Lightworks 2025.2-56356

Lightworks is a video editor for Windows, macOS and Linux that assembles footage, images and sound into edited sequences. It combines multitrack cutting with colour adjustments, visual effects and audio mixing. Free, Create and Pro editions share the editing timeline, with different finishing tools and export options.

Importing and organizing media

Lightworks gives imported files three possible relationships with a project. Create Link uses a file in its existing location and format. Copy Local brings a copy into the project’s media storage without changing its encoding. Transcode copies the material while converting it to a selected editing format. Linking suits media that will remain available on its original drive; copying lets the original drive be disconnected without taking the project’s media away.

The Content Manager separates automatic filters from manually arranged bins. Filters show matching assets, such as clips or sequences, as the project changes. Bins hold the items you place in them and can be named and grouped around the production. Thumbnail tiles help identify shots visually, while list view puts asset information beside smaller previews.

Lightworks imports common containers including MP4, MOV and MXF, camera media such as RED R3D and Blackmagic RAW, and separate audio files. It can also generate proxies: lower-resolution editing copies of source footage. Proxy quality, dimensions and available codecs depend on the edition.

Sequence editing

A sequence combines selected parts of the source material on video, audio and effects tracks. In the source viewer, Lightworks’ Mark and Park selection identifies a section to insert at the timeline’s current position. Trimming then adjusts the boundaries of the assembled clips. A new sequence can adopt the frame rate of its first inserted clip, while a copy of a sequence can use a different frame rate.

Projects can contain several sequences, and one sequence can be placed inside another like a clip. This lets an assembled section become part of a larger edit without selecting each of its source clips again. A sequence supports up to 64 video tracks and 32 audio tracks, alongside effects tracks.

Changes save automatically as you work. Importing, rendering complex effects and exporting can run in the background, so these operations do not require closing the editing workspace. Separate project backups can include the media or retain the project without it.

Colour correction and visual effects

Lightworks applies colour corrections to balance footage and can isolate colours or regions for selective adjustment. LUTs apply a prepared colour transformation to clips, including material recorded with a log response. Colour scopes provide another view of the image’s colour information; the available scope types differ between editions.

The effects tools cover titles, transitions, zooms and compositing. A video mask limits where an effect acts within the image, allowing an adjustment to target part of a shot. Create and Pro add advanced titles and motion graphics through NewBlue, while Pro supports third-party OpenFX effects. NewBlue advanced titles and transitions are unavailable on Linux.

Audio mix

Audio tracks feed an integrated mixer with separate level controls and an overall output level. Solo isolates a track for listening, mute removes it from the output, and balance places it toward the left or right.

Clip-level volume adjustment and a four-band equalizer are available across the editions. Create and Pro extend the audio tools with effects including compression, limiting, noise reduction and reverb. Pro also supports third-party audio plugins and OMF or AAF exchanges with audio workstations, allowing sound work to continue outside Lightworks.

What each Lightworks edition can export

Export can produce a complete sequence or a marked section. The chosen target exposes settings such as frame rate and output dimensions, while the edition determines the available formats and resolution limits.

Lightworks exports without adding its own watermark in every edition. Pro’s wider media outputs include Apple ProRes encoding. Free and Create can decode ProRes footage but do not provide that encoding option.