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Production Premium CS4
Adobe - Creative Suite Production Premium
 
 
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About Production Premium CS4
- Adobe Illustrator CS4
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
- Adobe Flash CS4
- Adobe After Effects CS4
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
- Adobe Encore CS4
- Adobe OnLocation CS4
- Adobe Soundbooth CS4
Plan, create, and deliver anywhere with the intelligent post-production solution
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium is the most complete solution for creative professionals who need to craft world-class video, audio, and interactive media--on-air, online, on device, and invariably on deadline.
The production challenges of today and tomorrow are mastered with a tightly integrated cross-platform toolset for taking productions from planning through to completion. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium software is the complete solution for video and audio editing, still and motion graphics, visual effects, and interactive media, as well as DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and mobile authoring. There are countless innovations, improvements, and features found in Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium that, when combined, give you the most important benefit of all--time. The time to explore, imagine, create, and deliver compelling productions.
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium gives you the power to:
Work with the complete solution for pre- and post-production. With Adobe's complete solution, you can take a production from planning through delivery using powerful, intuitive tools that make the creative process smooth and efficient. Production Premium combines the latest video, audio, and design tools from Adobe.
Search for spoken dialog, make video clips searchable, and access rights management information and other types of project intelligence thanks to new support for XMP metadata across Production Premium.
For preproduction, use industry-standard Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, Adobe Illustrator CS4, and Adobe After Effects CS4 software to create storyboards and animatics.
During production, use Adobe OnLocation CS4 to bring your preproduction planning on-set and capture video footage directly to disk.
In post-production, edit your footage, create motion graphics and visual effects, customize your soundtracks, and produce interactive experiences with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Adobe After Effects CS4, Adobe Soundbooth CS4, and Adobe Flash CS4 Professional software. Use Adobe Bridge to quickly browse, locate, manage, and preview your digital assets across all the Production Premium components.
For authoring and delivery, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium helps you deliver your most compelling story not only for traditional film, video, and DVD, but for Blu-ray Discs, the web, and mobile devices with Adobe Encore CS4, Adobe Device Central, and Adobe Media Player software.
Take creative control. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium provides best-in-class components that give you unparalleled creative control. Produce engaging experiences by leveraging innovative new 3D workflows and enhanced editing and design features. For example, you can use Photoshop CS4 Extended to rotate and transform 3D objects, directly paint on them, and add lighting effects to help ensure quality results. Then, import Photoshop 3D layers into After Effects for complete animation and compositing flexibility. And, add new depth to your Adobe Flash CS4 Professional projects by animating 2D objects in 3D space. For powerful editing control, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 offers more than 50 editing enhancements that streamline your workflow by automating tedious, repetitive tasks, so you can focus on telling your most compelling story. Use features such the new Cartoon effect in After Effects, multitrack support in Soundbooth, and object-based animation in Flash to show off your ingenuity.
Work more efficiently. Streamline the entire creative process with Adobe Dynamic Link: edit your work in one component of Production Premium (or in Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection) and see and hear it update immediately in another--without intermediate rendering. This powerful capability can save valuable time on every project. In addition, you can save time when working with audio in Soundbooth CS4 by using convenient roundtrip editing functionality that streamlines audio workflows in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, After Effects CS4, and Flash CS4 Professional.
Getting content into your Production Premium workflow from multiple sources is now faster and more efficient. During production, monitor footage and eliminate the time- consuming capture-from-tape process by recording footage directly to disk using Adobe OnLocation CS4. Or take advantage of the efficiency of tapeless workflows in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4: edit files from the latest tapeless formats natively (AVCHD, P2, and XDCAM EX) without transcoding or rewrapping, and benefit from broad format support for DV, HDV, FLV, HD, and beyond. While recording to disk, you can capture important metadata and retain it throughout your workflow for fast, intelligent media management. When using powerful new speech-recognition technology in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4, you can instantly extract text from spoken dialogue and save it as metadata that makes your footage and the videos you produce searchable.
To help maintain your creative flow, you can now continue to work on your projects as Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and After Effects CS4 encode files in the background using Adobe Media Encoder.
