Getting started
Adobe Premiere Pro is a powerful tool on its own, but it is also part of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium. You can purchase Adobe Premiere Pro by itself and use all its built-in features, or you can purchase it as part of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, where it becomes one piece of a powerful combination of integrated components.
Anyone who works with print graphics or does photo retouching has probably used Adobe Photoshop. It is the workhorse of the graphic design industry. Adobe Photoshop is a powerful tool with great depth and versatility, and it is becoming an increasingly important part of the video production world. In this lesson, you will explore how to use the integration features between Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro.
Adobe After Effects is the de facto standard in the video production industry for text animation and motion graphics. In this lesson, you will explore the unique integration between Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects for powerful and timesaving techniques.
Exploring Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium
Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium is not just a collection of software bundled together in a box. This suite of components is designed to work together through common interface elements and tight integration to provide you with the tools you need to move from vision to output on virtually any platform.
Adobe Premiere Pro by itself is a powerful tool for acquiring, editing, and outputting video projects. As part of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, however, it becomes even stronger. If you purchased Adobe Premiere Pro by itself, you may not be able to follow along with all the examples in this lesson, but please read through them to understand how Adobe Premiere Pro fits into the larger picture of this suite of products. If you purchased Adobe Premiere Pro as part of Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium, read on to experience the impressive integration and timesaving techniques engineered into the product.
Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium combines Adobe Bridge CS5, Dynamic Link, and Adobe Device Central CS5, and it includes the following components:
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
- Adobe After Effects CS5
- Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended
- Adobe Flash Professional CS5
- Adobe Illustrator CS5
- Adobe Soundbooth CS5
- Adobe Encore CS5
- Adobe OnLocation CS5
You have already taken a look at capturing with Adobe OnLocation, importing Photoshop and Illustrator files, and sweetening and mixing audio with Soundbooth.
In this lesson, you’ll focus on the integration among Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop.
Importing Adobe Photoshop files as sequences
Making the move to Photoshop means joining forces with just about every image-editing professional on the planet. It’s that ubiquitous. Photoshop is the professional image-editing standard.
Photoshop has some strong ties to Adobe Premiere Pro and the entire DV production process:
-
Editing in Adobe Photoshop: Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) any Adobe Photoshop graphic in Adobe Premiere Pro—in either the Timeline or the Project panel—and choose Edit in Adobe Photoshop (or Edit Original). This launches Adobe Photoshop and lets you immediately edit the graphic. Once saved within Adobe Photoshop, the new version of the graphic appears in Adobe Premiere Pro.
-
Exporting a filmstrip: This feature is specifically designed to export a sequential collection of video frames for editing in Adobe Photoshop. You open the filmstrip in Adobe Photoshop and paint directly on the clips—a process called rotoscoping.
-
Creating mattes: Export a video frame to Adobe Photoshop to create a matte that will mask or highlight certain areas of that clip or other clips.
-
Cutting objects out of a scene: Adobe Photoshop has several tools that work like a cookie cutter. You can remove an object and use it as an icon, make it into a button in a DVD menu, or animate it over a clip.
-
Importing PSD files: You can natively import Adobe Photoshop PSD files with video, blend modes, and layers.
You looked briefly at importing Adobe Photoshop CS5 files as footage in Lesson 3. In this exercise, you will take a closer look at importing a layered Photoshop file into Adobe Premiere Pro as a sequence.
- Open Lesson 19-1.prproj. Notice there is a bin in the Project panel named Finished. Expand the Finished bin, and open the Finished sequence if it’s not already open.
- Play the Finished sequence, and notice that the title at the bottom of the screen is animated in layers.
Titles appearing at the bottom of the frame like this are often referred to as lower thirds. The lower-third graphic is a nested sequence called finished lower third. In the following steps, you are going to open that sequence to see how it was made and then re-create it.
- Inside the Finished bin is another bin named Finished Lower Third. From that bin, open the “finished lower third” sequence.
This sequence is built from a Photoshop image that has three layers.
