After Effects region of interest

This is a post about After Effects. It just doesn’t look like one at first glance. Stick with me for a minute.

When we’ve visited customers who are still using earlier versions of After Effects, we’ve asked them why they haven’t upgraded to After Effects CS5, since it has so many new and great features and improvements.

A common answer surprised us: “It’s too hard to deploy Creative Suite software.”

I’m writing this to say that we acknowledge that this used to be true, but we’re pretty confident that the current experience is much, much better. The team responsible for the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE) tools has been working hard to solicit feedback from IT folks and then act on that feedback to create an easier, more effective, more efficient way to deploy software to large numbers of users and maintain those deployments.

This video gives an overview of the new and improved deployment experience, and this post on the Adobe Installation and Licensing blog gives a pretty good idea of just how much better things have gotten. For more information on AAMEE and related tools, see more posts on the team’s blog.

So, if the only thing keeping you from upgrading to the newest and best version of After Effects (or any Creative Suite software) is your fear of the enterprise installation and maintenance systems, give us another look.

We’re gearing up for a big show at NAB 2011 and Post|Production World, and we hope to see you there.

I’m especially anticipating the Post|Production World Conference. I learn a lot there each year… and this year I’m teaching a couple of sessions, too:

• Avoiding and resolving common problems with After Effects
• Optimizing performance for Production Premium

Here’s a complete schedule for Post|Production World Conference sessions. You’ll notice that my sessions are in direct competition with those of such luminaries as Angie Taylor and Chris and Trish Meyer. I won’t blame you if you go to their sessions instead. I’m also really looking forward to sessions by Luisa Winters, Alex Lindsay, and Richard Harrington. I feel like a kid in a candy store when I look at the schedule full of so many great teachers and subjects.

Speaking of things that I learn a lot from each year: I’ll be one of the folks answering questions at the “Ask the Expert” station at the Adobe booth again this year. Come by with questions, or just come by to say “howdy”. We’ll be in the South Hall.

We’ll be doing a lot more than answering questions in the booth. We’ll also be showing off all of our professional digital video and audio applications, including some new things. For example, we’ll be showing Adobe Premiere Pro working with broadcast partner offerings, such as ENPS. We’ll also be showing stereoscopic 3D editing workflows using Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Theater presentations will be going on all day, every day, featuring workflows using Adobe software in productions like Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Monsters, and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Stop by the booth and pick up a show schedule.

If you click this link to go to the NAB registration site, your checkout will include a promotional code that provides a $100 discount, which you can apply to Post|Production World Conference sessions.

Whether or not you’re going to NAB this year, you can keep track of what’s going on by following the Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition teams on Facebook and/or Twitter, as well as by subscribing to the team blogs. We’ll be posting a lot of news and information the week of the event (and after that). If you’re going to be tweeting about Adobe stuff at NAB, use the hashtag #AdobeNAB to take part in the big conversation.

If you want to keep up with the latest developments in Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Adobe Media Encoder, and Adobe Story, consider subscribing to the respective teams’ blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. If you want to give feedback and ask questions, then consider using the respective forums and feature-request/bug-report tools.

Here’s a handy set of posts by each of these teams that give details:

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Audition
• After Effects
• Adobe Story

Communication about Adobe Media Encoder tends to go through the After Effects and Premiere Pro channels, but there is also a dedicated Adobe Media Encoder forum.

Also, insofar as Photoshop is a crucial video application, I recommend subscribing to Jeff Tranberry’s blog. Jeff is full of suggestions for how to keep all of your Creative Suite applications updated and running well, and he also has lots of information about Camera Raw and other components shared with video applications like After Effects.

Oh, and speaking of updates… You should make sure that you have the most recent updates installed. There are a lot of bug fixes in there.