5 Methods For Controlling Video Timeline Playback in Adobe Photoshop

Of all the tasks editing video requires, playback is probably the most popular. Editing is all about back and forth, making a change, playing the video back, making another change and playing it again. It’s the same thing with audio editing. I can remember working with an audio engineer a few times and their fingers were like lightening. Boy, when these guys get good, it’s difficult to follow along at times. They’re fast!

In today’s post, I’d like to discuss a few different methods for video playback in the Timeline panel of Adobe Photoshop. This is really simple stuff, but you’ll likely learn something. There are buttons that are taken for granted, but that actually have meaning behind them. Today, I’ll fill you in on all of this.

The Play Button

This is probably the most obvious method for playing a video clip inside of the Timeline panel of Photoshop. I mean, it’s got the identifying triangle and everything.

The Play button offers two functions. Play and stop. When the video clip isn’t playing, the Play button is visible. When it is playing, the Stop button is visible.

To control the video resolution while playing video inside of Photoshop, you can click on the Set Playback Options button that’s to the right of the Play button.

The Resolution drop-down give you three options; 25%, 50% and 100%. Depending on your computer system and its capabilities, you’d want to set this accordingly. If you want to loop the video so it plays over and over, simply check off the Loop Playback box.

Playing in Increments

When editing video, you don’t “willy nilly” do anything. It’s a careful process that requires precision. Many aspects need to be aligned and oftentimes, those aspects are worked on frame by frame.

To play a video frame by frame, you can continuously press the Go to Next Frame button. This button is directly to the right of the Play button.

To play a video in reverse, frame by frame, you can press the Go to Previous Frame button that’s located directly to the left of the Play button.

Here’s the cool part of jumping in increments. Instead of playing frame by frame, by can play second by second. To do this, simply follow the same exact instructions I just gave above, but press the Shift key on your keyboard before pressing the Go to Next Frame button. The Shift key merely alters the increment.

Jump Back to First Frame

If you’re video is long and you need to get back to the beginning of the video, you likely don’t want to wait for the whole thing to finish playing before you get there. Luckily, we have the Go to First Frame button to take care of us. Take a look below.

As a side note, if you’re currently playing back the clip, you’ll need to stop it before you utilize the Go to First Frame button.

Dragging the Playhead

If you’re interested in making bold moves and don’t care all too much about accuracy, you can easily click and drag the playhead itself to get you where you want to be. If you aren’t aware of what the playhead is, check out the screenshot below. I’ll circle it in red.

One last thing before I finish up. If you right click on the playhead, you’ll see some options. I’ll get to all of these later on in more depth, but for right now, take a look at the two that say Go to Start of Work Area and Go to End of Work Area.

If you click either of these options, you’ll send the playhead directly to the beginning or to the end of the workable area you’ve set for your video. I’ll get much more into what this area is in later posts, but for now, just know that you can quickly move your spot in the video with these two tools.

I hope I clearly explained the various methods for playing back a video inside the Timeline panel in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!