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Home » What’s New, Creative Cloud? We Offer Our Take on Adobe’s Recent Updates

What’s New, Creative Cloud? We Offer Our Take on Adobe’s Recent Updates

It’s Been 16 Years Since Creative Suite Launched. Does Cloud-centric Adobe Still Deliver?

Twice a year – we’re used to it already. “It” is when Adobe announces its upgrades to Creative Cloud suite. So much of our industry depends upon this family of video and audio apps including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Character Animator, Media Encoder and Premiere Rush.

It’s pretty straightforward too: keeping on top of the best of these updates can make your creative work easier.

RAW the Way You Like It

Whether you’re working on features, music videos, or some personal project, it’s great news that Premiere Pro and After Effects now support ProRes RAW directly. Apple’s popular codec is widely used throughout the production industry due to its ability to allow for more in-depth color correction.

The amount of color data stored with ProRes RAW makes it an ideal format for camera acquisition. However, support for it on non-Apple hardware has been limited, though hardware vendors have offered solutions. Atomos, for example, which makes the Ninja and other external recorders for production, can record using the Apple codec, along with companies including AJA, Blackmagic Design and Convergent Design.

Now everyone, including users of Windows machines, can enjoy cross-platform Apple ProRes workflows from ingesting camera media, editing and effects, through final delivery.

ProRes RAW is now supported in Premiere Pro

The Pen is Now Mightier Than Before

The Spring 2020 updates also deliver an improved Pen tool with better support for Bezier curves within Premiere Pro. This is good news since I find myself staying inside of Premiere more and more to do light duty graphics work; in the past I would have switched over to After Effects.

Premiere will never replace After Effects for complex graphics tasks and compositing challenges. But the more that Premiere can handle simpler tasks without having to go through the extra steps of moving to another program, the better.

Another update that I think is useful: Premiere’s filter effects can now be set to show only the attributes that have keyframes or edited parameters. That’s similar to the way that pressing the U key in After Effects only shows animated layers. This will unclutter the Effects Control palette, especially when multiple effects are applied to a clip. By removing all the parameters that are not being used or modified, you can focus only on those that are active making things a lot easier.

You now have the option of showing only keyframed
or edited properties of effects in Premiere.

Better Auto Framing, Hardware Encoding

Other important updates to Premiere Pro in the Spring 2020 release include a faster Auto Reframe function powered by the company’s AI technology Adobe Sensei. For those who are unaware of Auto Reframe, it automatically reformats and repositions video for different screens and aspect ratios including those for TV and film projection, as well as social media and online content platforms such as the recently added Quibi streaming service.

Premiere’s Spring 2020 release now can use Hardware encoding using Nvidia and AMD GPUs for H.264 and H.265, two very popular MP4 formats. Hardware encoding (HEVC) provides faster exports and less time heading out for a coffee break, depending on how you handle rendering time.

GPU encoding results in a massive bump up in speed
when timeline rendering in Premiere.

For those that use Creative Cloud Libraries, a convenient way to store assets and elements for use in your project, there is now support for audio files for easy access from the CC Libraries panel.

Audio can now be accessed in Creative Cloud Libraries.

After Effects Offers More Graphic Tweaks

After Effects motion graphic artists will be pleased to know that they can now taper the ends of shape strokes. Previously, the entire stroke needed to be one, uniform thickness. With the ability to gradually taper the ends of strokes, one can achieve a hand-drawn or inked look. Besides just being able to thicken or thin the ends of strokes, you can also add a wave to the stroke to vary it in different areas for a more crafted look. Of course, all these parameters can be animated.

Stroke thickness can now be varied in After Effects.

Adobe Illustrator has had the ability to taper the edges of a stroke for some time, so I am personally glad to see this feature come to After Effects.

Another interesting new development when it comes to strokes and shapes in After Effects is the ability to make concentric copies of strokes and paths. This results in interesting creative design and graphics possibilities. After fiddling around with it for a bit, I was able to create a compelling animation of the edges of a shape radiating out into space.

Offset Paths in After Effects now has the ability to make concentric copies of shapes.

Updates, We’ve Got Your Updates Here

Adobe Character Animator has already offered a tool to capture your own real time performance via a webcam and apply them to original characters. That used to be only possible with capture systems costing many thousands of dollars. Now, an improved timeline offers enhanced efficiency as well as new background puppets.

