This morning Adobe updated Illustrator to version 25.3 it’s June 2021 release. It has 2 new features.
Rotate View has been added. Now you can easily edit in a rotated view and quickly return to a normal view.
And full Apple M1 support has been added.
I do love that Adobe is steadily adding full M1 support to creative cloud.
So adobe updated After Effects to version 18.4. The July 2021 update has the following features:
Improved Default Property naming in Essential Graphics Panel.
Support for MKV Files.
Automatic default audio device switching on Windows.
And it looks like Multi-Frame Rendering has remained in the beta for the moment.
Nothing too monumental here, unlike the Premiere Pro update today.
So I woke up way too early today because the air conditioner is not working too well, and I was too hot to keep sleeping and low and behold Adobe has updated Premiere Pro to Version 15.4!
This update brings the amazing Speech to Text out of Beta and into the normal version and out of the Beta program which I have been running for a bit. This quickly became my favorite feature when cutting testimonials, and I am so happy that i is available to all. It also includes new Transcript Editing Tools and the ability to Generate Captions Automatically.
And adds native support for Apple M1 Computers which was previously only available in the beta.
Other new features of Note:
New Titling and Caption Styling Tools.
You can now upgrade Legacy Titles to Essential Graphics. ARE YOU LISTENING AVID?
Color improvements with Tetahedral LUT interpolation. And the beta now includes a colorized vectorscope for more detail in grading.
The Speed of Saving of Team Projects has improved thanks to a new file structure. And in the Public Beta is progressive project loading to work faster, and improved media relinking.
You can now also label colors and clip names and have the option of limiting changes to the current sequence or applying changes to your source media.
On Windows you get automatic Audio Device Switching.
And CUDA and OpenCL have been discontinued completely in favor of Metal on the Mac.
Looking forward to running it through it’s paces, this is huge news.
As an editor at some point you are going to fill your hard drives, and before they get too full you are going to want to clear up some space and to do that you need to see exactly what is filling them up. To do that I have 2 really good paid utilities that you can use to see exactly what is taking up so much space on your mac. These are WhatSize and DaisyDisk.
Now I have been using and continue to use WhatSize as my primary, mainly because I prefer it’s interface. It is more expensive at $14.99, but it has a 30 day trial and works on Big Sur just fine.
And it also includes a graph form interface if that is your thing, though I prefer the lists view which I find makes much more sense.
DaisyDisk on the other hand is all built along it’s graph view, which is very pretty, but I do find it much harder to use than the column view of WhatSize.
It is very pretty, but column view just makes more sense to my mind.
As an added bonus it also works on M1 Macs already.
Both programs take a bit of time to scan a disk and then give you the results. As I have said I prefer WhatSize, but that is entirely your decision and you can try them both out before you buy, so…
Either way being able to delve into your files and find out what is taking up so much space on your hard drives in a quick and easy way is tool every editor and graphics artist should have in their tool belt.
Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has a great article Comment: Apple’s inflexibility on flexible working seems likely to backfire, is really worth a read. I don’t see this as just applying to Apple but to the entertainment industry as well.
As an editor sure some interaction is great at times, but for the most part I am in a dark room by myself and I am so much more comfortable at home, and even better not having to drive. And I can work on my own computer which is set up exactly like I want. Now certainly there should be some discussion about equipment rentals since we won’t be in the office using their gear or bay (or need to have as many editing bays).
And yes there is something to be said for live screenings, but I really do want to setup a remote workflow so like the one Sofi Marshall talked about and I posted about. Often times just screening for someone will make me as an editor see stuff that I need to fix, and I think doing a remote session would solve this in most cases.
Sure sometimes editors will need to screen in person, but with Covid-19 and mask mandates returning to Los Angeles on Saturday I don’t want to be in an office even fully vaccinated. And with me having had open heart surgery, I seem to catch everything I come in contact with.
Knights of the Editing Table have updated their awesome keyboard launcher Excaliubur for Adobe Premiere Pro to 1.1.3.
Here is the Change Log for this app that you will quickly find to be indispensable. For current users you download the update from the Excalibur settings app within Premiere Pro.
Sequence module:
– Add Marker to Clip
– Target Video/Audio Tracks
– Mute Video/Audio Tracks
– Lock Video/Audio Tracks
– Sync Lock Video/Audio Tracks
Selection module:
– Select Clip Above/Below
– Extend Selection
– Select All Clips after/before Playhead
– Invert Selection
– Select All Disabled Clips
Preferences module:
– Display Color Management
– Snap playhead in Timeline
– Selection Follows Playhead
– Linked Selection
– Transparency Grid
– Show Rulers
– Show Guides
– Snap in Program Monitor
Other:
– Multiply, divide, percent operations are added for Position/Scale/Rotation and etc
– Excalibur Settings could be open from a search bar
– “Copy Frame to Clipboard” didn’t work on some macOS machines
– “Export Media/Selected Clips” in a search bar used project location as an export path. Now it defaults to Premeire Pro last used export path (which could be controlled with Compass)
– Unnecessary undo step was performed for Duration/Speed command if duration/speed couldn’t be changed or was the same for an affected clip
– Effect presets that used “Vector Motion” (part of Essential Graphics) added additional “Vector Motion” effect instead of changing values of an existing one
– Optimized “Nest Clips” command
– Optimized “Paste Clip on Same track” command
– Optimized preloading of a search bar
– Enter pressed multiple times in a search bar caused Excalibur to execute command multiple times
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This app really is amazing and will guaranteed speed you up within Premiere. My biggest problem is working on other machines where it is not installed! Honestly I might be buying multiple licenses when I eventually have to go back to working in an office instead of working from home.
I learned about this excellent video from an article by Jakub Han at CineD, which goes into the differences between the 2 formats.
It is well worth checking out the differences. And it seems that ProRes RAW does seem better, but it doesn’t work in DaVinci Resolve, and BRAW works better in DaVinci Resolve. So it depends on how you are finishing, and I would assume ProRES RAW works better in Final Cut Pro X.
The software for the Elgato Stream Deck has been updated to version 5.0 with the addition of a store. Jose Antunes at ProVideoCoalition has a great article on it.
Now it is great for them to have a store, but the store is pretty useless to me if it doesn’t have SideShowFX in it, because they make the profiles for pro video users. Now you can find software for streaming in the store, but the Stream Deck really works for Pro Video users, and to not have that software represented seems like a huge mistake.
I still plan on doing an article on Steam Deck and SideshowFX, but have been so busy I haven’t had the time.
Chris Zwar has posted an overview of his 18 part in depth series on Adobe After Effects and performance. He has been writing these must read articles since 2019 and every pro after effects user should have a look. It goes about as in depth as you can on what After Effects does and why it can be very hard to speed up.
So I came across this compression software on one of my Premiere Pro forums on Facebook, having not hear of it before. Someone was asking for a batch compressor that could set a file size for all your files and this was recommended.
Shutter Encoder bills itself as a converter designed by Video Editors and it does have some pretty impressive functionality in a very simple interface.
It uses the same FFmpeg engine as the awesome Handbrake software, so you know it has impressive results.
It can trim videos without re-encoding, replace audio, rewrap, merge, subtitle, and do so much more. And unlike Handbrake it does all the important pro formats, it even has file renaming and an ftp program for uploads and downloading of web video, and can open multiple instances of the app. And it is donation ware and is for Mac, Windows, Ubunti and Linux and it has a whole slew of presets you can download.
This is an impressive piece of kit that should be added to every editors arsenal, and please consider donating if you use it professionally.
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