- Move the current-time indicator to about two seconds into the sequence. Toggle the track output off for each video track (click
the eye icon), and then toggle them back on to see the contents of each track. Examine the Motion settings of each clip, and
notice that the Motion effect was used to animate each clip to achieve an interesting appearance.
You will now re-create this lower third by importing the Photoshop graphic into a new sequence.
- Collapse the Finished bin in the Project panel so you are back at the root level of the bins.
- Import lower third.psd from the Lesson 19 folder. When prompted, choose to import as a sequence rather than as layers, and click OK.
- Expand the new “lower third” bin that has been added to the Project panel. This bin contains three clips that constitute the three-layered Photoshop file. It also contains a “lower third” sequence that has the three layers assembled in the same layered order as they were in Photoshop.
- Open the lower third sequence by double-clicking it in the Project panel, and press the backslash (\) key to expand the view in the Timeline.
)
)
)
Re-creating the lower-third animation
The next step is to re-create the lower third animation. Here’s how:
- Select the Lower Third bg/lower third clip, and open the Effect Controls panel.
- Expand the Motion fixed effect, and then position the current-time indicator at about one second into the clip.
- Enable keyframes for the Position parameter by clicking the stopwatch. This places a keyframe at the position of the current-time indicator. Change the Position value to –360, 240. This adds a keyframe at this position. Next, move the current-time indicator ten frames, and change the Position value to 360, 240.
- Play the sequence to verify that the lower third background slides from the left side to the center over the first second of the clip. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the second keyframe, and set Temporal Interpolation to Ease In. Play the sequence again, and notice what a nice touch the Ease In setting has on the animation.
- Expand the Opacity effect, and notice that Opacity is set to 70%. This Opacity value was set in Photoshop and is imported correctly in Adobe Premiere Pro.
- Select the film reel/lower third clip, and expand the Motion fixed effect in the Effect Controls panel. Set a Position keyframe just after one second, at about 00;00;01;10. Change the Position value to –360, 240. Set another keyframe at 00;00;01;20 by changing the value of this position keyframe to 360, 240. This will animate the logo off the left side of the frame at the beginning of the clip.
- Play the sequence. You can adjust the speed the logo travels by moving the second keyframe farther from or closer to the first keyframe. Experiment with this until you have the speed you desire. Also set the Ease In option on the second keyframe as you did on the background clip motion.
- The text of the lower third should follow the logo so you can copy the logo’s animation and paste it in the text clip. Select the Logo/lower-third clip, click Motion, and choose Edit > Copy.
- Select the Behind the Scene/lower third clip, click a blank area inside the Video Effects panel, and choose Edit > Paste.
The animation of the sequence is complete. The only step left is to superimpose this lower third over the interview clip.
- Create a new DV – NTSC Widecreen 48 kHz sequence by choosing File > New Sequence. Name it Practice.
- Drag the Behind_the_Scenes_SD.avi clip to the Video 1 track of the Timeline, and press the backslash (\) key to expand the view in the Timeline.
- Drag the lower third sequence you just animated to the Video 2 track above the writers 1 clip. Adjust the position of the lower third so it starts about one second after the interview clip starts.
- To polish it all off, drop a Cross Dissolve transition on the end of the lower third sequence clip.
The lower third animation sequence references the original Photoshop file. So if you change the original Photoshop file, the changes will ripple through any instances where it was used in Adobe Premiere Pro. For example, you might open the lower third.psd file in Photoshop and change the background or text color. When you save the Photoshop file, the changes will immediately be reflected wherever that file was used in Adobe Premiere Pro.
)
)
Using Dynamic Link with After Effects
Adobe After Effects is the tool of choice for editors who want to produce exciting and innovative motion graphics, visual effects, and animated text for film, video, DVD, and the Web.
Adobe After Effects users tend to fall into two distinct camps: motion-graphics artists and animated-text artists. Some production houses specialize in one or the other. After Effects can do so much that it will be hard to wrap your brain around all of it. You are likely to use only a subset of its creative prospects.
Surveying After Effects features
After Effects has numerous options:
-
Text creation and animation tools: Create animated text with unprecedented ease. After Effects offers dozens of groundbreaking text animation presets. Simply drag them to your text to see them in action.
