Simon Wyndham on RedShark News on him considering leaving the Mac for Windows Editing

Simon Wyndham at RedShark News has a good read on why he is considering moving back to PC after the lackluster Pro Laptops and the lack of a real Pro Mac.

Now I have been saying this for years now. I don’t want to leave Mac, as I like it much better than Windows, but Windows has really become superior for Professional Computer work. There is not the choice with Mac, and the fact that the MacPro is from 2013 and itself has no upgrade ability really limits the Mac. Sure I could go Hackintosh, but working on a Quo at work I have seen the issues with upgrading, and don’t really want to deal with it.

Apple has given up on the creative professional, and Microsoft has stepped up. Look at the next Windows Update for Creatives, and the Suface, Surface Book, and Surface Studio are really for creatives!

I think Apple is making a huge mistake by not making machines for the market that kept them afloat through all the bad years, but Tim Cook doesn’t seem to agree, and Apple will suffer for it.

No one is talking about the fact that Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 runs on Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra on Mac

So Adobe released it’s latest update to it Creative Cloud Suite yesterday, and no one is talking about one of the biggest things for Mac OS X users! The last version 2015, only ran on El Capitan, which was an issue for many (especially Hackintosh Users), not running on any earlier OS. Well with 2017 it seems things have changed!

Just check out the Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 System Requirements on Adobe’s site, and you will see what I mean!

Mac OS X  v10.10, v10.11 or v10.12

Yes, that means it now runs on Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra! Who releases a new version that works on earlier software? A company that listens! Wow! Awesome!

And I can finally upgrade to Sierra on my home machine!

Adobe releases Photoshop Creative Cloud 2017

Adobe has released the new version of Photoshop Creative Cloud 2017, here are the new features.

You can now chose templates to start a project from Adobe Stock.

There is now a Comprehensive Search, across UI elements, documents, Help and learning, and Stock assets.

There is now support for OpenType SVG fonts which include multiple colors and gradients in a single character glyph. And support for Emojis which can combine to change colors or create country flags.

The Polygonal Lasso has been added to the Selelct and Mask Workspace. And have high quality refined previews on mousedown.

Face-Aware Liquify now allows the eyes to be done independently or symmetrically.

Creative Cloud Libraries can now be archived and restored. And you can find stock assets similar to library assets with visual search, and you can drag and drop Adobe Stock elements into Creative Cloud Libraries. And you can share your libraries and Library Assets, which will update across Creative Cloud apps.

There are Property Panels Improvements. It is now part of the Essentials Workspace, and there are additional properties for type layers and stuff can be modified here. It also displays document properties when nothing is selected.

Adobe Camera Raw 9.7 has new been updated. There is now Pressure Sensative Support as well as new cameras and lenses.

And it now works with Adobe Experience Design CC, as SVG’s can be copied and pasted.

Other features include, Match Font Improvments, Click outside of a text box to commit text, open PSD files in your Creative Cloud files from the Start Screen, Layer Count is more accurate and includes Group Content, Improved Marquee Selection, Select Highlight Color, Minimum Radius threshold with Smart Radiu, Surface Blu is 10x for 16 bit images, improved contrast in interface, new Preview checkbox in Liquifiy, ability to hide widgets in Face aware liquify, use Apple MEtal with AMD processors in Mac with Oil Paint Filter, Gpano Metadata is preserved in Export As.

Adobe Released After Effects Creative Cloud 2017

Adobe has released Adobe After Effects Creative Cloud 2017, and here are the new features.

We have Collaboration with Team Projects.

Very excitingly a new 3D composition renderer from Cinema 4D, which I have read may be as fast as 20 times faster! Wooohoooo!!!

Performance Improvements with smarter GPU usage and more GPU accelerated effects!

An Improved Live Text template workflow, and Character Animator scenes in After Effects via Dynamic Link.

Also seamless integration of TypeKit Fonts, which will automatically sync if a font is missing when a project is opened (nice!).

New Project from Template with settings like color management and folder structure, which you can sync through Creative Cloud. I am so excited about this!

You can now freeze on the last frame.

You can set marker duration by dragging.

Avid DNxHD codec quicktime writing.

And finally Date and Time values in output name templates (YES!!! I know many companies that need to use this!).

Adobe Released Premiere Pro Creative Cloud 2017

For the start of the MAX conference in San Diego Adobe has updated Creative Cloud to 2017. Here is a new Feature Summary of Adobe Premiere Pro 2017.

