Adobe Video
Collection -- Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing,
After Effects for motion graphics and visual effects,
Audition for professional audio mixing and editing, and
Encore DVD for DVD authoring.
Adobe kicked
off the new year by announcing a major upgrade to its suite
of video tools, formerly known as the Adobe Video
Collection -- Adobe Premiere Pro for video
editing, After Effects for motion graphics and visual
effects, Audition for professional audio mixing and
editing, and Encore DVD for DVD authoring.
Adobe has made
major upgrades to each of these four applications, bringing
them even closer together as elements of a suite --
redesigning the interfaces for a common look that eliminates
window clutter, and greatly enhancing the workflow
integration between the applications. The new integration
features a powerful new Adobe Dynamic Link feature
that enables using and previewing After Effects compositions
directly in Premiere Pro and Encore DVD, without requiring a
separate rendering step. These new versions also step up to
full support for high-quality HD editing, providing scalable
format support for SD and HD, including native HDV video and
full 32-bit color processing.
Now renamed
the Adobe Production Studio, the suite was released
in early 2006 (www.adobe.com/productionstudio).
It now also includes Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2
from the Adobe Creative Suite, plus Adobe Bridge for asset
file browsing and organizing. The Production Studio is
available for Windows XP, with After Effects also still
supported on Mac OS X.
I've been able
to preview these applications at Adobe meetings, and even
try out pre-release versions, so let's take a look at what
we have to look forward to.
It's been a
while since Adobe released the last major upgrade of its
suite of video tools. Given the major enhancements, and the
usual reliability of Adobe's products, it looks like the new
versions are worth the wait. The previous Adobe Video
Collection version 2.5, released in May 2004, included
Premiere Pro 1.5, After Effects 6.5, Audition 1.5, and
Encore DVD 1.5. The Professional edition also included
Photoshop CS.
The new Adobe
Production Studio, Standard edition starts with
Premiere Pro 2.0 and After Effects 7.0 Standard, plus
Photoshop CS2. It also includes Adobe Bridge (which is
shipped with each individual application), and Adobe Dynamic
Link (available only as part of the Production Studio).
The Premium
edition steps up to After Effects 7.0 Professional, adds
Audition 2.0 and Encore DVD 2.0, and now includes
Illustrator CS2. (Encore DVD is not required in the
Standard edition since Premiere Pro now has enhanced DVD
authoring capabilities.)
The estimated
street price for Adobe Production Studio Standard is $1,199,
with Premium for $1,699. Upgrades start $499 and $649,
respectively, with upgrades available from Standard to
Premium, and from previous versions of the individual
products.
While the user
interfaces for Adobe applications clearly had a common
heritage that made it comfortable, for example, for a
Photoshop or Premiere user to move to Encore DVD, the new
Production Studio takes a significant leap forward. Adobe
has worked to unify common commands, tools, keyboard
shortcuts, and control elements, so the applications become
elements of a common design environment.
Even more, all
four applications now sport a new interface design of
interlocking panels instead of floating windows, based on
the recently-released Photoshop and Premiere Elements.
Instead of constantly twiddling window sizes and moving
overlapping palettes, this design uses interlocking
workspace panels that move together as you adjust their
size, so there's no wasted space or partially overlapping
windows. You can still drag out separate palettes if you
want (i.e., to place on a second monitor), and a new "drop
zone" feature makes it easy to rearrange the layout -- you
can drag and drop individual windows to either be positioned
as a new panel, or be nested as a tab with a group of
windows in an existing panel.
You can also
use Workspaces to restore the screen layout to default
positions for different kinds of tasks, or save your own
layout.
Adobe also has
separated out file organization and browsing from the
individual applications into the new Adobe Bridge
application, first released with Photoshop CS2. Bridge
serves as centralized asset manager for all the different
media file types (and application presets) used across the
Production Studio and Creative Suite, so you can preview,
organize, and then drag and drop assets directly into your
projects. Bridge also supports XMP metadata for annotating
and searching your files. It's also not just a launcher for
the individual applications -- it also can directly perform
common operations and prebuilt actions using the Production
Studio applications.
But enough of
suites and integration and commonality. What about the
individual applications? No fear -- even with all this
integration work, Adobe also has made significant leaps with
each of the applications, particularly in the quality of the
processing.
The key
improvement to the Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 video
editor is scalable format support, from standard definition
to high-def, up to 2k and 4k resolutions (4096 x 4096),
including DV, SD, HDV, HDCAM, D5HD, and Windows Media.
Premiere Pro now supports native HDV capture and editing for
lower-cost camcorders, and provides native pro HD-SDI
support out of the box through the AJA Video Xena HS
real-time encoding card.
