8 PREMIERE’S PRE- AND POST-PRODUCTION WORKFLOW
Premiere expands upon its ability to turn the spoken word into text while importing by adding Adobe Story and OnLocation to the mix. Adobe Story is part of the new CS Live Suite, and it helps you develop and break down your script for production. OnLocation utilizes the character and story metadata in Adobe Story to automatically create placeholders in your imported media. Premiere and OnLocation now support the latest tape-based and tapeless cameras (including the current and upcoming RED cameras) for the ultimate in flexibility on set.
9 PHOTOSHOP GOES 3D
Using Photoshop CS5 Extended, you’ll finally be able to easily create 3D extrusion effects with the new Repoussé tool, which puts some serious extrusion controls in your hands right within Photoshop’s 2D world. While it’s no substitute for a fully featured 3D-modeling program, it’s really cool when used with text for quick 3D logo treatments, and the new ray tracing renderer does a passable job making it look like a professional product.
10 ILLUSTRATOR’S DASHED LINES AND ARROWS FINALLY BEHAVE
In previous Illustrator versions, dashed lines never intuitively negotiated around angles, as seen in the ugly corner points of the blue star in the screenshot—yuck. But now a simple toggle aligns dashes to corners, as illustrated by the black star. Also, in the “no longer asinine” category: Arrowheads that don’t hide in the Effects menu! Arrowheads are now in the Stroke panel, and the size of the heads themselves can be easily adjusted; they’re no longer linked to a stroke’s point size.
THE REST OF THE CS5 GANG
The four apps we’ve focused on so far are the core of Creative Suite 5, but Adobe’s got loads more in the box. Check out the new features in the other key members of the CS5 family.
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
The Mac’s premiere motion-graphics tool, After Effects is a staple for animators, videographers, and special effects experts. Besides Photoshop, After Effects CS5 has some of the most significant updates in the CS5 lineup, and they’ll bring smiles to the faces of serious After Effects artists.
- 64-bit operation--essential for editing HD video.
- Overall rendering speed improvements—up to 30 percent faster than After Effects CS4.
- Roto Brush greatly facilitates complex compositing challenges, allowing you to quickly isolate elements from complex backgrounds.
- Refine Matte plug-in delivers exquisite mask edge controls for pro users.
- New features in bundled Mocha application include variable-width feathering of masks and improved motion tracking support.
- Custom color lookup table support, which is critical for high-end effects work.
- Bundled DigiEffects FreeForm plug-in for 3D coolness.
- Updated Color Finesse plug-in offers Vibrance, Highlight Recover, and HSL Curves for advanced color correction tasks.
- Numerous interface enhancements and refinements.
ADOBE FLASH PROFESSIONAL
You’ve probably read lots about the Flash controversy surrounding the iPhone and iPad, but regardless, tons of websites utilize Flash as a primary programming scheme to deliver data-intensive, custom-based experiences. And it’s still popular as a video-delivery codec too.
- Significantly beefed-up text handling and typographic control.
- DefineFont4, a new embedded font format in Flash files for retaining advanced type characteristics.
- XML-based FLA files offer more flexibility for managing Flash content development.
- Code Snippets deliver modular code for easier programming functionality.
- The addition of Springs to the integrated IK (inverse kinematics) system for better, more realistic animation effects.
- New graphics tools include particle system, grid brushes, and natural effects brushes.
ADOBE SOUNDBOOTH
The audio-editing component of the Adobe stable, Soundbooth is primarily designed for editing audio to be used in video projects, but it’s easily pressed into service on more mundane editing tasks, such as podcasts and music production. This revision isn’t very dramatic, mainly focusing on multitrack-editing interface tweaks and a bunch of new audio content.
- Resizable Track views for easier multitrack editing.
- Bundled with 10,000 sound effects.
- 130 customizable, royalty-free musical scores.
- Nondestructive, round-trip editing with Premiere.
ADOBE DREAMWEAVER
Long considered a go-to website editor, the Dreamweaver CS5 update primarily addresses integration with external PHP-based CMS systems, such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. It also continues to refine features introduced in CS4, such as the Live View previewing. It’s not a huge improvement over CS4, unless you regularly work with the aforementioned CMS solutions.
- Works directly with editing and design of sites based on popular CMS systems.
- Live View now works with dynamic links and dynamic-data driven pages.
- Live Code provides real-time JavaScript tracing and debugging.
- Emulates previews on multiple browsers entire within Dreamweaver.
- Dynamically parsed PHP code for better debugging.
- Enhanced CSS starter templates and layouts.
ADOBE FLASH CATALYST
This new program is geared towards providing a set of Flash-coding tools to folks who are intimidated by the main app, and it does a fairly nice job of letting you sketch up Flash-based websites without much hassle. You start with Photoshop-, Illustrator-, or Fireworks-based mockups and can add interactivity and dynamic data processing with a minimal amount of work or coding. The results can be saved as SWF or Adobe Air executables.
- Codeless creation of Flash sites.
- Predefined interface elements for modular development.
- Timeline-based event editing tools.
- Pro-quality transitions and animated element blending.
- Extensive rich media (video) support.
