One of my favorite things coming to the CC tools is coming to Audition. That is audio ducking. I mention this first as I hope we can pressure Adobe to bring this to Premiere Pro. We need this in Premiere Pro. I mean come on … Avid added this to Media Composer!
Audio ducking could be a great thing if we can get it added to Adobe Premiere Pro’s Essential Sound panel. Until then it will be in this upcoming version of Audition.
And now for Adobe Premiere Pro
Since I really like those little features that will be loved by the craft editors of the world, here’s one: more label colors. Any believe it or not they are normal colors. All labeling preferences have been consolidated under one preference.
Yep, Cerulean is still there but so is Green, Brown and Yellow. There’s 16 colors in all. I’d love to see all these in Markers as well. Why not?!
If you use the new text tools in PPro you’ll like the new font menu with a font preview. Plus you can favorite fonts for quick recall and filter by Typekit.
One bit of big new here is Multiple Open Projects. Premiere editors have been asking for this forever… like we had in Final Cut Pro 7. Personally, once the Media Browser came along I’ve found the need for multiple open projects to be not so much a need anymore but I can still see it’s usefulness.
See those tabs above? Two Premiere Pro projects open at the same time. And you can drag between them.
Multiple projects is pretty simple in operation. The difference in the file menu is there’s now a few new options like Close All Projects and Save All. If you have multiple open projects then being able to save them all is a good thing.
And you can toggle between those multiple projects via the Window menu.
If you’ve worked with PPro for any length of time you know that when you have media in a timeline then it must have a master clip living in the project. Such you can see when importing a sequence via the Media Browser as it will import master clips as well. The same happens when dragging from one open project to another but there’s an interesting new preference called Automatically Hide Dependent Clips that will hide the master clips when dragging in a sequence from another project. It really helps to keep things tidy. And there’s a couple of others prefs there now as well that look taken from an Import Project dialog box.
This Automatically Hide Dependent Clip only seems to work when moving between open projects and not the Media Browser. Further experimentation will be needed.
Another big thing you’ll hear about this Premiere release is all about collaboration. You may have heard about this as Hollywood Report posted about this recently and called it, as many will, “bin locking.” I don’t know a ton about Hollywood-style collaboration overall but it isn’t “bin locking” but rather Project Locking. It says it right there in the new Collaboration preference.
Proper collaboration comes to Premiere. Hollywood (and others) rejoice.
The Premiere project structure isn’t the same as Avid Media Composer so by that design it can’t “lock bins” in quite the same way I don’t think. Rather collaboration and project locking are this (from the Adobe press release):
When working with multiple editors or assistants simultaneously on a single project, lock projects to alert others when a project is currently being edited so other users cannot overwrite edits. Assign read-only access to those that need it for viewing purposes only.
This is some good stuff for those editors needing to work together and it’s a natural progression of Team Projects, which will come out of beta. What’s cool about this new collaboration is that editors can work “on premise or remotely” giving some nice flexibility. I wonder how it might work with two editors in different locations who have duplicate media on their own local storage. Editors will have to dig into the new collaboration features to really see how well they work. Team Projects is its own cost above and beyond your standard CC subscription which really is a bummer considering we’re on a subscription here. But it is what it is.
And we’ll even get a little lock icon in the corner of the project pane as well as in the project tab next to the project name. When a project is locked “read only” this lock turns red.
Those are most of the noteworthy features that I saw for the diehard craft editor out there. But they aren’t the only things as there are updates to Motion Graphics templates and a ton of work that has been done with VR editing (remember that Skybox acquisition?) No word that I’ve seen on when these updates will ship (we got the last ones day and date of the NAB announcement but not this time) so keep an eye on your Creative Cloud app.
Here’s the pr points for all of the notable features:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC
Work on multiple projects simultaneously via a tab-based structure and freely edit and copy portions of one project into another. With Project Locking, lock shared projects to alert others when a project is being edited and assign read-only access to project viewers. The Essential Graphics panel includes time- and position-based controls for building in Responsive Design to your motion graphics so that they respond intelligently to changes in duration, aspect ratio, and frame size. The graphics workflow also allows you to select and manipulate multiple graphic layers simultaneously in the Program Monitor and Essential Graphics panel. A new font preview menu allows you to select favorites with filtering and search options. Editors wanting to work with dynamic graphics or graphics packages created in After Effects can access Motion Graphics templates created by talented professionals in Adobe Stock. Immersive: a new space for new kinds of storytelling in Premiere Pro and After Effects Adobe Creative Cloud gives you the tools to craft and refine immersive video. Edit the way you’re used to with VR video mode in Premiere Pro and the new VR Comp Editor in After Effects, which transforms equirectangular 360 footage into flat rectilinear images. The Adobe Immersive Environment in Premiere Pro allows you to view, review and
scrub through your timeline in a headmount display and still maintain the ability to use keyboard driven editing for things like dynamic trimming and adding markers. New effects deliver clean results across stitched content, including stereoscopic media, without artifacts or seamlines in both After Effects and Premiere Pro. In Premiere Pro, edit VR content using orientation-based audio and get powerful VR transitions that extend your editing toolkit. In After Effects, the new Extract Cubemap simplifies motion tracking and object removal in 360 video. Design immersive motion graphics experiences, using the new Create VR Environment feature, including camera positions – with or without live-action footage. The VR Converter lets you switch on-the-fly between different immersive formats so you can ensure your final content will play well on any platform.
After Effects CC
Build show promos, communicate schedule changes, present motion capture data, or generate the same graphic but deliver it in multiple languages with new Data Driven Animations. Animate with path points using powerful new expression access to Bezier path points on masks, shape layers, and paint brush strokes. Work with 3D elements faster with Cinema 4D Lite R19. Performance & navigation enhancements include the ability to render layer transforms, motion blur and more effects on the GPU. Keyboard Shortcut Mapping allows you to quickly find, adjust, and customize keyboard shortcuts using a visual map like the one used in Premiere Pro and Audition. Navigate After Effects quickly by knowing where to start just after opening the application with a new start screen while a new font menu allows you to set fonts as favorites or filter to see which are available via TypeKit.
Character Animator CC
Show, hide, swap or cycle through different puppet parts with your keyboard or MIDI device. A new Triggers panel gives you one place for all your triggers and an intuitive way to rig your characters. The Controls panel makes performing visually easier by displaying triggers and puppet properties as buttons and sliders. Improvements to eyes and eye brows make character faces more natural looking. The pose-to-pose option smooths out transitions between poses for a hand-animated look. Take advantage of new behaviors such as Fader and Collide to open up new animation possibilities. Audio improvements provide a visual representation of audio amplitude with a new audio waveform display while mouth shapes more accurately match to sounds using a new lip-sync algorithm.
Adobe Audition CC
With Auto-Ducking, automatically lower the volume of music when dialogue and other sounds are audible. Get up to 400% faster mixdowns, enhancements to surround panning for better positioning and accuracy, and new time selection commands support quickly marking time ranges around selected clips. Smart Input Monitoring allows talent to hear the most relevant audio source at the most appropriate moments. Maintain full-screen video preview between sessions or when switching between applications, and see precisely where you are in a project with the new Timecode Overlay display. Support for the Mackie HUI protocol gives Audition users access to modern control surfaces and consoles, including support for HUI-enabled timecode display and control devices.
Team Projects
Users of Creative Cloud for teams and enterprise work more effectively with Team Projects. Hosted in the cloud and integrated into Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude, store source files locally or share lightweight proxies to make it easy for remote editors to collaborate. Now get the ability to view the personal auto-save history, bring an asset from a previous auto-save into your current version, and create a new Team Project from an auto-save.
