Adobe Premiere Pro CC to include MorphCut

Adobe Premiere Pro CC to include MorphCut – There’s something with the potential for greatness coming to the new Adobe Premiere Pro. In the right hands, this can be used for smoothing edits between different portions of a continuous clip, without having to cut over to a B roll, making (interviews in particular) edits cleaner and fixing a potential slew of problems.
My worry is what it’s going to do in the wrong hands. For example, the hands of politicians, news media, unscrupulous attorneys…
Take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6wPUtKg-Ac

New Adobe Character Animation Application Shown at NAB

At the NAB Conference from April 11th to April 16th, Adobe announced a new app, coming to Adobe Creative Cloud members.

Adobe Character Animator does just what it says it will do. You can use pre-created characters that appear to come with the app, or you can create your characters using Photoshop or Illustrator and animate them. I believe I’m initially most impressed with the facial recognition and animation activation, which takes prompts directly from your webcam.

Of course, version 1 of anything will have it’s issues – but this looks really promising!!!

http://www.rgbhq.com/nab-2015-adobe-character-animator-preview/

MANY new Adobe Updates coming SOON!

Up until today, I was under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to not reveal what’s coming up to MANY of my student’s favorite Adobe Apps – but today, with the announcement at NAB, all may be revealed. In fact, Adobe themselves revealed what’s to come to Adobe Premiere Pro (oh, my goodness, what they’re doing!), After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Muse, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Audition!

You can check out the upcoming changes to the Video Editing apps here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/coming-next-to-adobe-pro-video-tools/

I’m sure there’re going to be many more blog posts at Adobe, to tell us the rest…

A Guide to Using Waveform Monitors as Artistic Tools in Color Grading

For my students who’re color grading their footage using an external waveform monitor – Tektronix has just posted a Primer on Color grading theory and techniques.

AND, it’s my second favorite price- FREE!

http://www.tek.com/regional-page/guide-using-waveform-monitors-artistic-tools-color-grading?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=publications&utm_content=guidetocolorgrading&utm_campaign=aimclear

Creative Cloud Backlash

SO many people are responding negatively to Adobe’s recent announcement of their sole offering of a cloud based Creative Cloud subscription that I’m seeing dozens of posts on the subject. The article below offers some links to follow the discussion (read: Rebellion), and a link to a petition to sign, if you find a life-long payment plan is not for you!

http://creativebits.org/photoshop/creative_suite_6_forever

Who says you don’t get Nuthin’ for Nuthin’?

OnOne Software, one of the premiere Photoshop Plug-In makers is offering an EXCELLENT FREE version of their Photographic Effects Plugin software for Photoshop. On the same page, they also offer several presets for Lightroom, Aperture, and Camera Raw.

This is FREE, people! And the effects and interface are very flexible and very cool!

Check them out at http://www.ononesoftware.com/free/

40% Discount for the CS6 Creative Cloud Ends SOON!

According to John Nack’s blog (the Adobe Evangelist and Blogger) If you own a CS3 or later Adobe app, you can subscribe to Creative Cloud & get all the CS6 apps, 20GB of storage, and more at a huge discount ($29.99/month instead of $49/month in the US)–but note that the offer ends August 31st.

Check it out: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2012/07/40-creative-cloud-discount-ends-in-one-month.html

Adding an “Impossible Gradient” to Editable Type

Jeff Witchel, an Adobe Certified Instructor for Adobe Illustrator and a frequent contributor to Layers Magazine (which many of you know is one of my favorite resources), has created a video tutorial for the addition of Gradients to type, WHILE keeping the type editable. This is one of those un-obvious Illustrator controls (uses one of my favorite tools – the Appearance Panel) that will help a bunch of you!

http://www.jeffwitchel.net/2012/03/apply-an-impossible-gradient-to-editable-type/

 

Tutorial – Using the History Brush with Filters – Photoshop

When I don’t get a chance to make my own tutorials, I still appreciate the work of others. Graphics.com has posted a nice tutorial on using the History Brush to control where Filter Effects…um… affect your image. Check it out!

http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=1007