Like other effects, transitions have settings that can be changed to suit your project.
You can change the timing and duration of a transition effect directly in the Timeline panel and more advanced controls are available in the Effect Controls panel.
I have a sequence open in the Timeline panel.
It's just called a sequence with three clips and they already have transition effects applied between them.
I'm going to zoom in using the navigator and just to focus on the first transition effect.
You can change the duration and timing of a transition effect right in the Timeline panel by clicking and dragging the icon for the transition effect you want to change.
You can also click on the ends of a transition effect and change the overall duration.
Notice that by default, when you make an adjustment to the duration, it's a symmetrical adjustment.
The beginning and the end of the clip will move together.
But if you hold the Shift key as I am now, you can make asymmetrical changes if you want to.
Still, let's take a look at the more advanced controls available in the Effect Controls panel.
I'm going to make sure I've got the transition effect selected, and I'm going to open up Effect Controls.
It doesn't look like there's much I can do here, certainly not compared to some of the other visual effects.
I've got the option to display the Actual Sources in the Effect Controls panel.
That's just in the little thumbnail illustrating the effect.
And I can specify a new Duration and a new Alignment.
These are the same sorts of options you'd have when dragging the effect into the sequence in the first place.
The options available for transition effects vary in the Effect Control panel just as they do for other visual effects.
But what I'm really interested in is this area at the top right.
This is a little diagram showing me the effect.
This is the outgoing clip at the top and the incoming clip at the bottom, and I can adjust the timing and duration of my transition effect right here.
In fact, if I drag this right over and expand the transition effect, I'll just zoom out a little bit in this panel.
Here, you can see, I've adjusted too far and I'm getting these diagonal lines to show me that I've gone beyond the end of the handle for the incoming clip.
You can see that illustrated in the Timeline panel as well.
If I want to, I can try trimming and adjusting the timing of the clip directly in the Effect Controls panel.
I'm just dragging the end of the clip, or I can adjust the timing and precise symmetry of the transition effect.
Whatever you do in Effect Controls panel will update dynamically in the Timeline panel.
The main benefit of this view, of course, is that you can see how long the handles are, how much of that overlap is being used by the transition effect.
When you apply a transition effect, initially, it will have a default duration, and that option is in the User Preferences that's in the Application menu on Mac OS, or under the Edit menu in Windows.
And if you look under Timeline..., you'll see the Video and Audio Transition Default Durations, and you can specify these in Frames or Seconds.
I actually find it most helpful to specify these in seconds because then, it doesn't matter what the frame rate is for your particular sequence.
But for now, I'll just Cancel.
I want to draw your attention also to this second transition effect.
This is applied only to the beginning of the third clip and doesn't overlap the end of the second clip.
And that's because the third clip has no handle at the beginning.
This is the only way the transition effect can be applied.
The second clip overlaps the beginning of the third clip and so we get our Cross Dissolve.
Let's take a look.
That, of course, looks absolutely fine and you may find that having no handle at the beginning or end of one clip causes no problems at all.
Of course, if you have no handles, there really isn't anything you can make a transition with.
I'm going to adjust the duration of this transition effect a little bit to make it shorter and I'm going to go to the Effects panel, and I'll go to my Video Transitions, and I think I'll go into the Wipe category.
Just scroll down a little bit and I'll apply a Wipe instead.
Now notice, if I drag this replacement transition effect onto the existing transition, it'll inherit the new duration that I set.
So, that's modifying transitions in Adobe Premiere Pro.
