In this tutorial you’ll learn what Selection Follows Playhead in Premiere Pro is in order to determine if you want to use it or not.
What is Selection Follows Playhead and is it worth it?
With Selection Follows Playhead in Premiere Pro turned on, when you drag your time position indicator across the timeline, whatever tracks are active will automatically select the clip you are on. This is useful in the fact that the select clip is now active and you can use keyboard shortcuts without having to go click it. And it’s automatically displayed in the Effect Controls panel.
For example, using the image below, V1 is selected and as I scrub through the timeline by dragging the time position indicator (the blue vertical bar) all the clips on V1 get selected when the time position indicator is over it. The clip on A1 is also selected because it’s a linked clip between V1 and A1. As I scrub the next clip get selected and so on.
However for me, I’ve found this causes me to make unnecessary mistakes. The auto-selecting of clips is something that completely throws me off. I only like to have a clip selected when I actually select it so I turn Selection Follows Playhead off.
How to Turn Selection Follows Playhead On or Off in PPro
To turn this feature off, or to turn it on if it is off, navigate to the Sequence menu and select Selection Follows Playhead.
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If you’ve now gone through this tutorial and you still need help, please leave a comment and I’ll do what I can to help troubleshoot it. But if you now understand Selection Follows Playhead in Premiere Pro, I hope you stick around and check out some of the other Premiere Pro tutorials on my website or consider signing up to get notified about new blog posts and happenings around EVF.
– Josh