What Is Wondershare Filmora 12? (Professional Video Editing for 2023)

When you first dreamt of making videos, did you envision spending all your time editing them?

For too many vloggers and freelance video editors, this is reality. You’ll spend hour after hour cutting and reworking footage in clumsy, pro-focused tools. In contrast, Wondershare Filmora 12 is an easy-to-use but powerful editor built with you in mind.

Tools like Wondershare Filmora 12 help you to spend less time editing. In turn, that gives you more time to focus on storytelling and creating great videos – not learning a new app. In this review, you’ll learn more about Filmora and why it’s worth a try.

What Is Wondershare Filmora?

If you edit and produce videos, you know that there are many apps on the market. And while each of includes a ton of tools and features, many miss the mark where it matters: ease of use. 

The best video editor is the one you’ll actually use. Many apps are loaded with advanced settings, but they take too much time to learn. Trying to make your videos look polished like your favorite vlogger frustrates you. You know the app has the tools, but you aren’t sure how to use them.

This is the key difference with Wondershare Filmora 12. This cross-platform (Windows and macOS, plus mobile) tool helps users of any skill level get the most from footage.

If you’ve used other video editing platforms, you’ll quickly learn Filmora. It’s got many of the standard conventions of all NLE (non-linear editors.) The timeline helps you arrange and sequence clips to tell your story.

However, don’t mistake easy to use for simple. You’ll find that this video editor packs a lot of punch. Read on to see what’s under the hood and what Filmora can do for you.

10 Key Features and What’s New in Filmora 12

You might be thinking to yourself:

• Why should I try a new video editing app?
• Is Filmora a good editing software?

Filmora is the best type of app. It’s powerful enough to do everything, but it also makes those tasks easy.

In this section, I want to take a tour of some of my favorite features in Filmora 12. You’ll find all the standard features of a video editor like easy clip sequencing, color grading, and audio adjustments. This section focuses on 10 features that set Filmora apart.

1. Enhanced Keyframe Features

Need proof that Filmora packs a punch? Check out the enhanced keyframe feature. Keyframes are a part of every video editing, but Filmora’s approach is more intuitive.

Keyframes mark the start and end point of an editing effect. They’re often used in animation to signal an object’s movement. They’re also used to transform video footage. For example, two keyframes mark when to begin zooming in on footage and when to end the effect.

This process is cumbersome in many apps, but Filmora’s approach differs. You can batch edit keyframes to save time. You can also use keyframes to apply text animation, and even change color grading with fewer clicks. 

Filmora’s approach is simply more natural, and you’ll spend less time tweaking the position of those keyframes. You’re more likely to use these features that help your video shine.

2. Motion Tracking Made Easy

Motion tracking is an important part of many video edits. For example, you may wish to isolate a subject and adjust their color grade, but they move through the clip. In that case, you need to either manually mask each frame (time consuming) or track them through the scene.

Motion tracking is too painful when done manually. Plus, too many video editing apps require you to buy expensive third-party plugins for accurate tracking.

Filmora takes a different approach with built-in, accurate motion tracking. In a quick example, I used this feature to track a skateboarder as he jetted across a park.

The app accurately tracked him even with quick and unpredictable movements. It created a box that followed him, almost like magic. Then, I enhanced the clip with a fun set of neon wings – overlaid on the same motion path. Total time to produce? Less than two minutes.

3. Powerful Video Effects

The fun part of video editing is experimenting with effects and styles. The challenge is that too many apps make this difficult and cumbersome. Or they require that you purchase additional assets and plugins that add to your costs.

That’s why I love Filmora’s built-in video effects. That includes transitions, filters, titles, and motion elements. All of these give you the freedom to experiment with no additional purchases required. There are over 900 free video effects included with the app, and it’s always expanding.

4. Full Color Control

Color grading is so crucial. It’s one of the most important parts of the editing process and really sets the mood and tone of any footage.

If you’re like me, you’ve wasted time pulling sliders and making tweaks to try and get your color grade right. The truth is that color is complex itself, but many apps add to this complexity.

Like most other features, Filmora didn’t invent color adjustment, but it made this feature usable. There are two key features you’ll love when it comes to color:

1. Color correction. The interface for this tool is so intuitive. There are built-in styles to experiment with color grading. You can also save your color settings as LUTs to reuse later.
2. Color match. One key challenge is making all of your footage follow a similar color style. Filmora makes this easy with a one-click color match feature. It helps you align your footage from shot to shot for consistency.

