Adobe Max Announced And I'm A Little Sad

It’s the end of the week and I’m just a wee bit tired. I’m grateful I’ve been busy with stuff. It’s been more and more of the on-going job hunt activity. And when I say “job,” I’m not necessarily meaning a “traditional 9-5” job. For the record, I’ve looked at a few of those, but I’m more and more interested in being an independent creator. Especially since we are continuing to see more layoffs over here. But anyway, the job push continues. Moving on to why I’m writing this today. . . .

Image by Ant Pruitt all rights reserved

When I wasn’t checking out the job market or shooting basketball games for MaxPreps, I was checking out tech news. One bit of news which got my attention was the announcement of Adobe Max. It was great news. . .sorta.

Each October, Adobe kicks off its creator conference covering everything from new software updates to creator-driven classes which help you get better with their products to networking with other creative artists from around the globe. I LOVE this event. I look forward to it each year.

I had every intention on attending the event this October until I saw that it was moved from Los Angeles to Miami. This hurt my heart. It took me a minute to get over it, actually. I was looking forward to driving down and seeing the event. But I can’t make a promise that I’ll get out to Miami in October. I’ll go over my budget and so forth in the coming weeks, but off the top of my head, I can’t see a cross-country flight happening. Especially since I don’t know if I’ll have to be in Eugene, Oregon screaming #scoducks. I don’t know. We’ll see. I may be able to figure it out. Sometimes, I actually can figure things out. Maybe I can get a gig with Adobe? That could offset costs, right? Hmmm.

Have you attended Adobe Max? If you’re a creator, you SHOULD. It’s an unbelievable event with great energy that can only help you as a creator. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Adobe Announce New Partnerships and Key Collaboration Tools at Adobe Max 2022

Adobe Max 2022 kicks off in Los Angeles with many expectations in this world of content creations with AI becoming more of a norm in the creative space. Adobe is set to announce improvements to its Adobe Sensei AI with several new tools built into it’s Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro tools and more. AI has been controversial in the creative space recently, but as I’ve said many times before, AI can be GREAT for content creators in an effort to speed up repetitive tasks. Here are some of the tools of note coming from Adobe.

Image: Adobe

Even Better Masking and Selections in Photoshop and Lightroom

Better AI for creating masks and selections in the photography tools will be a big hit. Selections and masks allow creators to work even better with compositing images or get into fine details of the retouching processing. Object selection in the 2021 release of Photoshop was pretty dadgum good. It’s now been optimized even further for better performance. This selection performance will also be available in Lightroom. In addition to the selection updates, Lightroom will also see a performance boost in healing brush and content-aware fill. More information on the Lightroom updates are available here on the Adobe blog, and here for the Photoshop updates.

Image: Adobe

Adobe Video Updates

On the video side of things, Premiere Pro and After Effects will see a performance boost in renders as well as faster performance on motion graphics templates (.mogrt files). I dig Premiere Pro, but found the .mogrt files included with the subscription to be PAINFULLY slow at times. So slow that whenever I found a graphic, I’d just try to build it myself from scratch because it rendered on the timeline faster. Native H.264 encoding will now be available in After Effects directly from the render queue instead of having to jump into the Adobe Media Encoder (AME) app. After Effects will also have some public beta announcements regarding track mattes, and animation presets as mentioned in the video below as well as on the Adobe blog here.

Cloud Collaboration Rules

Adobe previously announced it’s Frame.IO integration and it’s a big hit for video creators collaborating with other creators, as well as speeding up the review process with clients. Now, Adobe is partnering up with RED and Fujifilm for even more Camera-to-Cloud integration. It’s no secret that RED cameras are found on many sets of some of the biggest television series and movies on the market. Adobe has now certified Red and Fujifilm as partners in Camera-to-Cloud (C2C). What does this mean? Proxy and RAW assets captured on the likes of a Red V-Raptor can be uploaded to the FrameIO service allowing collaborators access to assets needed for the post-production process. A great demo is in the video below.

Adobe Max is available for free as a virtual event if you’re interested in checking it out. I wasn’t able to go this year, but I’m registered and look forward to checking out more from the team including some of their sneak peak projects.

FREE Adobe Max 2020 Registration Opens

The year 2020 has been an absolute mess of a year on so many levels. The pandemic has made things so much tougher on many businesses and consumers. This includes my favorite conference, Adobe Max. Since the COVID-19 pandemic continues its grip on our planet, Adobe, like many other companies, have pivot into a remote mode of operation. This includes this year annual creative conference, Adobe Max. Adobe Max 2020 will now be available to everyone for free online. No flying out to Los Angeles this year. Just mark your calendars for October 20th thru 22nd and attend virtually.

Image by Ant Pruitt all rights reserved

The show usually consists of a great keynote presentation sharing a bit of a recap of the previous year for Adobe as well as new products or feature launches for the coming year. There are also labs, sessions and interviews with great people from the industry. This year’s list of interviewees includes Ava DuVernay, Keanu Reeves, Tyler the Creator, and Annie Leibovitz.

When you register for Adobe Max, you’ll be able to not only view the keynote presentation and interviews, but you’ll be able to register for labs and sessions that you’re interested in. Just tailor your schedule to work best for you. If you’re interested in Photoshop, there are a lot of different sessions available to varying skill levels. It’s a really great experience that I think anyone in the creative space should look into.

Find out more about registration and sessions on the Adobe blog post here. I highly recommend you give it a look if you’re into the creative arts. Not just photography, but all the digital creative arts.