Need extra text or media slots in your template? Whether you're customizing a title sequence, slideshow, or promo video, adding more placeholders can give you the flexibility to match your project’s needs. This guide explains how to duplicate existing placeholders or create new ones, so you can expand your template without starting from scratch.
How to add more placeholders in Premiere Pro templates
When working with Premiere Pro templates, you might want to:
- Add more placeholders to use additional images or videos
- Reuse a title or animation more than once in your project
You may have tried duplicating a title or media placeholder in your project, to find that any changes made to the duplicate also affect the original.
Why? Because many templates use linked sequences or nested comps, copies still reference the same underlying content.
To create truly separate, follow the steps below:
- Launch Premiere Pro and open the project template you’re currently working in.
- In the top menu, click File → Import.
- Navigate to the location of the original template .pproj file you want to reuse.
- Click on the .pproj file and hit Open.
A popup will appear asking how you want to import the project.
Make sure you select:
- Import Entire Project
- Create Folder for Imported Items
These options will keep the newly imported elements organized and prevent conflicts with your current project items.
After importing, you’ll see a new folder in your Project panel containing all the elements from the template, including:
- A new Final Render sequence
- New Title or Placeholder sequences
Now, drag and drop the new sequences (e.g., a duplicated title or placeholder) into your current timeline.
As imported separately, changes you make won’t affect the originals.
💡 Pro Tip: If you plan to reuse the same title with different text, this method helps you avoid unintentional changes across your project.
How to add more placeholders in After Effects templates
When working with After Effects templates, you might want to:
- Add more placeholders to fit extra images or videos
- Reuse an existing title animation more than once in your project
You may have tried duplicating a composition or layer in the timeline, only to realize that the changes made to the duplicate also affect the original. This happens because many templates use pre-compositions (pre-comps), which are reused across the project.
To safely create an independent copy of a template element, like a title or media placeholder, import the template .aep file again as a separate group inside your project.
- Launch After Effects and open the project template you're working on.
- In the top menu, click File → Import → File.
- Navigate to the .aep file of the template you want to reuse.
- Click Open.
The entire template will now appear as a new folder in your Project panel.
You don’t need to choose any special settings. After Effects will automatically organize the imported project contents. - Inside the new folder, look for:
A main render comp (often labeled something like Final Render, Main, or Scene 01)
Supporting comps (titles, placeholders, backgrounds, etc.) - Now, drag the new comps into your timeline or modify them separately.
Since this is a completely new import, edits made to these comps won’t affect the ones you were already using.
This lets you safely use a title, media placeholder, or full scene multiple times with different content.
How to add more placeholders in Final Cut Pro templates
If you're using a template in Final Cut Pro and need to add extra placeholders, for example to include more images or reuse a title, you can do this by dragging a new instance of the generator into the timeline.
However, since some templates include built-in transitions or animations between placeholders, you may need to remove those transitions and cut the parts of the generator you want to use.
By default, cutting a generator can cause it to auto-resize or behave unexpectedly. Avoid this by converting the generator into a compound clip after completing your customizations (like adding media or adjusting text).
- Make sure you've already:
Placed your media (images, video, text) into the generator placeholders
Completed any custom styling or edits
Note: It’s important to do this before turning the generator into a compound clip.
- In the timeline, right-click on the generator you want to reuse.
- Select New Compound Clip from the menu.
- A pop-up window will appear at the top of your screen.
- Give the compound clip a name and choose the Event where it should be saved.
- Click OK.
Now that the generator is in a compound clip, you can:
- Make cuts to remove unused placeholder sections
- Apply speed changes or other timing adjustments
These changes won’t affect the original generator or any other instances in your timeline.
Note: If the original generator included transitions between placeholder sections, you may need to manually cut them out when reusing the generator for extra media.
How to add more placeholders in Davinci Resolve templates
It is not possible to add more placeholders in Davinci resolve templates. In some DaVinci Resolve templates, especially those restored from a project archive, the placeholders for images or video are built using Fusion compositions, not standard timeline clips.
This means:
- The placeholder content is controlled inside Fusion, where image frames, animations, and transitions are created using a node-based setup.
- Each placeholder (e.g., Image 01, Image 02, etc.) is manually built and wired inside the template. These are not auto-updating or dynamically generated.
- The Final timeline references a fixed number of these Fusion placeholders, which are hardcoded into the design.
Because of this, duplicating an image placeholder or trying to add a new one will not update the Final render or frame graphics. Why? They were only built to display specific, pre-designed scenes.
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