Make the most of Production Premium: using both Adobe Bridge Home--an online channel available in Adobe Bridge CS4--and Adobe Community Help, you get access to comprehensive online help tools that enable you to discover tips and resources that can help you work smarter and faster. Watch the latest video tutorials for your Creative Suite 4 Production Premium software, listen to a podcast interview with a leading producer, or learn about the next training event in your community. Plus, with Resource Central you get convenient access to Soundbooth Scores, sound effects, product-specific news, and more, to help you add polish to your productions.
Production Premium also makes it easy to collaborate with clients during every phase of production. Use Adobe ConnectNow, an Acrobat.com service, to gather feedback from your clients by sharing project storyboards in Illustrator or Photoshop Extended online before you shoot. While on location, use Encore to output SWF file versions of your dailies to post online. Expedite review cycles with Adobe Clip Notes, which embeds your video project into a PDF file and returns timecode-specific comments to the timelines in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. These features foster better communication with clients and other team members, and give you the flexibility to adopt location-independent workflows.
Deliver to any screen. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium helps you extend your reach by enabling you to deliver high-quality content to audiences whether they're viewing it in a theatre, their living room, the office, or on the road. Use Encore to create DVDs and high-definition Blu-ray Discs, and with one click, easily save projects you designed to be delivered to disc as interactive content compatible with Adobe Flash Player for the web. Deliver engaging experiences to billions of mobile subscribers by generating content quickly for multiple devices from a single After Effects composition--new integration with Device Central, which puts the latest mobile device profiles at your fingertips through a dynamically updated online device library, makes the process fast so you can make intelligent design decisions without going through a time-consuming trial and error process.
Top new benefits of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium includes hundreds of new features and enhancements. The following are some of the most important benefits of this new release.
New integration, including expanded Dynamic Link, for exceptional productivity
Tighter-than-ever integration among Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium components lets you work faster so you can stay in the creative flow.
Adobe Dynamic Link. In Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, the expanded Adobe Dynamic Link gives you tighter-than-ever integration when moving assets between After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, and Encore. Work faster and stay in the creative flow by eliminating intermediate rendering when you make changes to assets, whether you're editing a sequence of clips in Adobe Premiere Pro, changing a composition in After Effects, refining a project in Encore, or sweetening audio in Soundbooth.
Save time on every project by dynamically linking content between select components of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium. With Adobe Dynamic Link, you can see and hear updates instantly--without rendering--as you refine your project's assets.
Here are some of the ways you can use Dynamic Link:
- Send sequences directly from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to Adobe Encore CS4 without rendering them first. Sequences open immediately in Encore--any changes you then make in Adobe Premiere Pro are automatically reflected in Encore. Encore also reads chapter markers from the sequence, making it easy to set DVD chapter markers directly in the Adobe Premiere Pro Timeline.
- Use sequences from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 as a layer in your After Effects composition without rendering. Any changes you make to the sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro are automatically reflected in your After Effects comp.
- Dynamically link Adobe Premiere Pro sequences and After Effects compositions to Adobe Soundbooth for quick audio sweetening.
- As with previous versions of Production Premium, you can dynamically link After Effects compositions to an Adobe Premiere Pro project, where the comp looks and acts just like any other clip. However, when you make changes in After Effects, they're automatically reflected in the Adobe Premiere Pro sequence. Similarly, you can dynamically link After Effects compositions to Adobe Encore projects.
Import live Photoshop 3D layers into After Effects. Leverage the new support Photoshop CS4 offers for 3D workflows by importing 3D models and using industry-standard painting tools to enhance their appearance. (For more information, see page 12.) Then, import Photoshop 3D layers into After Effects, move them in space, animate cameras around them, adjust lighting, and composite them with other elements. This new integration makes it easier than ever to composite 3D elements into a scene, and saves time by enabling you to make more design decisions right in After Effects.
Export After Effects comps as layered projects for Adobe Flash CS4 Professional. In Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, After Effects compositions can now be exported as layered projects that can be opened in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional. Native FLV, PNG, and JPG sources that have been transformed or faded are passed straight through, while many After Effects assets, such as text or Illustrator artwork, are preserved as vectors. Pixel-based layers--including video and rich graphics--may be rendered to a variety of formats including FLV, and are then presented as layers in Flash CS4 Professional.
