Importing After Effects compositions into Premiere Pro
The Help topic explaining this process now has a bit more detail now than it had before: Importing After Effects compositions
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The Help topic explaining this process now has a bit more detail now than it had before: Importing After Effects compositions
During recent workflow studies, I asked several video editors to import files of various formats into Adobe Premiere Pro. When they came to a set of files shot on a Panasonic P2 camera, and another set shot on a Sony XDCAM EX camera, most of the editors imported these files with the Import command (File > Import). They found this method time-consuming and confusing ("What should I do with all these XML files?" "Will the audio stay with the video?"), and seemed unaware that the Media Browser could have made importing these tapeless assets a breeze. They had never seen, apparently, the very helpful video tutorial, Importing tapeless assets in Media Browser, nor read the sections dealing with the Media Browser in the Help topic, Import assets from file-based sources. If you work with tapeless assets, spare yourself some confusion. Save yourself some time. Consult these resources
Let's say you have a stereo sound track with sound in only one channel, and that you'd like to make that same sound present in both channels. In Premiere Pro, you can do this with either channel mapping or by using the Fill Right or Fill Left effects. Workflow studies revealed, however, a lack of easy-to-find instruction telling how to do this. Hopefully, this new topic in Help, and the links leading from it, will make this easier to learn: Placing sound from one channel of a stereo clip into both channels.
Adobe commissioned a set of video tutorials aimed at helping users learn the ins and outs of Premiere Pro CS4. For a while, these tutorials were a bit hard to find, but now all 29 of them are listed on a single page on Adobe TV: Learn Premiere Pro CS4.
Adobe publishes TechNotes explaining workarounds and fixes for known bugs and workflow problems. The database of TechNote articles is therefore a great troubleshooting reference to which you can turn when you are having problems with Adobe Premiere Pro. Have you ever wondered how to search for Adobe TechNotes exclusive of every other type of article? You are not the only one. A new topic in Help explains how: Search for Knowlegebase TechNotes
In response to popular demand, when you press F1 or select Help > Adobe Premiere Pro Help in Premiere Pro, your browser opens to, guess what, the landing page of Adobe Premiere Pro Help (Using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4). At the CS4 release, the default behavior had been set to open your browser to the Premiere Pro Help And Support page which features community-created instructional materials. The default has now been re-set to bring you to the Help landing page: probably where you expected to go when you pressed F1 or selected Help > Adobe Premiere Pro Help.
Should you prefer to jump to the Help And Support page when you press F1, however, you can still change the default to that option by selecting Community Help towards the bottom of the Using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 landing page.
Workflow studies are very beneficial; everyone should do them. I gave some subjects this assignment: Import a layered Photoshop file into Adobe Premiere Pro, and animate the layers of the Photoshop file independently of one another. Those who had not done this task before searched for instruction, either in online Help, the Help PDF, or on the web at large, using Google. Searching for "premiere photoshop documents," and simply "photoshop," turned up nothing useful. One subject managed to find a relevant topic in Help, "Working with Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro" It provided an overview, but did not point the subject to the specific instructions he needed, which did exist in Help but elsewhere, in the topic, "Importing Photoshop and Illustrator files," and in particular, the sub-topic, "Import a layered Photoshop file." So, I've made some adjustments.
Retaining the independent layers of a Photoshop clip in Premiere Pro can be very handy indeed. Hopefully, those who want to try it now will find the instructions they need more easily.
A couple of workflow studies I conducted last week showed me that it has been less than easy to find instructions for how to export a Premiere Pro sequence into Encore for incorporation into a DVD. Part of the problem was that, in CS3, one found the appropriate command via File > Export. In Premiere Pro CS4, however, one finds it by way of File > Adobe Dynamic Link. The other part of the problem was that the title of the relevant Help topic, Create a DVD, Blu-ray disc, or SWF file, did not contain the word "Encore." Therefore, if you searched Help, Community Help, or the entire web for a phrase like "export movie to encore," you would not find Create a DVD, Blu-ray disc, or SWF file in your first page of search results. Hopefully, adding some new keywords, index terms, and posting this item will improve those search results.
