Adobe Premiere Pro – rendering for YouTube

The two element that are useful here are Adobe Premiere Pro itself and Adobe Media Encoder. The latter is a useful external program for rendering out footage from Premiere and After Effects. One of the key advantages is that it’s possible to still use Premiere while rendering out with Encoder simultaneously. This can allow you to, for example, work on another sequence in the video while the current one is being rendered (such as for previews).

First, select the timeline panel in Premiere and press Ctrl+M (Windows) or go to File > Export > Media

Premiere’s export panel

A breakdown of the panel

1. Set the format to H.264
2. Set the preset to YouTube 1080p Full HD or 720p for lower
3. Click the output name (blue) and choose where you want to output to using File Explorer/Finder. This is important as it will output to the last location you rendered to so may be in the wrong folder requiring hunting to find. It might be a good idea to create a ‘renders’ or ‘output’ folder to save to to keep organised. I also create a ‘demos’ folder if I render work in progress versions of the video. Then make sure Export Video and Export Audio are checked (default) unless you have no audio in your video.
4. You can use the scrubber like in the Premiere timeline to check the video displays correctly
5. Note that the source range is set to in/out by default. If you want to render the entire timeline then be sure to select this dropdown and choose Entire timeline. I have been caught out by this more than once
6. If you want to overlay a watermark logo or text to prevent theft click Effects tab (see below)

Optional: watermark

In the Effects tab (see 6) scroll down and either check Image Overlay if you have a logo or Name Overlay to overlay the sequence name.

If image overlay, select Choose… for the dropdown under Applied:. Then use File Explorer/Finder to open the image file. I don’t think vector image files (Adobe Illustrator) can be used so has to be an exported PNG or similar.

Then open Position and choose where you want it placed. I usually set it as top left

Then use the offset settings (how far off default position) to place it along with sizing and opacity

When you’re happy either click Export or Queue (7). Export renders out the video from Premiere itself, Queue sends it to Media Encoder. Media Encoder must be installed for the latter, from Creative Cloud app.

Media Encoder

Wait for Encoder to load and you will see this. The important area is the Queue pane (top right). Since I added a watermark the preset now shows as Custom. Check the output directory is correct then click the ▶️ button top right to run the queue. As the name suggests, multiple videos can be rendered in queue order by Encoder. When completed you can click the output file link to open the containing folder.