Roundtrip audio editing. Convenient roundtrip editing saves you time. Now you can use the Edit In Soundbooth command from within Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, Adobe Premiere Pro, or After Effects to send assets directly to Soundbooth, where you can clean up or enhance your audio. After your edits are complete, the files easily update in the Timeline or Project panel of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, or After Effects CS4. You also can drive animation or create captions in Flash by laying down markers in Soundbooth CS4 and exporting them as XML or FLV files. Plus, the new Adobe Sound Document (ASND) format lets you save your multitrack audio projects created in Adobe Soundbooth as ASND files that can be easily shared with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, and After Effects CS4 software.
Roundtrip editing gives you another way to share assets between select Production Premium components. Send your audio files to Soundbooth from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, or After Effects using the Edit In Adobe Soundbooth command.
These new features build on the integration previously available in Production Premium, offering you new ways to move assets fluidly between components as you refine your work.
Project intelligence with new XMP metadata support
Metadata is the unsung hero of an efficient workflow, and the key to the perennial challenge of making video searchable. You have great footage, but do you know where it was shot, who the talent is, and if you have the rights to use it? And more importantly, can you--and your viewers--find the video content that's most relevant? Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium delivers innovative, industry-leading solutions that answer these questions.
New XMP metadata support. This release of Production Premium pioneers new ways of using XMP metadata to make video assets searchable in After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, Encore, and OnLocation. Other components of Production Premium, including Illustrator, Photoshop Extended, Adobe Flash Professional, and Adobe Bridge, also offer XMP support for a complete, end-to-end metadata solution.
Metadata describes the content or characteristics of a file. With XMP metadata-enabled applications such as the components of Production Premium, meaningful descriptions and titles, searchable keywords, and copyright information can be captured and embedded in the file using a format that is easily understood by you as well as by software applications and hardware devices. And, as an open-source and extensible technology, XMP is freely available to developers and provides industry partners with standards-based building blocks to develop optimized workflow solutions.
Use new Speech Search to make dialogue in video assets searchable. Use powerful new speech recognition technology in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4 to turn spoken dialogue into text-based metadata that makes your video searchable. This new capability solves one of the biggest challenges in taking video online by automatically turning any spoken word into a keyword that points precisely to the places in a clip where the word is spoken. This unleashes considerable power, for both post-production professionals and all of us who watch video online. During the editing process, creative professionals can use Speech Search to quickly find the relevant points in a particular clip, or easily locate the right clip based on what gets said in it. Equally importantly, the time-accurate text that corresponds to spoken words is embedded in the output you render from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4, so your video is searchable by other tools that can read XMP metadata, such as search and indexing engines.
Use the powerful new Speech Search feature in both Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4 to automatically generate metadata that makes video searchable by linking the spoken word to timecode-specific text.
In Adobe Premiere Pro, Speech Search can significantly speed the time-consuming process of wading through large quantities of footage to find the relevant clips. For example, you can quickly find all of the clips in a project that contain a particular word, or the opening lines of a scene from the script you're shooting, by searching from the Project panel. Once you've narrowed your search, you can search within a particular clip for a word or phrase by using the Source Monitor, or you can skim the preliminary transcript that appears in the Metadata panel. Both approaches are significantly faster than manually scrubbing through a clip to find, for example, the spot in a long interview where the subject talks about a transformative trip to Zambia. Additionally, you can tab from word to word in the Metadata panel to make edits while ensuring that text remains synchronized to the spoken word. Soundbooth CS4 enables similar functionality, and exports text as cue points to drive animations in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional.
Acquire and retain asset intelligence throughout the production process. Because it's easiest to capture key information about your assets when you're creating and refining them, Production Premium offers automated processes for accumulating intelligence about them at every step of the production process. This asset intelligence--stored as XMP metadata--can speed the editing process, and it also adds value by enabling downstream searchability, tracking, and other types of communication--leaving creative professionals free to focus on visual decision-making.
During preproduction, create storyboards and plan camera moves using Photoshop CS4 Extended, Illustrator CS4, and After Effects CS4. Then, build a shot list in Adobe OnLocation CS4 that lays out your shooting sequence in advance and lets you keep track of details such as shot location, production team or DP notes, audio gear used, and so on.