For each of the file formats supported by Adobe Premiere Pro, it would be helpful to list the codecs Adobe Premiere Pro supports natively. A container format, such as AVI or MOV may contain audio and video content encoded with any of a number of encoders; a single file could even contain audio and video encoded with different codecs. Before trying to import, for example, an AVI encoded with say, the foo codec, it would be good for a video editor to know whether Premiere Pro supports the foo codec natively. If Premiere Pro does not, the video editor might first install a foo codec pack before importing the AVI file into a Premiere Pro project. Do you have a list of Premiere Pro's native codecs you'd like to share with the world; or, do you know of such a list to which you could point?
It's best to know the parameters of your primary assets before creating a new sequence for editing them. That way, you can set the sequence settings to match the asset parameters exactly. This improves Premiere Pro performance and reduces rendering time. Wondering which parameters to check, and how to check them? Check out: Preparing to create a sequence for your assets.
A workflow study I conducted yesterday showed me that it was not as easy as it should be for a video editor to find instruction about setting volume levels or normalizing clips and sequences, even though several topics giving the necessary instruction already existed in Premiere Pro Help. I noticed also that when the editor used "normalize" as a search term, it did not turn up the topics explaining the volume-setting audio effects. In a previous study, another video editor used "volume" as a search term, and this did not turn up the relevant topics about normalization. I've added some index entries, keywords, and links to Help that should soon improve the search results for both terms, and perhaps this blog post can also help editors find the relevant topics. Among them are:
Do you have any tips, or know of any already posted on the web, about setting volume levels or normalizing audio? We'd all love to hear about them. Email tips and URLs to me at muratore@adobe.com, or post them to the relevant pages in Premiere Pro web Help.
New, in Help: Play nested multi-camera clips in the Program Monitor.
A great source for video tutorials for Premiere Pro and other Adobe products, the new Adobe TV website is now live at http://tv.adobe.com. The press release tells us that this version of Adobe TV was
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architected and designed based on substantial input from users and internal stakeholders. It's the first website in the world to deploy a video player built with the Adobe Open Source Media Framework (aka Strobe), and one of the first sites built using Adobe ColdFusion 9.
The site has a brand-new look & feel, and many new features including:
• User-customizable homepage
• Vastly improved navigation & search
• Save your favorite episodes to "My Library"
• Share videos on social networking sites such as Facebook, Digg, and StumbleUpon
• Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite shows
• Pop-out video player to view videos at any size
• Commenting & Rating
• Tags
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Enjoy!
Speaking of effects, it turns out that our very own Adobe Premiere Pro custom search engine has been less than helpful in getting people searching for "effects" to Help topics such as:
Applying, removing, and organizing effects,
and
We are addressing the problem now.
In a workflow study I conducted last week, I looked on, silently, helplessly, as a video editor sought instruction for accomplishing a rudimentary task. She typed into the Google search window, first, "how to import AEP files into Premiere Pro." Then, since the results she got were so poor, she typed, "importing AEP files into Premiere Pro." Neither of these searches turned up the instruction she sought. One would have hoped to find, on the very first page of Google results, the following, very relevant, links:
Importing After Effects compositions
Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
Maybe this post will help Google, and video editors, find these topics.
Are you going to MAX?
Join Adobe reps for snacks, drinks, and a sneak peek at the version of Community Help that will make its debut in Premiere Pro CS5. We'd love to get your feedback on the all-new AIR interface and exciting new features.
The sessions will be held, at MAX, at these times:
• Monday 10/5/09 11:30 am - 1 pm
• Tuesday 10/6/09 4:30 pm - 6 pm
Please contact Tanya Knoop at tknoop@adobe.com if you think you can make either of these sessions. Tanya will send you details.