-
Leading-edge visual effects: More than 150 effects and compositing features enhance your images well beyond the capabilities of Adobe Premiere Pro.
-
Vector paint tools: Use built-in vector paint tools based on Adobe Photoshop technology to perform touch-up and rotoscoping tasks.
-
Comprehensive masking tools: Easily design, edit, and work with masks using flexible autotracing options.
-
Tight Adobe integration: Copy and paste assets, compositions, or sequences between Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. Preserve layers and other attributes when you import Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator files. The Adobe Dynamic Link feature (remember, available only in Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium) means you will not need to render an Adobe After Effects composition before moving it between Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore.
-
Motion Tracker: This option accurately, quickly, and automatically maps the motion of an element and lets you add an effect to follow that action.
Looking at the Adobe After Effects workspace
In this exercise, you will animate the same lower third graphic that you did at the beginning of this lesson. You will import the same Photoshop file into Adobe After Effects, use After Effects tools to animate the three layers of the graphic, and then use Adobe Dynamic Link to link the After Effects animation into the Adobe Premiere Pro Timeline.
- In Adobe Premiere Pro, open Lesson 19-2.prproj.
- Launch Adobe After Effects.
- In After Effects, open the finished.aep file by choosing File > Open Project and selecting finished.aep from the Lesson 19 folder.
Notice the many similarities to the Adobe Premiere Pro user interface.
As with Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects has a Project panel, but the icons and terminology are a bit different. For instance, Adobe Premiere Pro sequences become compositions in After Effects.
Double-clicking a composition (as shown here) opens it in the Timeline panel. Instead of tracks, you work with layers in Adobe After Effects.
- Scrub the Adobe After Effects Timeline to see the final animation you will create.
- After Effects may not be able to play back the animation in real time, depending on your computer speed. However, After Effects can do a RAM preview when you press the 0 (zero) key on the numeric keypad or click the RAM preview button in the playback controls. This renders the Timeline to RAM and then plays it back smoothly in real time.
- Close finished.aep by choosing File > Close Project.
)
Animating the lower third
In this exercise, you will start a new project in After Effects and create the animation you just saw in the finished example.
- With After Effects still open, import the lower third.psd file by choosing File > Import File and selecting lower third.psd from the Lesson 19 folder. Change the Import As parameter from Footage to Composition, and click Open.
- A dialog will open where you can specify the kind of composition import. Accept the default, as shown here, and click OK.
- Double-click the lower third composition icon in the Project panel to open the composition in the Timeline.
- Notice the Adobe Photoshop CS5 layers are intact and in the correct order in the Timeline. Scrub the Timeline, and you will see this is a static graphic. No animation has been applied yet. Return the current-time indicator to the beginning of the clip.
- Locate the Effects & Presets panel on the right, and expand the * Animation Presets folder. Within that folder, expand the Transitions – Movement folder. Drag the “Zoom – 3D tumble” preset to the Lower Third bg layer of the Timeline.
- Do a RAM preview of this effect by pressing the 0 (zero) key on the numeric keypad.
Next you will animate the logo.
- Position the current-time indicator at the one-second mark, just as the lower third background animation is finishing.
- Drag the Slide – Swoop preset (located in the Transitions – Movement folder) to the Film Reel layer. RAM preview the Timeline.
After Effects has some dazzling animation presets designed especially for text. These animations are aware of individual characters, words, or lines of text. You’ll use one of these text effects on the text layer. However, because you didn’t create the text in Adobe After Effects, After Effects doesn’t know the layer is text. You need to tell After Effects that the top layer (Behind the Scenes) is text.
- Select layer 2 (the Behind the Scenes text layer), and choose Layer > Convert to Editable Text. Now Adobe After Effects will treat this layer as text that can be edited and animated with special text effects or presets. After Effects indicates this is a text layer by showing a T icon to the left of the layer name.
- Position the current-time indicator at the one-second mark on the Timeline.
