What to Expect From Adobe’s New Updates & Mac Pro Compatibility

Just last week HDSLR Shooter was invited to Raleigh Studios in Hollywood where Adobe presented the numerous updates to their Creative Cloud applications. Nearly every app is getting some sort of update, whether it’s a minor quality of life upgrade or a completely new features, and many apps get both. Adobe has really proven true to their commitment when they made the great switch to the Creative Cloud model, and made sure to listen to their customers in regards to what we’d like to see added to Adobe’s toolset.

We were able to speak with Adobe’s David Helmly about the upcoming updates, as well as their compatibility with Mac computers, particularly the new Mac Pro with Adobe Premiere CC. He even gives some recommendations on the best system components to make the most of Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Here are each of the updates coming to Premiere, After Effects, Speedgrade, Audition, Prelude, Story, & Media Encoder:

Adobe Premiere

• Tighter integration between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro
• Live Text Templates – Import After Effects compositions into Premiere Pro with editable text, without having to go back and forth to After Effects
• Masking and Tracking tools – Make it easy to add feathered masks that follow your subjects through a shot, so blurring out faces, license plates, or logos is now a snap.
• Both Masking and Tracking shots and Live Text templates can be sent back to After Effects via Dynamic Link for further refinements
• New Master Clip effect feature – Any effects you apply to a Master Clip ripple down to every part of that clip in a sequence
• Faster editing workflow – Improved handling of large projects and accelerated sorting and searching in the Project panel

• Enhanced graphics performance – Support for a wider range of GPUs, including GPU debayering for RED media
• Improved Direct Link – Offers a more flexible and robust roundtrip color grading workflow with SpeedGrade CC
• Output to virtually any format – Export to DCP and AS-11 content packages via Adobe Media Encoder CC
• New high-fidelity interchange provides greater accuracy and a smoother experience when importing or exporting Avid or Final Cut Pro projects
• Expanded native format support now also includes ARRI Amira, Sony STtP, and compressed lossless Cinema DNG from the Blackmagic Pocket Camera
• Autosave to Creative Cloud for extra peace of mind, and to make your projects accessible wherever you are
• Typekit support makes the Adobe type library available within Premiere Pro

 

Adobe After Effects

• Better keying results from compressed or badly-shot blue or green screen footage with new keying effects
• Tweak challenging elements with detail-preserving precision and remove color spill cleanly with advanced spill suppressor controls
• New Kuler integration lets you capture colors anywhere with your iPhone or browser, and then save them as color swatch themes in After Effects for later

• Typekit integration gives you access within After Effects to over 700 fonts
• Mercury Transmit support – Add a second reference monitor for fullscreen previews of your compositions as you work
• Improved Media Browser – Manage and import content more easily
• Navigate your media locally or across the network via Adobe Anywhere, including complex media types, such as P2 and XDCAM material

• Panel Integration – partners can now develop panels that can be opened inside After Effects, making it easy to access and install plug-ins, extensions, training media, or other content.
• Live Text Templates – create compositions with text that can be modified directly within Adobe Premiere Pro, then use Dynamic Link to make additional adjustments in After Effects
• Flexible masking options and Premiere Pro interchange – you can now add masks and effects without requiring additional adjustment layers or track matte layers

 

Adobe Speedgrade

• Improved Direct Link – including the ability to toggle the Lumetri effect on and off and hide or show tracks for an easier overview of complex timelines
• New Master Clip effect – apply Looks to multiple clips
• Refined grading tools – easy primary sliders and a simplified Effects menu

• Enhanced broadcast standard scopes use fixed scales to present image information in a more familiar way
• New YUV Vectorscope includes color targets so you can more easily visualize the color distribution

• Improved Look Manager – make it simple to keep track of Look presets and your own custom Look libraries
• SpeedGrade now shares the same keyboard transport controls as Premiere Pro
• New SpeedLooks – more options for creative look designin Speedgrade

 

Adobe Audition

• Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus support – work more easily with Dolby 5.1 audio content and deliver projects for broadcast
• Custom channelization – create audio for any setting, including 7.1 content for broadcast, or custom surround sound for dedicated installations.
• Define how many channels to give a project and add labels for each

• Enhanced multitrack features mean you can move more quickly through projects with improved visibility of clip content and selected tracks
• Lock tracks at minimum heights to reduce distractions

• Smartly manage the timeline work area
• Use new track color features to easily group and organize your content
• Adobe Exchange – find helpful resources and plug-ins, or info when you need help with a specific task

 

Adobe Prelude

• Tag panel – Dramatically speed up shot logging by creating customized tags you can add with a single click as you review your footage
• Enrich your media with metadata without typing or typos
• Save Tag templates for sharing between machines and users or or re-use on new projects
• Streamlined rough-cut workflow – generate assembly edits with drag and drop ease

• New trimming with mouse and keyboard shortcuts automatically apply ripple trims directly in the Prelude timeline for basic editing
• New ingest panel enhancements give you more control when copying your media
• Set custom values for auto increment renaming on ingest
• Preview the transcoding duration and resulting file size of any shots you select for transfering and copying
• New sorting options make it easier to stay on top of large projects

 

Adobe Story

• Fine-tune scripts with new custom formatting options, such as modifying headers and footers to include date, location name, and
• program number
• Live Entertainment workflow support – customize scripts for programs with music-driven scripting and camera movements, and generate camera cards with music notation cues

• Capture AS-11 compliant metadata and export to XML that is recognized by the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) application for UK distribution
• Adobe Story Free – all the core tools today’s writers need
• Adobe Story CC Plus – adds support for collaborating with the rest of your team, along with sophisticated yet easy-to-use scheduling and reporting capabilities

 

Media Encoder

• GPU-accelerated Mercury Playback Engine – Render out your projects more quickly and efficiently
• Tight integration with Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop
• Apply watermarks, time codes or LUTs with automatic image processing

• Generate industry-standard DCP or AS-11 content packages
• Fault-tolerant rendering – track issues and heal red frame and black frame issues without holding up your render queue