LumaFusion Tutorial for Beginners

You’ve asked for a LumaFusion tutorial for beginners, and I promised it was coming but I wanted to wait until LumaFusion 2.0 was released! This is your LumaFusion 2.0 Beginners Guide and in this video, you will learn how to use LumaFusion on an iPad, which is very similar to LumaFusion for the iPhone (it’s just on a bigger screen). This is a quick and easy LumaFusion workflow and covers how to import video, trim, add titles, and transitions as well as how to export a video in LumaFusion.

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Step By Step LumaFusion Tutorial For Beginners (LumaFusion 2.0)

Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty details of LumaFusion with this LumaFusion Tutorial for iPad, step by step, for editing your YouTube videos. I like a simple editing process, so we’re going to keep it simple here and edit a typical talking head video with some B-roll, a couple of lower third titles, and background music. AND, what about taking that video and repurposing it for Instagram, Facebook, and IGTV? Stick around because it’s all coming at ya in this video.

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I’m using my iPad Mini for this Lumafusion tutorial, and since it’s not compatible with an Apple Pencil, I’m using this stylus, but any of these should do. I think it’s just easier to use a stylus for editing, but it’s not necessary. So let’s dive right in.

LumaFusion is one of (if not THE) best editing program available for the iPad and iPhone. It’s robust but not over-complicated.

There are two fantastic ways to learn LumaFusion:

Download it from the App Store (Apple) and start using it yourself
Watch this LumaFusion Tutorial for Beginners!

It’s going to be much easier to WATCH and learn than to READ and learn, but here are the basic steps of editing a video with LumaFusion on the iPad.

Import Clips to LumaFusion

LumaFusion supports the common video files that you’re used to working with, including .MP4, .M4V, Quicktime Movies, and a few others. For this LumaFusion tutorial, I will be importing an MP4 file.

Audio files for background music and sound effects can also be imported as long as they are in the following formats: .MP3, .M4A, .AAC, .AAF, .CAF, and .WAV

If you’re planning to import still images to your LumaFusion Project, you can import JPG, PNG, and TIFF files.

As explained on the LumaFusion website, Luma Fusion does NOT currently support ProRes or AVI files, in addition to XAVC and AVCHD (.mts files).

To import clips to your LumaFusion project, the first thing we need to do is make sure to have your footage on your iPad, or you know how to access it on your iPad.

So first off, we need to get that media into LumaFusion by hitting the top menu in the middle, where there’s a little down arrow. You’ll get to a list of sources where you can import your media, like Dropbox, Google Drive, and lots of different options.

Now, there are a couple of different ways you could import this to your actual timeline where you’ll do the editing, but dragging it down may be the easiest for beginners.

Splitting and Trimming Clips in LumaFusion

To split a clip, use your finger or stylus to move the timeline so the scrubber bar is where you want the clip to split. Be sure that the clip you want to cut is selected, then tap the Scissors tool. The clip will split there.

Personally, I prefer to split my clips rather than trim them, but in this LumaFusion tutorial, I show you how to do both.

To remove unwanted frames at the beginning or end of a clip, you’ll want to trim the clip. First, select a clip by tapping it on the timeline. The clip will be highlighted and visible.

Next, drag the left (leading) edge of the clip to the RIGHT to trim the beginning of the clip. To trim the end (tail) of the clip, drag the trailing edge (right) of the clip to the LEFT.

There is an “undo” and “redo” function too, so don’t be afraid to try something new!

LumaFusion Transitions

Usually, I stick with a very simple jump cut in my videos and stay away from elaborate transitions. But occasionally, a crossfade is necessary!

Transitions are added between two video clips (or even still photos) to create an animation between the first clip and the second clip.

There are so many more bells and whistles in LumaFusion, I can’t cover them all in this post, but I do cover transitions and titles in the video below.

Export Video in LumaFusion

When you’re finished with your LumaFusion project and you’re ready to export it as a video to share on YouTube or social media, the steps are easy.

Tap the “share” (export) button, which looks like a rectangle with an arrow pointing up. Then select Movie.

I like to export my videos directly to a file, versus automatically uploading to a platform. So I choose “Photos” as my destination so that the video will save to my Photo Library directly on my iPad.

It takes a while to export your LumaFusion project, depending on the settings and lenth of your video. Once you’re done, you can share it with friends and family on social media or publish it to your YouTube channel!

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Related: Video Editing for Beginners