When you use Adobe OnLocation CS4 on-set, essential metadata--such as lens focal length, white balance settings, and frame rate--are captured automatically. You can manually add to this metadata at the shoot to indicate which shot is the best take, or to log notes while recording. If you reshoot a scene, each new take inherits the metadata from the master shot. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, After Effects CS4, Soundbooth CS4, and Encore CS4 all include the Metadata panel, so you can view and track these and other important details throughout your post-production workflow. Metadata also makes your assets searchable within the Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Project panel, so you can locate assets and clips by filename, date, time, camera setting such as resolution or frame rate, shot location, or any other search term you've added to your asset or clip. (For more information about Adobe OnLocation CS4, see page 7.)
In After Effects, you can add new project- and layer-level metadata to streamline the flow of information within your projects. The new Metadata panel allows you to view and edit the metadata embedded in your media, which also makes it easier to integrate After Effects CS4 into an asset-management system. Metadata can also be accessed and edited using custom scripting. For example, you can generate a report of stock footage used in a composition in order to help determine accurate payment for rights-managed assets.
Next-generation tapeless camera support and tapeless workflows
Efficiently edit a variety of tapeless camera formats natively to save time and to retain the pristine image quality of your source material--without transcoding or rewrapping. You can import and natively edit content from Panasonic P2 cameras in DVCPRO, DVCPROHD, and AVCHD formats, and across multiple P2 cards. Similarly, you can import and edit content from Sony XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD cameras directly. Access the footage you want before you import it by viewing camera metadata and organizing files in the Media Browser panel. You can also edit directly from the P2 card via the camera or a card reader, or the SxS card using the camera or a card reader (XDCAM EX only), or you can use the Media Browser to transfer content to disk for better performance.
Connectivity with colleagues, clients, and peers
Tap into the power of the online community through your creative desktop. New online services accessed from within Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium let you search for help from the online community; share your screen with colleagues or clients in a few quick clicks; get color inspiration from your peers; and more. With new online services in Creative Suite 4, you can take your ideas to the next level.
Collaborate with your colleagues and clients. When you're collaborating with colleagues and clients, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium offers three ways to speed up the pre- and post-production process.
- During the planning stage, you can initiate an Adobe ConnectNow web-based meeting session from within Illustrator CS4 or Photoshop CS4 and share storyboard ideas and concepts online with up to two guests at no additional service charge. ConnectNow is one of a set of services on Acrobat.com, which also offers file sharing and storage, PDF conversion, and an online word processor. These additional services are accessible via the Acrobat.com AIR application (included) and your web browser. (Internet connection required.)
- For client review of dailies, use Encore to create a SWF file version of your project compatible with Adobe Flash Player to share the day's shoot online.
- Expedite post-production review cycles with Adobe Clip Notes, available in both new and previous versions of Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Embed your video in a PDF file, then simply e-mail the file to your client to review and add timecode-specific comments, which you can view mapped to the Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects Timelines.
Collaborate with your peers. Get the power of an online search engine within Production Premium, but with more targeted results thanks to Adobe Community Help. Searchable content includes in-depth product-specific Help, plus additional Adobe and third-party content chosen by experts in the production and design communities. With Adobe Community Help, you can find the focused answers you need to remove roadblocks. It's the next best thing to shouting over your cubicle wall for help. (Internet connection required for extended content.)
Adobe Kuler panel. You don't have to be a digital artist to pick the right colors for your graphics, titles, and lower-third graphics. Using Adobe Kuler, explore, create, and share color themes in Illustrator, Photoshop, or Flash. Kick start your creative projects with color inspiration from the online Kuler community. Browse thousands of themes by newest, most popular, or highest rated; or search themes by tag word, title, or creator. Themes can be downloaded and moved to your Swatches panel with a single click. Or use an interactive color wheel that supports standard harmony rules to develop your own color themes that you can save, move to your Swatches panel, and upload to share with others. (Internet connection required for community functionality.)
Adobe Bridge Home. Visit Adobe Bridge Home--an online channel available in Adobe Bridge CS4--and stay up to date with what's new from Adobe and the video and audio production, design, web development, and communities at large. Watch the latest video tutorials for your Creative Suite 4 software, listen to a podcast interview with a leading designer, or learn about the next training event in your community. Discover tips and resources that can help you work smarter and faster, making the most of your Production Premium software. (Internet connection required.)
Adobe Resource Central. Access product-related news and tutorials by using the Resource Central panel in Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Encore. Jump-start your audio projects with drag-and-drop efficiency using Soundbooth Scores and audio effects offered online. (Internet connection required. There are additional fees for some content accessed through Resource Central.)
