More and more, video is becoming a standard for client projects. Photographers, web designers, marketing folks have all released that motion is a great way to tell engaging stories. Sometimes though, you’ll find a gap in your video sequences when you put them together. Maybe it’s a forgotten shot or one that just didn’t turn out. Finding it just got a WHOLE lot easier.

Create thumbnails

The first step to visually searching is to create thumbnails. This is really easy to do as all you need are JPEGs that represent the type of video you want to find.

  • Pick a photo of yours that’s similar and save a JPEG
  • In your editing program, create a freeze frame (In Premiere Pro, just park your playhead on a frame and press Shift+E)

Start searching

Instead of typing a bunch of keywords, you can now search visually. This means the thumbnail becomes your first search criteria. This works great for stock video, but can also be used for photos and other media types.

  1. In a web browser, visit stock.adobe.com
  2. Click the camera icon in the search field (near the center of the page)
  3. Browse and locate (or drag and drop) to choose your image thumbnail.
  4. Adobe Sensei now returns several images, the first results may not seem perfect, but a lot of matching to color and tone, as well as composition are applied.
  5. Now enter one or two keywords into the search field. The results are now dramatically refined based on subject, composition, and color.
  6. Click the View Filters button and refine your search results even more.

Download a preview to edit

If you’re not ready to pay for footage yet (perhaps you want to just try it out or show the client first) it’s easy.

  1. Hover over the cloud icon (but do not click)
  2. Click the small triangle to expand your preview options
  3. In the Library field, choose an existing library or create a new one.
  4. Choose the HD or 4K version.
  5. Click on the cloud icon to add more clips to the library. Just choose HD or 4K.
  6. You can now switch to Premiere Pro or Photoshop and simply drag and drop clips into the Project panel from the Library panel.
  7. When ready to permanently use the footage, just right-click and license the shot.