Pinnacle Studio for Windows: Editions, Features and Setup Guide

ULTIMATE ONLY

Grade color like a film editor

Color wheels for shadows, midtones and highlights sit next to a live waveform scope (a graph of the brightness in your shot), so you can match clips by numbers instead of guessing. You can also load LUTs (ready-made color looks) and save your own.

Standard still has basic color correction and filters. The wheels, tone curve and scopes are Ultimate only.

ULTIMATE ONLY

Hide, clone or blur parts of a shot

Draw a mask around an object with the shape, brush or color tools, and the edit only affects that area. You can remove a distraction, blur a face or a license plate, or put the same person in a shot twice.

Smart Object Tracking then follows a masked pet, car or drone across frames for you, so you do not redraw the mask on every frame.

ULTIMATE ONLY

Blend two clips together

Blend modes decide how one clip mixes with the one below it. Put a starry sky over a beach shot and pick a mode, and the two merge into one scene, like the dolphins below.

Build titles with presets or from scratch

The Title Editor gives you text styles, motion presets and full control over font, color and shadow. Ultimate adds 3D title presets for bolder intro cards.

Titles sit on their own track, so you can time them to the music.

Edit on a timeline with unlimited tracks

Drag clips from the Library onto the timeline, then trim, split and stack them on as many video and audio tracks as the project needs. Keyframes (markers that change a setting over time) let you animate zoom, position or volume precisely.

Hundreds of filters and effects

The effects library groups filters by type, from color fixes and old-film looks to painting and pencil-sketch styles. Click a filter to preview it, then drag it onto a clip.

MultiCam editing and screen recording

Sync footage from up to six cameras and switch angles as it plays. The bundled MultiCam Capture records your screen and webcam together for tutorials and gameplay.

Stabilization and stop motion

Smooth out shaky bike or ski footage, and build stop motion animation frame by frame from photos or a webcam.

360 video and split screen

Edit 360-degree footage into Tiny Planet shots, and design split-screen layouts that play several clips at once.

DVD and Blu-ray discs

Burn projects to DVD with more than 100 menu templates. Blu-ray burning needs a separate paid plug-in, bought from inside the app.

• You edit family videos, vlogs or YouTube content and want room to grow
• You want masking and color grading without paying every month
• You still burn DVDs for relatives

• You want AI tools like auto captions or text-to-video; try CapCut
• You only trim the odd clip; Clipchamp is free
• You edit for clients and need industry-standard files

• You buy Standard and later want masking or color wheels; Ultimate costs less than upgrading later
• Your PC has an older graphics card and you plan to edit 4K
• You shoot HEVC on a phone and do not have the HEVC extension

1 Turn on proxy files for 4K. Pinnacle edits a lighter copy of each clip and uses the full file only at export, so playback stays smooth on a mid-range PC.

2 Set the project to match your footage. Pick the resolution and frame rate of your main camera before you start, so clips are not stretched or stuttering.

3 Use the Library collections. Group clips, music and photos into collections per project. It keeps the Library from turning into one long list.

4 Keep each project’s footage in one folder. Copy clips off your phone or camera into one folder before you import. Moving files later breaks the links in your project.

5 Export a short test first. Render 20 seconds with your settings and check it on your phone or TV before you export the full video.