For high
performance, Premiere Pro can take advantage of GPU
accelerated rendering using new graphics cards. For high
quality results, it uses deep 32-bit internal color
processing, and can input 10-bit video and 16-bit PSD files.
To help with
moving between video and film, interlaced and progressive,
Premiere Pro has nice features including 3:2 pulldown to
edit 24p content in 29.97 interlaced sequences, real-time
letterboxing for 16x9 preview to 4x3 displays, and export to
full-resolution uncompressed HD as well as to image sequence
files for film.
However, the
coolest new feature in Premiere Pro is the fully integrated
support for multi-cam editing. You can import and
synchronize up to four tracks, and view and switch between
them in real time as you edit. But that's not all: Premiere
drops the result in a new timeline, which you can continue
to edit with all the usual Premiere tools, adjusting the cut
points and even switching between the sources directly from
the timeline.
Premiere Pro multi-cam editing
For more
custom effects, Premiere Pro now supports editable keyframe
graphs in the Effect Controls panel to adjust value and
velocity curves. And it adds a Lighting Effects filter to
apply spot, directional, or omni lights.
Then when you
are done editing your production, Premiere Pro now includes
full DVD support right from the timeline. Inherited from
Premiere Elements, this includes the ability to generate
motion menus from templates and customize their content.
Premiere Pro and After Effects also can encode and export
for Macromedia Flash.
Premiere Pro DVD authoring
Finally,
Premiere Pro adds a new Adobe Clip Notes feature that uses
the PDF format to share your production for review and
approval, and then map the comments back to specific
timecodes on the project timeline.
In addition to
the Production Studio suite, Premiere Pro 2.0 also will be
available individually for $849, or for upgrade at $199.
Joining
Premiere Pro in the Adobe Production Studio is Adobe
After Effects 7.0 for 2D and 3D compositing, animation,
and motion effects. After Effects boosts performance with
accelerated OpenGL support for faster previewing and
rendering of more core functions. It also adds expanded file
format support for native formats including HDV, Camera Raw,
OpenEXR, AAF, 10-bit YUV, and 32-bit TIFF and PSD.
To help you
get started, After Effects includes pre-built project
templates and customizable animation and behavior presets.
And for more control the new Graph Editor provides visual
keyframe editing and synchronization of animated properties
across layers. It also adds creative blur effects including
Lens, Smart, Fast, Box, and Compound Blur.
After Effects Graph Editor
The
Professional edition then adds full 32-bit float high
dynamic range (HDR) color support to better match the
real-world behavior of color and light. And Timewarp slows
down and speeds up footage with more accurate in-between
frames. The Pro version also includes motion tracking,
keying tools, distortion effects, network rendering, and
scripting.
After Effects high dynamic range (HDR) color
However, the
most thrilling capability of the new After Effects is the
new Adobe Dynamic Link integration, available only in the
Adobe Production Studio. Dynamic Link allows you to use and
preview After Effects compositions directly in Premiere Pro
and Encore DVD, without waiting to render. You can edit in
After Effects, and then immediately preview the result in a
Premiere Pro timeline or as an Encore DVD motion menu. In
fact, you never need to wait to render within After Effects
-- it can run in the background as an effects engine,
serving the frames as needed when you export the Premiere
Pro production or build the Encore DVD disc. This takes the
integration between these Adobe products to whole new level
-- saving time and interruptions as you keep on working.
Adobe After
Effects 7.0 will be available individually for Mac OS X and
Windows XP, with the Standard edition for $699 and
Professional for $999, with upgrades from $199.
Beyond video
ending and effects in the Adobe Production Studio Standard,
you can step up to the Premium edition to add professional
audio editing with Audition, DVD authoring with Encode DVD,
plus the bonus of Illustrator CS2.
Audition
brought the new interlocking panel interface approach to
Adobe when it was acquired as Cool Edit Pro, and now its
interface has evolved to join the rest of the Adobe line.
The big news
with the new Adobe Audition 2.0 is under the covers,
a rewritten audio mixing engine to boost performance and
support low-latency dynamic mixing and routing. Audition now
can provide real-time recording of parameter automation to
envelopes, and has ASIO support for low-latency interface to
external hardware devices.
Audition also
provides a multiband compressor to control dynamics and
adjust overall loudness, and supports tape-style audible
scrubbing to listen for edit points.
Audition mixing
For working
with audio in video clips, Audition now can import QuickTime
and MPEG files to view in sync while editing the sound. You
then can export as AVI, MPEG, DV, and WMV. The edited audio
is updated in the video file without re-rendering the video.
