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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/75051
FEATURE REVIEW floating-point image processing The interface features a desktop view in which you can search and collect clips for processing, after which you toggle to a monitor view for getting down to business. SpeedGrade also provides automatic scene detection, keyframable pan and scan, plus a number of other bells and whistles. Audition It also includes more than 80 new or updated effects including 32 bit floating point color effects and some 64 bit effects as well (the CycoreFX HD Suite, an improved mocha AE workflow including a 2.5D planar tracking and rotoscoping tool. AE also provides native SpeedGrade support in which you can create looks in SpeedGrade and apply them like a standard filter. SpeedGrade SpeedGrade is the long-awaited app for high-end color management and color effects. It offers broad format support (including RAW, HDR, and stereoscopic) and provides auto color calibration for matching video from multiple formats and cameras. Adjustments are applied as multiple layers of primary and secondary color adjustments, grading tracks, and so on. Save the result as a look, and then selectively turn layers on and off to suit changes in scenes. You can also animate these changes and export the result. You can also use SpeedGrade to generate color look up tables that you can export to other apps in the suite to create common looks between video, stills and other artwork. It features the Lumetri deep color engine, which provides non-destructive 32-bit Video and audio go hand in hand, and for many years the audio side of Adobe's Mac offerings resembled the hands of the Maharelle sisters on 'SNL.' Replacing the anemic SoundBooth in the previous version of Production Suite, Audition may not be not in the same league as many pro DAWs, but it provides what you need and a great deal of what you want. It offers faster, more precise audio editing via such features as clip grouping, trim to time selection, edit preview with skip selection, envelope keyframe editing and direct clip editing in the properties panel. Other features include automatic speech alignment, multiple clipboards real-time clip stretching, sophisticated pitch controls (manually and by musical key). It also provides a range of new effects, support for VST3 plug-ins, and flexible effects routing. Audition features improved asset management via the media browser, plus panels for files, sessions, and markers panel plus offers improved batch processing. It supports a wider range audio and video formats plus provides support for radio automation, control surfaces, such as Avid and Mackie, plus round-trip editing with Premiere. Prelude While editing video and audio may be where the fun is at, it all starts with the collecting, inputting and logging of raw materials. While tape hounds may think longingly about the cool factor of auto logging from tape via FireWire, today's focus is on file-based media. This being the case, we bid farewell to OnLocation and welcome Prelude. Among other talents, Prelude offers full or partial ingest, transcoding during ingest, keyboard-driven logging, searchable temporal markers and metadata (including comments and subclips), as well as the production of rough cuts, thumbnail scrubbing, write confirmation, speech transcription (good luck with this one), and customizable markers. Plus, it is XMP extensible. Media Encoder and Encore While not the most glamorous jewels in this crown, Media Encoder offers a preset browser with support that ranges from such high-end formats as Epic and Scarlet to mobile devices. Standard features include drag and drop, watched folders, the creation and organization of presets, and batching. Encore offers fairly robust authoring of DVDs, web DVDs and Blu-Ray. It is now64 bit native, supports 8 bit color menus and buttons, Blu-Ray slide shows exceeding the previous limit of 99 slides, and the display correct aspect ratios in DVD simulations. There is still room for further enhancement but with the shift away from physical media, this may not be a priority in the future. Observations Taken by components, this suite ranges from must have to why not but as a whole CS6 Production Premium offers most everything you need, as has been discovered by exiles from the Cupertino camp. This is not to say that things couldn't be much better. Possibilities for improvement may include such things as physics effects, particles, instant effects previews and a bit of handholding for intermediate users who can't figure out where those black sidebars came from. This suite offers a great combination of power, tools, format support and workflow integration that is well worth the investment for those serious in creating great video projects, and for a price that is entirely reasonable for the power it is packing. Product > Made by > Price > Adobe CS6 Production Premium Adobe Systems (Adobe.com) $1,899.00, Upgrade from CS 5.5: $375.00, Creative Cloud p/m: one year $49.99, monthly $79.99 Pros > Cons > Rating > A fair number of passionately requested features A smattering of outdated features 105 MacDirectory