First they have released Collaboration with Team Projects in Beta. And it is actually fairly reasonable. You it is an additional 29.95 a month for a single app or $69.95 for all Desktop apps (though currently it is Premiere Pro, After Effects and Prelude). This is in addition to the monthly for the suite.

Then their is additional VR support.

Visual Keyboard Shortcut Mapping (which they should have had since the start).

Enhanced open captions, Refined Lumetri Color Tools, and HDR support, Expanded Destination Publishing (something I have never used), Live Text Templates with Dynamic Graphics, Extra File Format Support including natvie QT DNxHD / DNxHR export! Improved Audio Effects with Higher Quality Sound Processing and improved Fidelity from Adobe Audition. Also faster GPU Accelerated effects, and improved support for Apple Metal.

Improvements to Dynamic Link with After Effects (woohoooooo)!

And a Global FX Mute Button for improved playback!

And it still works on El Capitan, which is nice for the Quo I work on, which I just spent too long getting it to run on El Cap to get it to Sierra. In fact it says it works with 10.10 10.11 or 10.12, so this actually goes back before El Capitan to Yosemite!

Adobe pulling an Apple with it’s awesome SpeedGrade and gutting it, and not updating it

As you can see from my last post, Adobe has just announced it’s next set of features for the Video Tools in Creative Cloud at IBC 2016. Unfortunately once again one program has been left out, Adobe SpeedGrade. Yes they are adding more color correction tools from SpeedGrade into Premiere Pro, but it has now been many years since SpeedGrade has had an update.

This is really a shame as it is a great color correction tool that needs some love, especially since it’s ability to do a grade, and have it roundtrip back to Premiere Pro as a plug in, makes it so much more powerful for projects that have many versions than doing a grade in the more powerful DaVinci Resolve, in which you have to render out your grade. With Master Clips Grades in SpeedGrade those grade would be there for whole clips in future versions while you edit.

I just think it is a shame that they seem to be gutting SpeedGrade and not giving it the love it deserves. It really needs multi-monitor support so you can pull your scopes to a different monitor, and it needs some updates, especially moving some of the tools they have created for Premiere and moving them back into SpeedGrade. The lack of updates make it looks like it will go the way of the dodo, much like Apple did with the amazing Shake and Color apps that they purchased and then killed.

The death of SpeedGrade is a real shame!

Adobe Creative Cloud Video and Audio Tools New Feature Reveals at IBC 2016

I just wish they would fix some of the bugs of 2015.3 quickly, as I have heard nothing but issues from people.

Check out an overview of the new features by Victoria Nece at the Adobe Creative Cloud Blog.

As for new features, the big one is Team Projects. A hosted service allowing collaboration between Premiere Pro, After Effects and Prelude. This could be huge if it works well. I like how media mapping can be different for each user. Finally something to fight AVID in large multi-user environments!

Premiere Pro and Media Encoder are next. Bronwyn Lewis has written about it at the Adobe Creative Cloud blog.

In addition to team projects, it now has enhanced Captions and Subtitle support.

Enhancements to the Lumetri Color Tool Sets, which rocks, though unfortunately likely also spells the death of the separate and more powerful Speed Grade Application which once again is not getting an update here.

There is even more expanded VR support.

And destination publishing (something I will likely not be using).

And something I likely will be using enhanced Live Text Templates from After Effects! As well as visual Keyboard Shortcut mapping tool like AVID has always had.

It also will work better with Apple Metal, and have faster Dynamic Linking, And Media Encoder will stitch together multiple clips to ease file management.

After Effects has new features gone over by Victoria Nece at the Adobe Creative Cloud.

It has the afore mentioned Team Projects, a new 3D rendering allowing bent planes and extruded 3D text and shapes within After Effects using Cinema 4D’s standard renderer!

It has faster performance with GPU’s and more GPU accelerated effects. The aforementioned Improved Live Text Templates, with TypeKit Font Sync.

And more Powerful Dynamic Linking.

And when creating projects from Templates settings like color management and folder structure can be passed on!

Dave Werner shares new features of Adobe Character Animator CC Beta.

Durin Gleaves talks about Audition CC’s new features. It has a cleaned User Interface, that more matches the rest of the creative suite and will work on high resolution monitors.