The April 2019 release of Adobe Creative Cloud video and audio software, showcased at NAB 2019, introduces significant enhancements to Premiere Pro and After Effects. These updates focus on boosting performance and efficiency, leveraging Adobe’s Sensei artificial intelligence engine to accelerate post-production tasks traditionally handled manually.
After Effects
A standout feature is Content-Aware Fill for video, now integrated into After Effects. Initially designed for still images in Photoshop, it empowers artists to repair or repurpose shots by removing unwanted elements from video clips, such as production equipment, microphones, visual effects wires, or out-of-context elements captured on set.
Content-Aware Fill, for instance, helps avoid re-shoots by eliminating visual distractions or resolving continuity issues like a car passing in the background or dust on a camera lens. This significantly reduces manual labor, particularly in 360 VR projects, where almost no part of the set is off-camera to hide crew or equipment.
Powered by Adobe Sensei, Content-Aware Fill replaces masked objects, shadows, or artifacts with backgrounds generated from adjacent pixels and other frames in the clip. Through VFX techniques like optical flow and 3D tracking, Content-Aware Fill intelligently estimates motion and depth of a masked object to construct a replacement background for each frame. For complex shots, refine the results with reference frames edited in Photoshop.
Expressions Editor
Writing Expressions is now simpler and more visual thanks to the Expressions Editor. This new code editor, built into After Effects, works with the Expressions engine to create better animation workflows. Expressions are concise snippets of JavaScript used to link animation properties without creating numerous keyframes. They can also be employed to construct dynamic designs that respond to changes or data.
The Editor enables users to visually navigate code with syntax highlighting, line numbers, matching brace highlighting, and code folding, which improves speed and accuracy. Customize the Editor window with different color themes to showcase the code’s structure and utilize in-line error messages for contextual solutions.
When applying GPU accelerated effects, like Roughen Edges and Change Color, rendering speeds up because of 16- and 32-bit color support. Automated syncing of missing typefaces is now available for Adobe Fonts in After Effects and for Motion Graphics templates. Adobe Fonts lets users sync fonts from a large library with Creative Cloud applications on a desktop or use them directly on websites.
Team Projects
Complex Team Projects now load faster, and workflows between Premiere Pro and After Effects run more efficiently. The GPU acceleration from the Metal renderer improves playback for RED footage, with new deBayering support for the Metal renderer on macOS, and support for Sony VENICE v3 has been added. Due to enhanced hardware decoding for H.264 and HEVC, editors will experience smoother playback performance.
Guide Templates are an example of the new cross-platform functionality shared between After Effects and Premiere Pro. They establish visual consistency in designs and across a team. They include the familiar snapping functionality, aiding in the precise layout and sizing of titles, graphics, still images, and video. These guide templates can be color-coded and saved, enhancing project efficiency for editors and graphic artists alike.
Premiere Pro
Another noteworthy tool in Adobe Premiere Pro is the Freeform Project panel, which gives editors more control over content management while keeping stories in view. The new Freeform view expands the Project panel into a broader canvas for arranging media and visualizing ideas. You can arrange clips, sequences, bins, and other assets into customized layouts, enlarge hero shots, and build assembly edits that can be dragged onto the timeline. Clips can be color-coded and grouped to save space.
By preserving distinct layouts for various tasks inside the same bin, you can move effortlessly between them as you work. Options to display metadata types or clip thumbnails control bin appearance.
Text Tools
The Essential Graphics panel centralizes all titling and graphics tools. New options for adding multiple strokes and stroke styling–as used in Japanese and Korean titling and lower thirds, for example–will help enhance titles. You can use background fills or masks with text to dramatically impact titles and text.
Like After Effects, syncing free Adobe Fonts is automatic, resolving the frequent issue of missing typefaces. Define your preferred default font as a fallback, or use a one-click solution to replace fonts throughout a project.
Graphics for Editors
This release gives editors more versatility in crafting graphics and animations within Premiere Pro, utilizing the Essential Graphics panel. You can drag and drop multiple Motion Graphics templates to work more efficiently. Grouping shapes and applying masks can be done directly from the panel as well.
Editors also have increased control over audio elements. For example, reorder audio effects in the effects rack and copy the settings between audio tracks. Moreover, when using ambient sounds to enhance the atmosphere and sense of place in your video, Auto Ducking automatically senses speech and distinct sound effects, adjusting the volume of ambient sounds under dialogue and music. Since this function uses Adobe Sensei AI, the adjustments are keyframed, enabling further fine-tuning of your sound mix later if required.
Mask Tracking is faster, even at higher resolutions, making Lumetri Color and effects workflows more effective. Hardware encoding for H.264 and HEVC is improved, ensuring smoother playback. The Metal renderer’s GPU acceleration enhances the playback of RED footage, similar to After Effects. General improvements to load balancing for GPUs, encompassing eGPUs, results in quicker rendering and exporting times, especially when working with professional codecs, like Apple ProRes, RED, and others. Finally, a new System Compatibility Report utility checks for performance bottlenecks, such as outdated graphics drivers.
