" button in the top right corner of the Studio. Kapwing will immediately begin processing your project. Keep in mind that for longer or larger videos, this could take several minutes. But images and shorter videos should only take a few seconds to process!

Once your project is finished processing, just select "Download" from the right side of the screen to save the project directly to your device. From this page, you can also share your content directly to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or get a short, shareable link to your project!

Remember to tag us @KapwingApp whenever you share your content on social media– we love to see what our creators are passionate about! And be sure to subscribe to the Kapwing Resources page – we’re constantly writing new tutorial and features to help you make the most out of Kapwing.

Related Articles:
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• Add Music to Photos
• Make GIFs From Videos
• Photo Resizer
• How to Put Videos Together