It’s fall, pumpkin spice is in the air, the holidays are Christmas decorations are going up, and software giant has just released updates to their entire Creative Cloud suite of applications. Because the updates are so extensive, I’ve decided to do a multi-part series of DDMC entries that focuses on the new changes in detail for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop/Lightroom, and a new app Premiere Rush. I just downloaded Rush today to my phone to put it through it’s paces so I’m saving that application for last but my first rundown of Premiere Pro’s new features is ready to go!
END TO END VR 180
Premiere Pro supports full native video editing for 180 VR content with the addition of a virtual screening room for collaboration. Specific focal points can be tagged and identified in the same way you would in your boring 2D content. Before you had to remove your headset to do any tagging but now you can keep your HMD (Head Mounted Display) on and keep cutting. I’m just wetting my feet with VR but I can see how this could revolutionize the workflow for production houses integrating VR into their production workflow. Combined with the robust networking features in Premiere Pro and symbiotic nature of the Adobe suite of applications this seems like a nice way to work on VR projects with a larger collaborative scope.
DISPLAY COLOR MANAGEMENT
Adobe has integrated a smart new feature that takes some of the guesswork out of setting your editing station color space. Premiere Pro can now establish the color space of your particular monitor and adjust itself accordingly to compensate for color irregularities across the suite. Red stays red no matter if it’s displayed in Premiere Pro, After Effects, or Photoshop!
INTELLIGENT AUDIO CLEANUP
Premiere Pro can now scan your audio and clean it up using two new sliders in the Essential Sound panel. DeNoise and DeReverb allow you to remove background audio and reverb from your sound respectively. Is it a replacement for quality sound capture on site? No. But it does add an extra level of simplicity that I’ve only experienced in Final Cut Pro so I’m happy about this feature.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
Premiere Pro is faster all around but if you’re cutting on a Mac you should experience a notable boost due to the new hardware based endcoding and decoding for H.264 and HEVC codecs. Less rendering time is better rendering time.
SELECTIVE COLOR GRADING
Lumetri Color tools and grades are becoming more fine tuned. This is a welcome addition as Adobe discontinued Speedgrade and folded it into Premiere Pro a while ago. All your favorite Lumetri looks still remain but video can be adjusted to fit the color space of any still photo or swatch you like. Colors can also be isolated and targeted for adjustment which is cool if you want to change a jacket, eye, or sky color.
EXPANDED FORMAT SUPPORT
Adobe Premiere now supports ARRI Alexa LF, Sony Venice V2, and the HEIF (HEIC) capture format used by iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
DATA DRIVEN INFOGRAPHICS
Because of the nature of my work as a videographer for an institution of higher education this feature actually has me the most excited. Instrutional designers are constantly looking for ways to “jazz up” their boring tables into something visually engaging. Now there is a whole slew of visual options with data driven infographic. All you have to provide is the data in spreadsheet form then you can drag and drop in on one of the many elegant templates to build lower thirds, animated pie charts, and more. It’s a really cool feature I plan to put through it’s paces on a few projects in place of floating prefabricated pie charts.
All these new additions make Adobe Premiere Pro a solid one stop editing platform but combined with the rest of the Adobe suite, one can easily see the endless pool of creative options that make it an industry standard!
Stay tuned for Part II: Adobe Rush!
