how to make black and white video in Premiere Pro

Here’s how to make black and white video in Premiere Pro, with these four simple steps. 

Table of Contents: show

There are plenty of reasons you would want to change the colour of your video to black and white from it being an iconic style to creating stand out commercials – black and white video is a great way to get noticed and create stand out visuals.

Here’s how to create black and white video in Premiere Pro with these four simple steps. 

How to make black and white video in Premiere Pro – 4 Simple Steps.

Here are the simple steps you need to take to make your video black and white in Premiere Pro. These are easy to follow and will allow you to perfect the effect. 

Let’s check it out. 

Import your footage

Firstly, import your footage onto your Premiere Pro Timeline. You can do this in a number of ways. Our preferred method is to grab the video file you wish to import into Premiere Pro and drag it over onto the project panel. 

One thing to note is if you’re using a new video clip, it’s worth doing a base edit and ensuring the video quality is tweaked before you add the black and white effect to it. 

Drag your clip onto the Timeline 

Now you’ve imported your footage into the Project Panel; you can now drag and drop it onto your Timeline. 

Project Panel

Access the Effects Panel 

Now it’s time to access the Effects Panel. To access the Effects Panel, simply navigate up to the top bar, and click Window > Effects.

Window > Effects

This is to ensure it opens and you can search for the black and white effect. 

You are now ready to add the black and white effect to your clip.

Add the black and white effect to your clip.

Black and White effects

Now you’re in the Effects Panel you can find the black and white effect by simply going to: 

Video Effects > Image Control > Black and White.

Once you’ve found the effect, simply drag and drop it onto your video within your Timeline, it really is as simple as that. 

That’s it you’re done! Your video now has a cool black and white effect overlayed. For a few more tips on making your video black and white in Premiere Pro, scroll a little further.  

How to add the black and white effect to multiple clips at once

If you want to make more than one clip into black and white video in Premiere Pro, you can do this all in one by following one of these options. 

Both ways are more than suitable; it’s just what you prefer. Check these out below:

Highlight and change

Firstly, you can highlight all of the clips you wish to change into black and white and drop the black and white effect onto them. Or, Double Click on the effect whilst all clips are highlighted.

Adjustment layers

The other option is to add black and white effects onto your clips is to create an adjustment layer above your current clips in your Timeline. 

Then add the black and white effect to your adjustment layer by either dropping the black and white effect onto the adjustment layer. Or, Double Click on the effect whilst the adjustment layer is highlighted.

Adjustment Layers

Note: Remember that any effect placed on the adjustment layer will affect anything placed below it. For example, if you add another effect to the adjustment layer, the rest of the video will also be affected by the change. 

But, if you decide to make a change to the black and white effect, make sure you use the adjustment layer; it saves an incredible amount of time and will help you become a better editor.

Our favourite Premiere Pro resources. 

We hope this article on how to make black and white video in Premiere Pro was useful. Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Jay Neill is the founder, owner, and managing editor of iFilmThings and believes everyone should have access to the film resources they need to plan their filmmaking project, which is why he’s dedicated iFilmThings to helping all filmmakers.

Similar Posts