Filmora’s approach to color correction frees you up to great creative. Spend more time styling footage and less time frustrated with how to do it.

5. Leverage the Learning Library

When you try a new app, you need a helping hand. Every app approaches tasks slightly differently and it helps to learn from others.

Filmora’s interface is easy to use, but you might want to learn from other professionals. You’ll find that there’s a huge library of tutorials that help you get started faster than expected. 

These screencasts range from beginner to professional level skills. I used several videos to help me master the app while reviewing it and found them easy-to-follow.

6. Built-in Titles and Text Overlays

Title and text effects are a crucial part of the storytelling process. If you’re like me, you’ve spent entirely too much time in your video editor experimenting with fonts, styles, and so much more.

This is the power of Filmora’s built in Titles library. Instead of guessing and continually revising your text until you find something you like, start with a title for inspiration. These are constantly updated with new effects, so you’ll never run out of options.

All of these titles are totally customizable. You can easily swap in your specific text in these pre-built animations. That makes them flexible to any video production.

7. Use Familiar Keyboard Shortcuts

Video editors live and die by keyboard shortcuts. Knowing how to maneuver efficiently in your app of choice saves hours of work. Many editors stick to their tool of choice once they know the app’s keyboard shortcuts.

But, as the old saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.” Filmora helps you bridge this gap by supporting keyboard shortcuts from other tools. That means that you can use the same keyboard shortcuts from those apps, inside Filmora.

The easiest learning curve is the one that you can skip altogether. Choose one of those keyboard shortcut presets and Filmora adapts. And thanks to these supported keyboard shortcuts, you won’t miss a beat if you’re switching from another app.

8. Artificial Intelligence Comes to Audio

The appeal of artificial intelligence is easy to see. Why not leverage a second brain to save time and give you better results?

The problem is that too many tools haven’t caught up to the latest innovations. But that’s not the case with Filmora, which includes AI features to improve your audio editing workflow.

AI Audio Stretch is a feature that every editor needs. We’ve all been in a situation where we didn’t have enough duration in our audio clip to cover the video. With AI, Filmora helps us tackle this challenge by stretching the audio to max. You won’t notice any loss in quality or awkward re-timing.

Another feature you’ll love is AI Audio Denoise. This is a powerful feature that can help you remove unwanted noise from your existing audio. You won’t need any additional tools or plugins. My testing showed superior noise removal from audio captured with a smartphone microphone. 

Both of these help you make the most of your existing audio. After all, there’s nothing worse than needing to find entirely new audio when you’re almost done editing. 

9. Speech to Text (and Text to Speech!)

Accessibility is important. Captions and subtitles help everyone enjoy your video.

The challenge is in creating them. And while you could let apps like YouTube automatically do it, it’s better to create subtitles for every platform.

Luckily, Filmora 12 has speech to text as a built-in feature. With one click, the app analyzes your audio and generate subtitles – automatically. The technology is accurate and saves you a ton of time. It even supports 16 languages!

By the way, Filmora also features text to speech functionality. This is a helpful feature that takes text and generates spoken word audio for it. It’s a great feature when you don’t have an opportunity to step to the microphone to record audio of your own.

10. Flexible Licensing Options

How many subscriptions do you currently have? If you’re like me, you rely on many tools to run your business. My business credit card dings each month with these subscription charges.

What happened to the days when you could buy software, and use it for as long as you’d like? Well, Wondershare Filmora 12 gives you the option to do just that. You can choose between an annual subscription that keeps your app up-to-date, or a perpetual license.

There are plenty of options for using Filmora. Use Filmora on an Annual Plan, Cross-Platform Plan (access to multiple systems) and the Perpetual Plan, which is a “buy and keep” license.

It’s a great idea to opt for Filmora as a subscription so that you can continually upgrade to the latest version. But, if you want to “buy once, use forever“, Filmora sets itself apart with this perpetual license option.

Try Wondershare Filmora 12 Today

We’ve just learned the answer to the question, “is Filmora a good editing software?” As you can see from the review above, it’s a powerful tool you’ll want to use.

Whether it’s the AI assist, ease of use, or learning resources, there are plenty of reasons to try Filmora. It’s a professional-level video editor that anyone can use. That means that your finished results are just as good as any of your favorite YouTubers!

Here’s one more reason you should try Filmora: you can do it for free. Try out Filmora for your next video edit.