Adobe Creative Suite Video feature request, easily copy and paste a Lumetri color from Premiere Pro to After Effects without exporting a LUT

 

As someone who works extensively between After Effects and Premiere Pro, I do love Adobe Dynamic Link (though it could use an update for sure), there is one thing that I wish could come easily between the two programs, and that is Lumetri Color Effects.

Yes you can pass the Lumetri Effect them through via Dynamic Link, but that is better for sequences, than individual shots. And yes you can export a .cube effect from your Lumetri Color, which is a LUT. The LUT can then be added in Lumtri, but it isn’t just repeating the Lumetri Effect, it is a Lumtri with a LUT added to it (and since After Effects and Premiere Pro use different Color spaces since After Effects uses RGB vs YUV), it is easier to tweak a bit if it is the Lumetri Color effect.

Now the easiest for the user would be if you could copy and paste the effect.

The Lumetri Color panel is one thing, but it is also an effect.

And the Lumetri effect shows up in After Effects as an effect as well.

Now I am assuming copy and paste would be difficult as some program would need to be running to catch the copy and move it over (something in creative cloud), but this would be absolutely ideal.

Now the solution is to make all your selects in Premiere and send it over via Adobe Dynamic Link then use the lumetri off those. And this does work, but it isn’t as easy as copy and pasting from one to the other for sure.

Or you can send out individual LUTS from the Lumetri Color Tab.

And select Export Cube to export a LUT that you can then add onto a Lumetri basic correction or a look you can use in the Creative section of Lumetri (and this is good because you can control the strength of the effect).

Now they could put in a Creative Cloud sync like you can do with Essential Graphics templates, but most of the time I am using my own Adobe login so the sync is useless, and I have always thought it needed some more job specific settings, like they only show up if you select the job you are on, and would download the templates to the job folder so that when you back it up they are there for anyone using the job especially in the future.

Should post continue it’s work at home policies put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic or return to edit bays?

 

OK this post is a little different, and not directly about using Premiere, instead I want to talk a little about work at home. Most editors have switched to working at home during the covid-19 pandemic because it just isn’t safe to work in an office.

Personally, I have absolutely loved it. I am married and I own a house, and have dogs, so I love being home as I can see my wife and dogs, I can start laundry at lunch, and most off no commute.

The commute in Los Angeles is always brutal, I would say it averages an hour each way a day, but can be much worse. I worked a job in Long Beach and it was 2 hours each way, every day, and the day it started there were fires and my drive took 4 and a half hours to get there and 3 and a half to get home. I don’t mind never commuting again. Hell on The Hobbit behind the scenes, where we forced into 12 hour days, I started at 5 am so at least my morning commute was better.

I hate the commute, but also getting ready for work. Now I can just wear sweatpants, which is so much more comfortable, but it is also the time getting my ice and water bottles and ice tea. And even more so it is being able to spend that time with my wife and my dogs and sit on my couch. And when work is done, to be able to go right to making dinner. Or even starting some dinner early so you can eat bot longer after finishing dinner. Maybe some of it comes down to being married and having a house and loving being home.

What I was surprised about, was a thread on a post production Facebook group about the topic, where I would say 2/3 of people hate work at home or would prefer to return to an edit bay (at least half), while the rest loved work at home. This blew my mind as if I had a choice I would never return to an office.

Most said social interaction was what they missed, others thought editing went better in real time in a bay, less versions, others wanted to get out if their home as there were too many distractions, and people also said not having a powerful enough machine or fast enough internet at home.

OK so I have loved worked at home forever, my first real editing job was on the Lord of the Rings behind the scenes and I did all those from home and it was wonderful, just went in tor screenings.

Honestly when at home, I get more work done, I don’t get distracted by people at work, and I spend less time surfing the net, and can focus better without being distracted.

And my home computer is better than most computers I have run into at work, and even if the machine was more powerful, it is not as customized as mine, and it isn’t just keyboard shortcuts. Never has as many plug-ins, other pieces of software, nor pieces of hardware, like my Tangent Wave, Ergo keyboard, Elgato Streamdeck or my trackball. And software like LaunchBar speeds up everything I do on the computer. So everything I do is more efficient on my own computer.

And I do get working on secure things for studios is harder being at home, but certainly not impossible or more expensive than maintaining edit bays. 

