Adobe Updates Everything – The Details

Today, Adobe released several new innovations for Creative Cloud, including 14 new versions of CC desktop applications, new creative hardware, three new mobile apps revolving around Photoshop, and updates to Creative Cloud services.

NOTE: I’ve added links to more details throughout this report. You can also learn more about what Adobe announced on their website: www.adobe.com.

The bulk of the announcements revolve around Photoshop. These include a new digital pen and a digital ruler, along with three new mobile apps – Sketch, Line and Photoshop Mix.

However, for filmmakers and video editors, Adobe has added new features into Premiere, Audition, and After Effects. Premiere has seen the greatest amount of new work. Here are some more details.

NOTE: Not all plug-ins are currently compatible with the new release. Red Giant, among others, cautions not to upgrade to the new versions until they have upgraded their plug-ins.

UPDATE: (6/19/14) Red Giant announced today that all their plug-ins now support the latest Adobe releases. See the Red Giant website for update instructions (www.redgiant.com)

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CC – NEW FEATURES

• Live Templates. Similar to how Final Cut integrates Motion templates into FCP, editors can now open After Effects templates in Premiere and modify the text without leaving Premiere. This will be a great way to easily add animated titling in Premiere; as well as open the doors to significant new 3rd-party titling plug-ins.
• Masking and Tracking. Simple motion tracking can now be applied to masks to track a mask with movement within the frame. Also, masks now support feathered edges.
• Master clip effects. Effects can now be applied to master clips that then appear on all iterations of that master clip in the Timeline.
• Improved Mercury Playback Engine. Adobe has improved OpenCL, added a GPU-based debayer for RED footage, and added support for Intel Iris; which is an integrated Intel GPU implemented on some Haswell processors seen on some iMacs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Minis.
• New Camera Native formats. Premiere now supports ARRI AMIRA, Sony STtP, Canon RAW, and improved support for CinemaDNG formats.
• Improved editing. Adobe improved clip handling in large projects, improved clip search, and added reverse match frame, nudging audio level keyframes, and a select all tracks to beginning command.
• More fonts. Typekit is now integrated from the Title menu, view and download fonts from within Premiere.
• Improved voice-over recordings. The last version of Premiere added the ability to record voice-overs in Premiere. This version makes setting up to record a voice-over easier.
• Maintain Audio Pitch. Audio pitch is now maintained when scrubbing clips at high speed.
• AutoSave to Cloud. We can now automatically backup Premiere projects to the Adobe Creative Cloud. This allows projects to be retrieved from any Cloud-connected computer.
• The direct link between Premiere and SpeedGrade was improved.

Here’s a link to all the new features in Premiere Pro CC.

ADOBE SPEEDGRADE – NEW FEATURES

SpeedGrade was also updated. Here’s a link to the new features.

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CC – NEW FEATURES

• Key Cleaner effect and Advanced Spill Suppressor effect
• Text templates created in After Effects editable in Premiere Pro
• Compositing options for each effect, including ability to confine the area affected by each effect with masks
• Import of masks from Premiere Pro
• HTML5 panels using CEP infrastructure
• Kuler panel
• ProEXR v1.9: higher-performance OpenEXR importer, updated IDentifier and EXtractoR effects
• Import of Sony RAW footage (raw files from F5, F55, and F65 cameras)
• Import of MPEG-4 SStP (Simple Studio Profile) Sony SR MXF files
• Video preview on external monitor using Mercury Transmit
• Scripting access to render settings and output module settings
• Automatic adjustment in Curves effect, plus improvements to Curves effect user interface
• menu command to add fonts from Typekit
• Digital Cinema Package (DCP) export through Adobe Media Encoder

Here’s a link to Adobe’s detailed list of the new features.

ADOBE AUDITION CC – NEW FEATURES

Audition focused on improving the multi-track editing experience in a variety of subtle, but significant ways. Most significant of which is the ability to import and export Dolby Digital, and Dolby Digital Plus, audio files without requiring any additional plug-ins or licensing.

More flexible channel configurations, track colors and sizing, and improved thumbnails also made the list.

Here’s a link detailing the new features in Audition.

SUMMARY

All-in-all, the new upgrades are exciting and I’m looking forward to working with them and showing them to you.

UPGRADING

All these updates (version 13.0) are available to all Adobe Creative Cloud members. Just go to the Creative Cloud download center or open the Creative Cloud desktop application to download the new updates.