- In the Effects & Presets panel, expand the Text folder within the *Animation Presets folder. Within the Text folder, expand the Animate In folder, and drag the Raining Characters In preset to the Behind the Scenes text layer in layer 2.
- Do a RAM preview.
- Save the project by choosing File > Save. Save the project in the Lesson 19 folder, and name it ae practice.aep.
)
)
)
)
Importing a project from Adobe After Effects to Adobe Premiere Pro using Adobe Dynamic Link
With the animation complete, it’s time to use it in your Adobe Premiere Pro project, superimposed over the behind-the-scenes clip. In the past, this would have involved rendering the animation out to a movie, importing the movie into Adobe Premiere Pro, and then placing it in the Timeline. If you ever wanted to change the animation, you would have to edit the movie in Adobe After Effects, rerender it, and re-export it, which would be very time-consuming. With Dynamic Link, the process is much simpler.
- Leave Adobe After Effects open, and open or switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro.
It is not necessary to leave After Effects open for Adobe Dynamic Link to work, but you will be editing the animation again, so to save time here, you will leave it open.
- In Adobe Premiere Pro, open Lesson 19-2.prproj, and then open the Lower Third sequence.
- Drag Behind_The_Scenes_SD.avi from the bin to the Video 1 track.
- Import the After Effects composition you just made via Dynamic Link by choosing File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition.
- On the left side of the Import Composition dialog, navigate to the Lesson 19 folder, select ae practice.aep, select the ae_practice composition in the right window, and click OK.
- This adds the lower third/ae practice composition to the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel. Drag it to the Video track above
the Behind the Scenes clip.
Position it about one second after the start of the interview. Trim the end of the ae_practice composition so it is about seven seconds long.
- As a nice finish, add a Cross Dissolve transition to the end of the lower third Dynamic Link clip so it dissolves away.
- Render and play the sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro.
You now have an After Effects animation playing in Adobe Premiere Pro—and you didn’t need to render or export the animation in After Effects. This is a real timesaving feature. The power of this feature becomes more obvious when you need to edit or tweak your animation.
)
)
Editing an existing dynamically linked animation
In this exercise, you will make an adjustment to the animation in After Effects to show the dynamic nature of this feature:
- Leave the project open in Adobe Premiere Pro, and switch to After Effects, which should still be open, with the lower third composition open.
- Set the current-time indicator position to the beginning of the After Effects Timeline.
- In the Effects & Presets panel, expand the Backgrounds folder, which is inside the * Animation Presets folder.
- Drag the Silk preset to the Lower Third bg layer. Do a RAM preview to see this effect.
- Without saving the After Effects project, switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro.
- Play the sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro. Without saving the After Effects project, the changes you made in Adobe After Effects are already updated in Adobe Premiere Pro. That’s why they call it Dynamic Link!
Replacing a clip with an After Effects composition
There are times when you’re editing an Adobe Premiere Pro project and you want to apply some special effects that are available in After Effects. You could create a new After Effects composition and import it into Adobe Premiere Pro with Adobe Dynamic link, but there is an even faster way to do it. You can convert a clip or clips on an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence to an Adobe After Effects composition right from the Timeline. Let’s give it a try:
- Open Lesson 19-3.prproj. This project already has the After Effects title sequence linked via Dynamic Link in the Video 2
track.
You want to apply a special effect to the Behind_The_Scenes_SD.avi clip to make it look like bad TV reception. After Effects has this effect as a preset.
- Right-click the Behind_The_Scenes_SD.avi clip in the Practice sequence, and choose Replace With After Effects Composition.
- You will be prompted to name the new After Effects project. Name it writers bad tv.aep in the Lesson 19 folder, and click Save.
- Locate the Bad TV 2 – old effect in *Animation Presets > Image – Special Effects, and drag it to the Behind_the_Scenes_SD.avi
clip.
Without saving the After Effects composition, switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro, and notice the Bad TV 2 effect is applied to the writers clip. You may need to render the sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro to see it play back smoothly. This is a fast way to apply special Adobe After Effects effects to a clip in Adobe Premiere Pro.
)
)
)