TikTok trends, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts: the digital video landscape is now so vast that it’s almost impossible to ignore short-form video creation in a communication strategy. Spoiler alert: Most of the videos posted aren’t created by professional filmmakers or editors with specialized training. This means that with a little motivation, curiosity, and patience, anyone can edit a video using apps like Canva or one of Adobe’s apps, such as Adobe Express!

Adobe Express: Canva's little brother?

Widely used by communications professionals—whether they work in marketing or as community managers—the Canva app was launched in 2013. A design tool for digital visual communication that’s accessible to everyone, Canva lets users create and publish multimedia content without needing any graphic design or illustration skills.

As a turnkey solution, Canva has been giving Adobe a run for its money for over a decade—a company that, on its own, accounts for virtually all editing software designed for visual communication. It’s no coincidence that, as if by magic, a competitor from Adobe appeared shortly after the launch of the famous Canva…

First launched as Adobe Post in 2015, then as Adobe Spark in 2016, the Adobe Express app was released in its latest version in 2021. As a complementary tool to the Adobe suite, Adobe Express lets you create visual content—both static and animated—primarily intended for social media, websites, digital posters, or newsletters. While most of the features are identical to those found on Canva, the difference between the two apps lies in their collaboration capabilities. Canva offers a more advanced set of collaboration tools, allowing teams to design content simultaneously.

While Adobe Express is fairly user-friendly and also allows users to save content to the cloud, the tool requires a longer learning curve for users than Canva does because it offers a greater number of features.

Is it possible to create an animation or a short brand content video on Adobe Express?

Yes, it's possible. Phew, you're in luck: no need to read dozens of tutorials to learn how to use Premiere Pro in a hurry! However, be aware: this isa highly simplified editing tool designed primarily to create video versions that require little or no editing.

In Adobe Express, videos can be exported as MP4 files and can reach 4K quality, depending on the resolution of the original video imported into the app. As for the format, you can select the desired dimensions in a dedicated column by checking the target platform (Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube thumbnail, etc.).

Once you've created the template, you can import elements from your computer (videos, images, logos, fonts) or use the database built into Adobe Express, whichever you prefer.

"Ready-made" illustrative videos, symbols, and text animations are just a click away for all users with a paid license.

*Adobe Express Video Editing Interface*
Every time you **save a video template**, you can then use it as a starting point to make changes. This can save you time if you plan to create several similar video or animation templates.
How to Create a Reel on Adobe Express
Choose a portrait orientation
First of all, if you need to create a Reel for Instagram, you'll need to choose the format for your template when you create your document.
💡 **Reels have** an aspect ratio **of 9:16** in portrait orientation and a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. **A Reel can be up to 15 minutes long and have a maximum size of 4 GB.**
On Adobe Express, we found that selecting the format is 100% hassle-free. In fact, all you have to do is check the **“Instagram Reel”** format, and your created document will automatically comply with the technical requirements for this type of content.

Import your video or “source” content

If you already have footage (video clips, videos, or photos) that you’ve shot or captured, you can easily import that content into your template. Otherwise, there’s a “Media” category where you’ll find a database of royalty-free videos you can use to illustrate your points.

Select the images you want to include, and drag them directly onto your Adobe Express home screen.

The video is embedded directly in the correct format. If you have multiple videos to embed, you can add them one by one to your “timeline, ” which is located at the bottom of the screen. This is the bar that displays the entire timeline of your video.

Trim Your Video

Once you've uploaded your video or your raw footage (clips you want to highlight in your edit), you can “cut” them into several clips, “adjust” the segments, and arrange them in the order you want.

This sorting step is greatly simplified in Adobe Express and allows you to organize your raw footage directly within the tool. As soon as you add a video, be sure to create a scene using the timeline. Note: If your videos are too large or too long, you’ll need to do an initial sort of your content before editing.

Create a great video montage

Once you've organized your timeline, you can then create sequences by adding transitions between two scenes, for example. Adding transitions helps make a video more dynamic, which is popular on Instagram.

Add text, stickers, or graphics to your video

In Adobe Express, you can create areas that include text blocks, colored highlights, or shapes.

Just like with a fixed template in Photoshop, all you have to do is create “layers” within the video at the point where you want your graphic or text to appear.

Size, color, and opacity can be adjusted directly from the left-hand column, in the“Elements”section.

A nice feature of Adobe Express is the ability to add animated video templates that you can then customize to your liking. To add an animation, go to the“Templates”section in the left-hand column of the workspace.

Adding subtitles: It's an option (but it's not the best one)

Once you’ve finalized your transitions and visual effects, you can also add text at certain points in your video.
This can be fairly simple if you only have a small amount of text to include. If you need to add subtitles to an interview, however, it’s a bit more complicated, since moving the “text” layers isn’t at all straightforward.

💡 You can easily create an opening and/or closing credits sequence with animated text to introduce your video.

Conclusion: A mixed verdict!

Pros

Adobe Express is perfect for editing a short, simple video on your computer. The basic features let you organize your video, trim it, and add transitions, as well as branded text blocks, logos, and animations. With Adobe Express, you can easily edit your Reel in less than 30 minutes!

The -

In addition to being less than ideal for adding captions—since the process is tedious and imprecise—Adobe Express offers few additional benefits compared to Instagram. In fact, Instagram (just like TikTok) also lets you edit videos quickly and easily. Organizing videos and adding transitions, text, emojis, and stickers are all features available in Instagram Reels’ publishing tool.

Adobe Express isn't the best solution for creating a video montage

It's true that Adobe Express lets you create a simple video in line with your brand guidelines, complete with animated elements—all in just a few clicks.

But when it comes to editing a video with a lot of raw footage, nothing beats dedicated editing software like Premiere Pro or Final Cut for a professional-looking result. With a few tips and a little time spent learning the software, you’ll be able to create your Reel or TikTok in under 2 hours—no more, no less! If you want to get results very quickly, the Instagram and TikTok apps offer simplified editing tools that can easily get the job done. Other apps (some of which are paid), such as Capcut or Inshot, let you do simple video editing while adding text.

If you want to work with subtitles, Adobe Premiere offers an option to create automatically generated subtitles. Dedicated subtitle-creation apps have also become more widespread in recent years, because it’s a fact: adding subtitles to videos on social media has become the norm.

In short, while Adobe Express is a 100% turnkey tool that competes very well with Canva, this type of tool isn't the best editing option for creating a professional-looking Instagram Reel.

We tested it for you: editing a brand content video with Adobe Express