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Surprisingly good free video editing tools tried and tested. Which free video editing tool is best for UK users in 2017?

Making good-looking home videos is now easier and cheaper than ever thanks to the huge array of free video editing software. The range of high quality, free video editors available at the moment in simply amazing.

Whether you want to dabble in animation, add special effects like in Batman Vs Superman, or go for something simple but professional-looking there's a free video editor that's perfect for you.

Here, we've even included a few packages that have been used in Oscar-winning Hollywood movies, hit TV shows like Red Dwarf, and by NASA.

HitFilm 3 Express is an excellent choice for those looking to create professional level content, especially if you have a penchant for special effects.

Lightworks and DaVinci Resolve are geared towards the precise editing and cutting of clips and scenes that professional TV and movie editors require and are perfect for long and complex editing jobs.

If you want to try your hand at animation or 3D-modelling in your movies, then Blender is an incredibly powerful tool to use, although you will spend a fair amount of time learning the ropes.

For those with simpler demands though, you would do a lot worse than heading back to the old faithful of Windows Movie Maker. It's easy to use and has decent features for creating fun movies to share online with family and friends.

But of course since they're free, why not get them all?

Find out more about each of the video editors mentioned here and several more options below.

If you're looking for more serious video editing software, you might want to go for a paid option. The most popular include Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro.

HitFilm has been around since 2011 and in that time the software has gone from strength to strength - it is definitely one of the best free video editors around.

HitFilm 4 Express is the free version currently on offer, and includes a surprising amount of the features youll find in its big brother HitFilm Pro, albeit without the 300 price tag.

The interface is clean and makes sense without too much explanation, but if you do find yourself getting lost then the raft of tutorial videos on the HitFilm site will get you going once more.

While HitFilm 4 Express is a standard video editor, there is definitely a lean towards special effects, and the package includes 2D and 3D compositing capabilities, automatic motion-tracking, plus green screen removal tools.

Perhaps the most alluring part of the Express experience is the wide wealth of expansion packs that you can buy for between 8 and 20. These mean you can upgrade the software over time, adding only features that you actually need.

One particular favourite of ours was the Sci-Fi Adventure pack (20) that allows you to quickly add light sabers, laser bolts, and a number of other specialist effects for a low entry cost.

If thats not your bag then some of the others packs include lens flares, colour treatments, atmospheric lighting, and even classic film stock.

Get HitFilm4 Express here

Blender is a hugely powerful open source software suite primarily used for the creation of 3D modeling and animation.

In fact its so capable that its been used to create animations for the History Channel, TV adverts in a number of countries, special effects on series ten of Red Dwarf, and demonstration videos for NASA.

It was even found on the set of Spiderman 2, when animators put together special effect storyboards for the director Sam Raimi using the software.

So why is it included in this round up? Well, aside from the fact that you can create animated features or shorts on Blender, it also has a fully fledged video editor built-in.

Clips can be placed on a timeline, edited for length, overlapped with others, and joined with a range of transitions or fades, just like on any other package.

Various advanced features can also be accessed with a little effort, including 2D and 3D motion tracking, compositing of animated objects and real footage, plus even some nice camera correction tools that can deal with lens calibration and image stabilisation.

As Blender is an open source project the documentation can be a little random at times, but the healthy user forums mean that you can usually find the answer to your question without much difficulty.

You will of course have a fair few questions because there is simply so much you can do with this software. If Blender was on sale for a couple of hundred pounds it wouldnt look out of place. The fact that you get a package like this for free is.well, ridiculous.

Get Blender here

It's hard to believe that BlackMagic has made DaVinci Resolve Lite completely free.

It's widely used for colour correction in Hollywood movies because of its power. And yet, despite this being the Lite version, there are hardly any features missing compared to the Studio version which costs around 300.

Ok, so it can't do multi-camera editing, nor can it do 3D. You also lose some features such as noise removal, 4K mastering and HDR grading, but other than that, this is the same stuff the big boys use. This is definitely one of the best free video editors.