Adobe OnLocation CS4 for shooting direct to disk and monitoring footage
Adobe OnLocation CS4 is powerful cross-platform (Windows and Intel-based Macs), direct-to-disk recording and monitoring software that helps you shoot better and faster. The completely redesigned interface puts control of all functions on a single screen and features the familiar look and feel of other Adobe creative applications. Use the professional on-set monitoring tools to calibrate your camera, set levels, and monitor signals to obtain the best quality video and audio and avoid time-consuming and potentially costly problems.
Shooting and capturing video directly to disk lets you record a two-hour event as a single clip or shoot as many takes of a scene as you need to get it right--no changing tapes, no solid-state memory time limits, no missed action. It's a director's dream come true--but when you're editing, finding that one perfect take among dozens of outtakes can be difficult. To make it easier, Adobe OnLocation CS4 offers a Shot List that enables you to re-record multiple takes of the same scene retaining the metadata automatically from the original master shot. When you edit the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro, you can search for a favorite take simply by searching for metadata logged while you originally recorded the footage. Or, run the speech-to-text feature in Adobe Premiere Pro, which uses new metadata support to find words spoken by the talent.
For information about more features in this latest version of Adobe OnLocation, see Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 What's New.
Improved editing efficiency with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 includes more than 50 of the most requested editing enhancements that make the nonlinear editing workflow more efficient. These powerful and flexible editing features let you navigate your tools more quickly, access the assets you need faster, view detailed information in the manner you want to view it, speed up work in the Timeline with new keyboard shortcuts, eliminate time-consuming intermediate rendering with Adobe Dynamic Link (for more information, see page 3), and much more.
Timesaving editing enhancements
The many new features designed to help you work more productively include the ability to:
- Create new subclips by simply dragging content directly from the Timeline to the Project panel.
- Align new keyframes with existing ones by placing them precisely from within the Effect Controls panel--as you move keyframes, they snap to Sequence Markers, the playhead, clip edges, and other video or audio keyframes.
- Use Copy and Paste to apply transitions while maintaining destination attributes like transition duration.
- Paste clips directly at the end of previous clips--the playhead jumps automatically to the end of pasted clips.
Robust timecode display
Precise editing and communication with clients are facilitated by the accurate display of timecode information. Whether you're working with news footage gathered in the field, telecined film footage, or clips shot on a camcorder that supports timecode only by way of an accessory pack, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 offers you a variety of timecode display options. The source-media timecode display format acts as the default in both the Project panel and Source Monitor. If there is no timecode or frame rate associated with the media, say if it's a still graphic or was shot on a camera that doesn't record timecode, Adobe Premiere Pro will use the format specified in the Project Settings. You can display SMPTE-style timecode or frame-count timecode that you can set to start at frame 0 or 1.
Place items in the Timeline with timecode accuracy by dragging and dropping them. See up-to-date timecode information in the Info panel as you drag clips. Choose the appropriate timecode display mode separately for each sequence in your project. Use any supported timecode format as the timecode display mode in the Timeline, Info panel, and Timecode controls. View source-media information for clips in the Timeline using the Info panel.
More options with multiple selections
In the same manner as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro now allows you to create and save combinations of effects as a single preset and apply them to multiple clips in a single action, helping you to work more efficiently. In Adobe Premiere Pro, applying a default transition across multiple selected clips, adjusting the speed/duration of a large number of clips all at once, or adjusting the audio levels on a number of selected clips without having to tweak them individually are just a few examples of how you can reduce time-consuming repetitive tasks.
For information about more features in this latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro, see Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 What's New.
Motion graphics and visual effects with industry-standard After Effects CS4
Packed with enhancements that streamline everything you do, Adobe After Effects CS4 is a must-have release that makes you more productive. Dozens of new features make it easier than ever to transform creative ideas into reality.
Searchable timelines and projects, plus easier nested-comp navigation
As your projects become more complex, it can be challenging to find a specific layer or other asset--especially when you're on deadline or when you're working in an unfamiliar project. After Effects CS4 eliminates this frustration by including live search functions directly inside the Timeline and Project panels. This new feature saves considerable time scrolling through lists and twirling open layers to manually reveal their contents. You can search projects for specific foo