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Adobe Premiere Pro - Advanced Training

Linking vs Grouping clips in Premiere Pro

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hi everyone, let's talk about Grouping versus Linking. I want all of these separate things to be stuck together, and Premiere Pro goes, "Do you want to link them or group them?" Let me show you which one to use. 

The short answer is, they basically do the same thing, most of the time, it doesn't really matter which one you pick. So we've been making this little lock up, there are some differences, that's why there's a video, but we've been making this lock up, there's some text on the top, there's some, bit in between here, in the background, but really we're making this one unit. Once it's made we want it to move around, and edit together, so you can select it all. 

The differences are, when I right click it, and I say, "All right, do I link it or do I group it?" Linking kind of connects it up, and gives you more editable control, let me just show you, actually. Let's link it, linking it means that, when I click on one they all get highlighted. So that's different from grouping, and also when I drag one end they all come along for the ride. 

The other perk for this is that, can you see, they're all-- I can still see all the good stuff in here, I can edit the position, I can see the shape in here, and I can do lots of adjustments. So different from grouping, let me show you groupings. I'm going to undo that, select them all again, and use the other option, and go to 'Group', watch this, if I click off, I click it back on, have I grouped them? I have grouped them. I can click on one of them and drag it off, I can click on one of them and have them all selected, and do them together. 

So it's a little bit more flexible that way. When I have them selected, you notice that it just says, Multiple Clip Selected, and goes, you can't do anything else, that's one of the cons, but it does mean, when you use a group over link, is when you have to do, anything that's not stacked on top of each other, watch this, if I want to grab all of these guys, because I want them all to be grouped, I need to move them along as a unit. I've kind of set the sequence, and I just want to move them around together, rather than trying to select them all. I right click them and I can't link them, because it won't let those side-by-side things link, they have to kind of be on top of each other in the stack, or at least just two items. 

So I have to group multiple stuff, it means I can click on them all and move them all together, but it also means that I can still do some editing. So get in there and edit this one, even though that's still part of that group. When in doubt, go for linking, unless it doesn't work, because you're selecting multiple stuff, then use grouping. I use quite a bit in-- where is this one? So I link, in this case it wouldn't matter, if linking or grouping, I've got this text message that appears on some of my YouTube shows, you see, that thing pops up, and I've got a little bit of a sound that always goes with it. 

So whenever I move it I need it to come along for the ride. So in this case what have I done? It is grouped, hey, doesn't really matter, where it would matter now, if I clicked on it, and I want to see it over here in my Effects Controls, I can't see it, I can't go and change it. So it's probably best set as a link, there you go. Now it's still connected, but I can see a lot of bunch of stuff in there. Why was it grouped? I don't know, made this a while ago. That's the difference between Linking and Grouping.