And the argument that the investment for new post people is ridiculous. First off most assistants will at least have to start in an office. And they can save up for a system. I had to have a system or I would not have been able to get my first edit job. And honestly all editors should be learning new things or at least new features on their home machines.

And the social thing. Sure I get making relationships with people, but when editing, personally I would rather have the least distractions possible. And when I am eating lunch (when I diet I fast and don’t eat till dinner) I would rather bring lunch and eat while working, because it means leaving for home 30 minutes early, and I would always rather be home.

As for it taking longer, and not being in person, well something should be worked out for that. I have heard of people using blackmagic boxes to live stream, and being able to switch to a camera at the press of a button. Need a secure method to do this that is studio approved. I am going to research a solution to this more, from Blackmagic ATEM Mini or I was also thinking about streaming boxes from Elgato. Screenings in person do always make you see issues you didn’t see before.

And speaking of tech, I have seen posts on the same facebook forums on local raids with custom cloud syncing software, with built in encryption. This way you are given most files and keep them organized the same, then just syncing new graphics. This would be amazing with a solution like Adobe Teams for project management.

As for notes, I like e-mailed and time-coded notes, written down so I know what they want. I hate taking notes because you always miss stuff (or things don’t get said). I am good at taking notes, but I would rather have e-mailed notes or Frame.io markers. 

I really do hope work at home is an option after the pandemic, because for me it is how I would always like to work. I have loved it since I first got to do it.

Now the biggest problem with working at home in California is the AB5 legislation which has made 1099 and Schedule C work basically illegal. So to write off your home computer and software, in California you have to incorporate and then be double taxed, as the corporation and then paying yourself, which negates at least some of the money you would save in write offs. And to work at home you need a smoking fast rig and screaming fast internet connection, that got much harder to write off.

Things to try when Premiere Pro has issues exporting a sequence

If you use Premiere Pro enough, you will run into issues, and the most frustrating issue of all can be when you have problems exporting a sequence, especially when you are on a deadline. This can be absolutely terrifying, and you need to get your sequence exported ASAP!

So I thought I would give you some things that have been known to work for me.

The first thing to try is to trash the current render of your timeline and re-render. If you have a rendered timeline and you go to export a sequence you can save time and sometimes export easier by selecting use renders.

You can see this select above in blue, USE PREVIEWS. When your sequence is rendered and things are going well, it will use your Previews to render and should greatly speed things up.

Still sometimes the renders can get screwed up so clean fresh renders are a first step.

A second thing to try is is if you are compressing to a different format than you are editing in, is to try to match the sequence settings.

Especially if you are using the Previews this can speed things up and with no cross compression make the video easier to export. You can then recompress using Media Encoder, which should go quickly. Sure it is an extra step, but if it gets a working sequence out, it is worth it.

Next if things are really bad and you can’t get the sequence to export at all, you should move the sequence to a new clean project. 

You should make a new project and drag the Sequence over, which will bring just it and the associated media files.

Most of the files are even brought over organized as they previously were, though unfortunately the organization of the sequences has not come over. Still save this Project and export from this project. This might mean that there is corruption in your project file.

Sometimes I move all the files in a project into a new fresh project and it can solve some issues.

Earlier of my posts talked about trashing the preferences and that is another thing I would try.

Hopefully when you run into the problems of exporting a sequence these things can help, and hopefully they can help you.

In Premiere Pro if the paste attributes menu item stops working, try right clicking in the timeline

 

Ok until recently this had never been a problem for me, but when it happened it was super annoying. My edit menu command Paste Attributes command just stopped working in Premiere Pro 2019, neither the menu item or the keyboard shortcut option-command-V was working, and even after resetting the preferences the problem persisted. I did some research and it is was not just me and there is a workaround that always seems to work.

If the menu commands and keyboard shortcut for this stop working, then you can use the right click (or control-click) on the mouse to copy.

And do the same right click on the destination clip and paste attributes this way and it works.

Now I have no idea if this is fixed in newer versions, as it just recently happened to me in 2019, and here is a post about it at the Adobe Forums on how to fix it.

It is just good to know if you run into this, just do it from the timeline, and it will still work.

Adobe Photoshop version 22.2 February 2021 releases most exciting new feature is Super Resolution for scaling an image in Camera Raw’s version 13.2 March 2021 release

 

So Adobe Photoshops February 2021 version 22.2 update only had a couple of new features, the ability to invite others to edit, and to sync your presets.

