Ken Colburn from Data Doctors tells you all about how to find completely free video editing apps that won’t make you pay later.
Q: Every time I find a “free” smartphone video editing app, many of the tools require payment to use them. Are there any completely free apps for beginners?
answer: Video editing used to be the domain of powerful desktop computers and very expensive and complex programs that required learning new languages.
The processing power of smartphones has increased exponentially, and these days anyone can perform advanced video editing tasks with just a few taps on the screen.
Avoiding the “freemium” trap
In both app stores, nearly every video editing app appears as a free download, designed to encourage you to try it out. The hope is that the free portion of the app will convince you that it makes sense to pay for the premium features. This is known as a “freemium” business model.
It can be very frustrating to spend time editing a video the way you want it, only to find out that you have to pay if you don’t want the app watermark on your video.
The key to avoiding these hidden obstacles is to look carefully at the app’s description before downloading to see if it contains any “in-app purchases” that make it clear that it’s not a completely free app. .
iMovie for iOS devices
If you have an iPhone or iPad, Apple offers a completely free app called iMovie that is powerful and easy to use.
It can process 4K video shot from your iPhone, GoPro, or other ultra-high resolution sources, and comes with many templates, filters, and preset enhancements. If your video is a little shaky due to rapid movement, you can use the stabilization option to significantly improve the “viewability” of your clip.
Adding titles, transitions, sound effects, music beds, and narration is easy and can yield very interesting results.
The complete iMovie user guide can be found here.
YouTube creation for Android devices
If your smartphone or tablet uses Android OS, Google’s recently released app called YouTube Create is the best option.
It’s still in beta stage, meaning it’s under development, so it might be a little buggy when using more complex tools, but I’ve been able to get great results from it.
It’s designed to make editing and uploading videos to YouTube super easy, but you don’t have to be a YouTube creator to use this powerful app.
It offers 40 transitions to seamlessly blend your clips, a set of filters, and 14 manual adjustment tools to clean up your clips. Easily trim or split clips, clean up audio, add titles, captions, narration, and more.
Don’t be afraid!
The key to video editing apps is to try out all the tools and see which ones suit your editing style. The edited video is saved as a copy, so the original video clip is never at risk. Don’t be afraid to try everything you see in these apps.
Ken Colburn is the founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services.For technical questions, please contact us on Facebook or X.
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