By Brady Betzel

Adobe has had a tradition of releasing Creative Cloud updates prior to NAB, and this year is no different. The company has been focused on improving existing workflows and adding new features, some based on Adobe’s Sensei technology, as well as improved VR enhancements.

In this release, Adobe has announced a handful of Premiere Pro CC updates. While I personally don’t think that they are game changing, many users will appreciate the direction Adobe is going. If you are color correcting, Adobe has added the Shot Match function that allows you to match color between two shots. Powered by Adobe’s Sensei technology, Shot Match analyzes one image and tries to apply the same look to another image. Included in this update is the long-requested split screen to compare before and after color corrections.

Motion graphic templates have been improved with new adjustments like 2D position, rotation and scale. Automatic audio ducking has been included in this release as well. You can find this feature in the Essential Sound panel, and once applied it will essentially dip the music in your scene based on dialogue waveforms that you identify.

Still inside of Adobe Premiere Pro CC, but also applicable in After Effects, is Adobe’s enhanced Immersive Environment. This update is for people who use VR headsets to edit and or process VFX. Team Project workflows have been updated with better version tracking and indicators of who is using bins and sequences in realtime.

New Timecode Panel
Overall, while these updates are helpful, none are barn burners, the thing that does have me excited is the new Timecode Panel — it’s the biggest new update to the Premiere Pro CC app. For years now, editors have been clamoring for more than just one timecode view. You can view sequence timecodes, source media timecodes from the clips on the different video layers in your timeline, and you can even view the same sequence timecode in a different frame rate (great for editing those 23.98 shows to a 29.97/59.94 clock!). And one of my unexpected favorites is the clip name in the timecode window.

I was testing this feature in a pre-release version of Premiere Pro, and it was a little wonky. First, I couldn’t dock the timecode window. While I could add lines and access the different menus, my changes wouldn’t apply to the row I had selected. In addition, I could only right click and try to change the first row of contents, but it would choose a random row to change. I am assuming the final release has this all fixed. If it the wonkiness gets flushed out, this is a phenomenal (and necessary) addition to Premiere Pro.

Codecs, Master Property, Puppet Tool, more
There have been some compatible codec updates, specifically Raw Sony X-OCN (Venice), Canon Cinema Raw Light (C200) and Red IPP2.

After Effects CC has also been updated with Master Property controls. Adobe said it best during their announcement: “Add layer properties, such as position, color or text, in the Essential Graphics panel and control them in the parent composition’s timeline. Use Master Property to push individual values to all versions of the composition or pull selected changes back to the master.”

The Puppet Tool has been given some love with a new Advanced Puppet Engine, giving access to improving mesh and starch workflows to animate static objects. Beyond updates to Add Grain, Remove Grain and Match Grain effects, making them multi-threaded, enhanced disk caching and project management improvements have been added.

My favorite update for After Effects CC is the addition of data-driven graphics. You can drop a CSV or JSON data file and pick-whip data to layer properties to control them. In addition, you can drag and drop data right onto your comp to use the actual numerical value. Data-driven graphics is a definite game changer for After Effects.

Audition
While Adobe Audition is an audio mixing application, it has some updates that will directly help anyone looking to mix their edit in Audition. In the past, to get audio to a mixing program like Audition, Pro Tools or Fairlight you would have to export an AAF (or if you are old like me possibly an OMF). In the latest Audition update you can simply open your Premiere Pro projects directly into Audition, re-link video and audio and begin mixing.

I asked Adobe whether you could go back and forth between Audition and Premiere, but it seems like it is a one-way trip. They must be expecting you to export individual audio stems once done in Audition for final output. In the future, I would love to see back and forth capabilities between apps like Premiere Pro and Audition, much like the Fairlight tab in Blackmagic’s Resolve. There are some other updates like larger tracks and under-the-hood updates which you can find more info about on: https://theblog.adobe.com/creative-cloud/.

Adobe Character Animator has some cool updates like overall character building updates, but I am not too involved with Character Animator so you should definitely read about things like the Trigger Improvements on their blog.

Summing Up
In the end, it is great to see Adobe moving forward on updates to its Creative Cloud video offerings. Data-driven animation inside of After Effects is a game-changer. Shot color matching in Premiere Pro is a nice step toward a professional color correction application. Importing Premiere Pro projects directly into Audition is definitely a workflow improvement.

I do have a wishlist though: I would love for Premiere Pro to concentrate on tried-and-true solutions before adding fancy updates like audio ducking. For example, I often hear people complain about how hard it is to export a QuickTime out of Premiere with either stereo or mono/discrete tracks. You need to set up the sequence correctly from the jump, adjust the pan on the tracks, as well as adjust the audio settings and export settings. Doesn’t sound streamlined to me.

In addition, while shot color matching is great, let’s get an Adobe SpeedGrade-style view tab into Premiere Pro so it works like a professional color correction app… maybe Lumetri Pro? I know if the color correction setup was improved I would be way more apt to stay inside of Premiere Pro to finish something instead of going to an app like Resolve.

Finally, consolidating and transcoding used clips with handles is hit or miss inside of Premiere Pro. Can we get a rock-solid consolidate and transcode feature inside of Premiere Pro? Regardless of some of the few negatives, Premiere Pro is an industry staple and it works very well.

Check out Adobe’s NAB 2018 update video playlist for details on each and every update.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.