Knights of the Editing Table has updated Grave Robber with the ability to Unmerge!!!

I already think Excalibur is the single most must have plug in for efficiency in Premiere Pro. It is like having Launchbar for Mac, once you use it you will feel any system is broken without it.

And Grave Robber is another must have with it’s ability to un-nest nested or multicam sequences, but now it can un-merge clips and preserve all keyframes and effects! Why couldn’t adobe do this years ago? I mean seriously merge has been broken since day one, if someone else can make an unmerge, why can’t Adobe?

Pay the $15 and then check out Excalibur, you won’t be sorry!

Adobe has lost it’s Pantone Swatches, and you can pay to get Pantone, but the functionality is not the same

Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design have all lost their Pantone Swatches, and you can pay $15 for a Premium Service, which is supposed to restore some Pantone Functionality, but it is not the same and doesn’t restore the old swatches.

You can now install the Pantone Connect plug in and use a free account, but functionality is not as good.

Obviously this is saving Adobe money, but with the old Pantone swatches becoming unusable even with the paid subscription this is not a great solution.

Erik K Swanson on Title Safe Still Matters: Especially for Online Video

I have to admit I have always respected Title Safe, and hated when After Effects switched from 80% for Title Safe and 90% for Action Safe to 90% for Title Safe and 93% for action safe. I switched back to the original safer settings and this article is why you should to.

It is by Erik K Swanson, and well worth checking out.

Save as Popup Window Closes with right arrow in newest Adobe Apps on Mac OS Ventura

This was driving me buggy, I thought it was just Ventura, or maybe Default Folder, but it seems to affect just Adobe Apps right now. Went to Adobe Support Community to report it and luckily someone already did.

Thanks for reporting this problem. We are aware of this issue and currently investigating a fix. It is unfortunately affecting After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Media Encoder, so all three will need an update to fix this issue. Any fix will become available in the Beta builds, and then the next public release.

John, After Effects Engineering Team 

You can currently use the mouse to get around this, but it is fiddly, so lets hope they fix it fast.

File Naming for Graphics Files

I have been editing not for 22 years, since I started on The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Special Edition Behind the Scenes in 1999 or 2000. And even that far back I was also working with Assistant Editors and figuring out best practices to work in a company and with multiple editors and graphics people. And on Lord of the Rings in between the editing gigs, I oversaw the Assistant Department who were logging the thousands of hours of footage to make it searchable.

The pandemic and remote editing has made it more important, and I have helped the company I am working with develop some methodologies, though they didn’t follow all of my ideas (some of which I think are a big mistake). And example is that I break each project into 3 major categories, the project, renders and exports and this is for Backup purposes, as it is easier to back up the project and exports separately from renders, but they have combined all into a single folder making backups more difficult, especially when using software to do it (which you should always do so that you can have Checksum’s checked on copy).

Another huge issue is graphics files. We have managed to get sequences to include dates and editors initials so you can track files back to their creators, but the graphics guys have not done that at all. And it is one thing to be given graphics files and use them, but most of them have a name and maybe a version number at best, and the problem is that while we use an after effects project that has a basic look, each of us are doing variations on graphics, but there is almost no set nomenclature for anything, So there is basically no way to track anything!

I am being given a timeline like above in after effects, for a completely spot, which each graphic pre-composed in it’s own sequence, and while I have blurred the project so you can’t see it, the individual graphics projects are named text 1 and so forth, WTF!

And we have even been given footage lately straight from the set, without an assistant conforming anything so even project names are up to editors.

This could so easily be fixed with job numbers, even if they aren’t final job numbers, but just within the post department, Or even client_jobnumber_Initials. So say a 2 letter abbreviation of product name and 4 digit job number then 2 or 3 letter initials of the person working on it. And you name your project this, or at least the start of it, I think it should also have a year for the After Effects version number in there (so 2022 or 2023). And every graphic file should start the same, so client_jobnumber_initlals, I would then add a description, and a date and version number.

So for example, a FedEx commercial, job one with my initals JLW would have a project name of FE_0001_JLW_2023.aep, and my main logo animation would be called FE_0001_JLW_MainLogo_22-11-03-V01. And at the end of every job the projects should be uploaded to a central repository, so if anyone needs to modify one of those graphics you know exactly which project it is, and who did it.

If you don’t implement something like this, it is going to be such a mess finding stuff, even without freelance editors who might not be available to make changes.

And I know graphics people might complain at first, but everything will be so much easier in the future that it doesn’t matter. They are easy changes to make and implement and it will quickly so many future problems.

Scott Simmons at PVC Let’s Talk About Subscriptions

Scott Simmons has an article about software subscriptions, and their value, and about going through and seeing all your subscriptions and how much you are spending.

I am OK Adobe which has fairly regular updates, and the beta channel, but others give less value, especially than they used to, when you paid a price and had software for at least a year.

And the worst is all the iPad apps that have moved to subscription. You used to e able to buy them, but now you have to subscribe to even use most creative apps.