It is the Camera RAW version 13.2 March 2021 release that has the most exciting new feature. It had some normal updates, like Support for new camera and lenses, other enhancements, and Apple ProRAW profile, but the most exciting feature is Super Resolution.

Super Resolution helps create an enhanced image with 2x the width and 2x the height of the original image, or 4x the total pixel count. Most file types such as JPEG and TIFF are supported. You can especially use Super Resolution when you have to make large prints or increase the resolution of a cropped image.

This could be a huge feature for video editors, as I am always getting images that are way too small for what I need. 

Now from what I see this need to be either activated through Adobe Bridge 2021 for non RAW images, or by opening a RAW image in Photoshop, activating the RAW panel form within Photoshop doesn’t seem to allow this happen.

So open the image from within Camera RAW.

Now if the Open in Camera Raw doesn’t show up for JPEG or HVEC files, you can go to the Camera Raw Preferences.

And select File Handing.

And under JPEG, HEIC, and TIFF Handing you should select Automatically open JPEGs and HEICs with settings.

Once you get the image in Camera RAW, you right click on it (or control click if you don’t have a right mouse button on Mac) and chose Enhance or hit Shift+Command+D.

This will bring up the Super Resolution Dialogue box.

And when you hit Enhance, it will a little time and double the size of the image, quadrupling the resolution and amaz�ingly it looks damn good. Way better than previous scaling. The image will be an Adobe DNG file.
I wish they would put this in as a feature in Photoshop itself to do it easier, and let you chose format, but the results can’t be argued with.
I have a feeling I will be using this quite a bit!

Stu Maschwitz has updated his Prolost EDC Presets to version 2.5

Stu Maschwitz, author of the DV Rebel’s Guide and designer of the Magic Bullet color grading system for Red Giant and now Chief Creative Office of Maxon has updated his Prolost EDC Presets for Adobe After Effects. You can pay what you want, though they default is $4.

EDC, as in “everyday carry” — the stuff you don’t leave the house without. Whenever I install a new version of After Effects, these are the handy little timesaving presets that I drop in first.

Most of the EDC presets are simple. Shortcuts to common settings, better defaults for often-used effects, or better interfaces for my favorite expressions.

But hey, Prolost EDC has been around since 2015, and some of these tools have gotten quite powerful. Check out Prolost Array, or Prolost Levels, both new in v2.5.

I update this set from time to time, and you’ll receive a fresh download link every time I do. It’s like subscribing to my personal After Effects toolbox.

And these include 2 new powerful filters, Prolost Levels and Prolost Array, for a total of 48 presets. Well worth picking up for any price.

Adobe releases March 2021 of After Effects version 18

 Adobe has updated After Effects to version 18.0 with it’s March 2021 release.

They added Media Replacement in Motion Graphics Templates and essential Properties.

Real-Time 3D Draft Preview.

A 3D Ground Plane to give a sense of 3D Perspective.

Improved Composition Toolbar.

Team Projects Performance Improvements.

And the most exciting thing to me that is currently in beta testing, which is Mult-Frame Rendering using multi-core CPU that can have up to 300% Render improvements.

Adobe releases Premiere Pro March 2021 version 15.0 Update

 Adobe has released the official 2021 Release of Premiere Pro with version 15.0.

New features include a much needed all new Captions engine.

Media Replacement in Motion Graphics Templates.

Equitable Language with changes in terminology to reflect diversity and inclusion.

A woohoo feature is a Faster Warp Stablizer.

Team Projects has had improvements.

You can now copy and paste audio effects in the audio track mixer and legacy audio effects have been removed.

I just wish the Speach to Text feature was out of beta, but it hasn’t even hit a public beta yet, so I am guessing it will be a while, damn.

Pro Media Tools from Digital Rebellion is their tool for Media and Workflow Management

 

So I have been a user of the other Digital Rebellion tools, Post Haste, Preference Manager, and Pro Maintenance Tools, but I have never actually used it’s Pro Media Tools available for $99. It does have some tools that I would use on occasion if I had them.

Particularly it’s Batch File renamer with full support for Frame Numbers, it’s ability to manage markers, the ability to manage clup metadata, and especially it’s Timeline Tricks, where you can collapse tracks, remove disabled clips, strip filters and markers (this could be useful in emergencies and the collapse track would be quite useful at times. And it’s ability to scan for broadcast safe on files.

Again a batch of useful tools that if you need them it is good to know about them in the case that you do need them.