Finally,
Audition's amazing frequency space editing mode is even more
powerful. You can customize the Spectral Frequency Display
view with color ranges and a logarithmic display, and then
even use the Lasso tool to precisely select and edit
specific frequency ranges. Editing audio now really can be
as natural as working with images: you can see the exact
sound that needs work, and then surgically adjust and repair
it.
Audition amazing frequency space editing / Spectral
Frequency Display
Adobe Audition
2.0 will be available individually for $349, or for upgrade
at $129.
Wrapping up
the Adobe Production Studio is Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
for creating customized DVDs. Adobe developed Encore DVD to
leverage the Adobe interface to provide a base of
straightforward drag-and-drop DVD authoring, plus a
Photoshop-like menu editor and Premiere-like timeline for
more customized authoring. But Encore DVD's core strength is
the Photoshop integration: all menus and buttons and even
styles are just Photoshop PSD files, easy to use either as
template designs or to customize for your own use.
The new Encore
DVD 2.0 adds more authoring assists for easy slideshows and
linked menu creation, along with a powerful new Flowchart
view and new advanced DVD features.
One
distinguishing feature of entry-level DVD tools is the
automatic generation of a linked series of menus from a list
of clips or chapters. Until now, stepping up to more
professional tools meant giving up these kinds of
time-saving features in return for full control over the
menu design. Now Encore DVD gives you the best of both
worlds: you can define a menu template with built-in Back,
Next, and Home buttons, and Encore will automatically create
a linked series of menus for clips or chapters, complete
with thumbnail button links. Once created, you then still
have full creative control over editing the menus and links.
Encore DVD templates and styles
Similarly, the
new Encore DVD slideshow creator not only simplifies
assembling a collection of slides with a soundtrack and
transitions, but also provided automated or custom dynamic
pan and zoom effects.
Encore DVD slideshow
However, the
most impressive addition to Encore DVD is the new Flowchart
view, which automatically lays out elements of your disc and
its navigation in a schematic tree structure. And the
flowchart is dynamic -- it dynamically updates around the
selected element to reposition the neighboring linked notes
for easy viewing and access. Even better, the flowchart is
not just for viewing -- it is a full alternate editing
environment in which you can edit links and even add new
nodes.
Encore DVD Flowchart view
Beyond the
interface, Encore DVD is also bulked up with more
sophisticated DVD features, including Chapter Playlists that
allow you to reuse content in different ways by playing
specific chapter ranges, Line 21 file support for closed
captions, and the ability to assemble multiple video
sequences on the same timeline.
Adobe Encore
DVD 2.0 will be available individually for $349, or for
upgrade at $149.
As you can see
from this quick preview, the new Adobe Production Studio is
a significant enhancement of the Adobe tools, combining
quality results from native HD and HDV support and 32-bit
color processing, the common interface with interlocking
panels, and significant enhancements to the individual
tools.
Even more, the
Adobe Production Studio is about the enhanced integration
between the Adobe tools. It provides a much more
straightforward workflow for moving directly back and forth
between editing different elements, without being delayed by
file export and import issues and rendering times:
- To move
elements between applications, you can simply drag and drop,
or cut and paste, preserving key frames, markers, and
effects. After Effects also can import and export entire
Premiere Pro projects.
- When working
with files, you can import layered Photoshop files directly
into a Premiere Pro timeline, and layered Photoshop and
Illustrator files into After Effects to animate the layers.
And you can apply Photoshop layer styles directly in
Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Encore DVD. In the other
direction, to create compatible images for video, After
Effects and Premiere Pro can create a new image files in
Photoshop to match the project's resolution and pixel aspect
ratio, and Encore DVD can open a new Photoshop file to match
a menu template.
- Even better,
when you want to change an asset that you imported into
Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore DVD, or Illustrator CS2,
you can simply use Edit Original to automatically launch the
original application from which the asset file was exported.
This opens the originating project, composition, session, or
layered image file in its creator Adobe application -- ready
for you to make a quick change and re-export right back to
the application in which you are using it.
- In addition,
Premiere Pro and After Effects share the same formats for
third-party effects, and Audition recognizes audio effects
from Premiere Pro. Similarly, markers set in Premiere Pro
and After Effects can define chapter points in Encore DVD,
and Premiere markers can be used in Audition to align
soundtracks.
Of course,
Adobe Bridge also provides a powerful resource for browsing
assets and presets, as well as performing common operations.
But the biggest step forward is in using the different
applications as engines to support each other. For example,
you can now capture video directly in After Effects, using
Premiere Pro. And the exciting Dynamic Link feature allows
you to work with animated After Effects compositions
directly in Premiere Pro and Encore DVD without requiring a
separate rendering step.