That's a bit of an issue when it comes to learning curves as this is not something you can pick up in an afternoon and end up with a masterpiece.

But it's worth investing time as you really can create one when you've learned how to use all that power.

Get BlackMagic DaVinci Resolve 12.5 Lite here.

There's also a Public Beta of version 14 available here.

Lightworks has been used to create Hollywood movies, including the recent The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio.

There are free and Pro editions, but the main difference is the output formats and you are limited to 720p resolution.

You dont get project templates, scrolling titles and other fancy effects, and instead it focuses on providing precision tools and clip handling.

Videos are imported and organised into bins and racks, and rooms are created with editing layouts. Video clip handling is very database-like with multiple views, searching, sorting, tagging and so on.

Its designed to enable teams of editors using multiple workstations to create two-hour movies containing dozens of scenes and hundreds of clips. This would be impossible with the other video editors.

The editing tools are very powerful and they offer a fine degree of control that other video editors dont have.

Video and audio tracks, of which there can be many, can be independently edited, so you can cut a section of video from the middle of a scene leaving the audio and cut away to show something else, then return while the audio continues to play.

The flexibility you have when joining scenes is excellent and in and out points can be finely tuned directly in the timeline.

There is a limited range of special effects like transitions, but TV programmes and Hollywood movies rarely use anything other than fade from/to black.

Lightworks is aimed at professional video editors and it is fascinating to use a tool employed by Oscar-winning Hollywood movie editors. It doesnt do a lot, but what it does is brilliant.

Get Lightworks here

Of all the video editors on test, this one is the hardest to use and it is initially quite confusing. It has a lot of features, but their function is not always immediately obvious, but it is worth persevering because it is capable of some clever effects.

In VSDC you create a project and this has a number of scenes. Each scene has a number of objects and these can be video clips, photos and other items.

You can apply various effects to the objects in a scene and there are a lot of them to choose from.

The brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and other attributes can be adjusted, objects can be flipped, skewed, rotated and so on, there are fire, water and plasma effects, and several transitions.

Video clips can be trimmed and cut into smaller parts, and moved around. Then there is a whole series of audio effects too.

The editor's effects are numerous and flashy, but they lack the simplicity and precision of the pro editing features in Lightwave.

If you want to do things like picture-in-picture, add speech bubbles with text, overlay lines, rectangles, and ellipses, then VSDC is the tool for the job.

The range of output formats is excellent and there are presets for the PC, DVD, iPod, Xbox, Playstation, mobile phones and more.

Videos can be output to DVD, VCD, AVI and MPG too. It will even burn CDs and DVDs. VSDC has more features than any of the others and is worth considering.

Get VSDC Free Video Editor here

Avidemux is a specialised video editing tool and it is not a general movie maker.

Only one video clip at a time can be loaded and so it is not possible to create a movie by stitching together scenes from several sources, so it is best used as a tool to prepare clips for use by another movie editor.

After loading a video clip, the start and end can be trimmed by setting in and out markers. There is a preview window and a wheel control used for moving forward and back through the video and you can step through it frame by frame.

It is possible to add an extra audio track, such as music, to a video.

What Avidemux is best at is manipulating the output. There are eight categories of filter and numerous items in each category.

Among the options are add borders, add a logo with alpha blending, change the frame rate, crop, fade in and out, rotate, flip and resize.

You can adjust the brightness and contrast, hue and saturation, reduce noise, sharpen edges, and more.

If you had clips of different sizes and frame rates, as you might if you have used different digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones over the years, Avidemux could be used to make them all the same size and frame rate before you use them in another video editor to make a movie.

There are some useful presets, such as DVD, 720p, PSP, SVCD and so on. Despite some useful features, this editor is of limited use though and error messages are frequent.

Get Avidemux here

YouTube Editor is a web-based video editor designed to allow you to manipulate videos intended for publishing via YouTube.

It doesn't have loads of features, but if you've got a simple video that you are planning to upload to YouTube it could be just what you need to add the finishing touches to it.

Get YouTube Editor here

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The best free video editing software of 2017 - PC Advisor