For Mac users, there is now Automatic audio hardware switching. That means if you make a change to your audio configuration, CC apps like Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition will automatically recognize the new hardware and switch to it. Previously, you needed to go into your hardware settings and change it manually.

So Is It Wise to Subscribe?

I like the software subscription model. Adobe has teams for each app that turn out software updates frequently and throughout the year.  That means that applications can evolve gradually and respond to the demands of the market in a timely manner.

Some productions don’t like such constantly changing apps. That’s understandable. If you have a team working on one major project, tying down programs – so that upgrades and other changes don’t break what you are working on – makes sense.

But for the rest of us, we would have needed to wait for a major upgrade, and not know when that was coming. The enhancements in Adobe’s Creative Cloud Spring 2020 update are here today, with features to make every creative’s work easier.

Adobe’s full Creative Cloud plans, which cover the complete range of Adobe CC software, start at $52.99 per month.

Click on these links to access Adobe’s info pages for even more detail: After Effects and Premiere Pro.

About Joe Herman

Joe Herman is a filmmaker, artist and post production specialist and writes often about the industry. You can reach him at joe[at]legendmultimedia[dot]com. Or reach and follow him on Twitter @JoeHermanTweets.

Community & Partner Links

NAB Looks Toward In-Person 2021 Show

The National Association of Broadcasters said it has done research that shows there is growing sense that the 2021 NAB Show could be an in-person convention this October.

Not surprisingly, NAB said that the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 will be the biggest influencer (for three in five respondents) in whether to attend an in-person event.

To read the full article on Broadcasting + Cable, click here.

 

Rupert Neve, the Father of Modern Studio Recording, Dies at 94

When the Seattle grunge band Nirvana recorded their breakthrough album, “Nevermind,” at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Calif., in 1991, they used a massive mixing console created by a British engineer named Rupert Neve.

The Neve 8028 console and others he made had by then become studio staples, hailed by many as the most superior consoles of their kind in manipulating and combining instrumental and vocal signals. They were responsible in great part for the audio quality of albums by groups like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd.

Read the full obit in the New York Times.

New York City Movie Theaters Can Reopen at Limited Capacity, Gov. Cuomo Says

After nearly a year of closures, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given movie theaters in New York City permission to reopen at limited capacity starting on March 5.

During his daily press briefing, the Empire State leader said cinemas in the city will be permitted to operate at 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people. Moreover, other safety measures such as masks, social distancing, and heightened sanitizing measures will be required. Last October, New York venues outside of the city were allowed to reopen with similar restrictions.

To read the full article in Variety, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Amazon Prime Video Direct and the Dystopian Decision to Stop Accepting Docs


Chris Lindahl and Dana Harris-Bridson outlined Amazon’s position in IndieWire: “When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers ‘slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay’), the announcement also served as a quiet purge.

The above continues on to some surprising conclusions on DOC NYCs Monday Memo, 

Disney to Close Upstate Blue Sky Studios

Various sources have reported that Disney is in the process of shuttering Blue Sky Studios, the largest animation studio on the East coast. The former 20th Century Fox animation division pulled in $5.9 billion churning out 13 feature films including the Ice Age franchise.

Publications have noted how Disney – which had three animation studios including Pixar and Disney Animation – couldn’t make the case to have these many houses when the pandemic took a toll on the company’s profits.

Some 450 employees will lose their jobs, though some hope to get into one of Disney’s other animation houses.

Here’s Deadline’s report.

Here’s Variety’s report.

Epix Announces ‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2 Premiere Date

Epix revealed that the second season of “Godfather of Harlem” will premiere on April 18. Set in 1964, the crime drama series explores the collision of the criminal underworld and civil rights movement. The second season will follow Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) battling the New York crime families for control of the French Connection, a pipeline for heroin that runs from Marseilles to New York Harbor.

To read the full Variety article, click here.

Sony’s FX3 is a compact $3,900 camera for filmmakers

Sony has announced the FX3. As expected, the camera is essentially an A7S III with features from the company’s Cinema line crammed into a body that looks like the A7C. Its backside-illuminated full-frame sensor has an effective resolution of 10.2-megapixel when shooting video and 15 stops of dynamic range.

To read the full story on Engadget, click here.

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