On this week’s Creator Office Hours I had a fun time answering questions from the live viewers regarding a few things. Some things which are fascinating. Some things which are absolutely craptastic. . .in my opinion. Check it out below.
Notes of discussion:
Importance of degrees and education
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I was sent some KRK GoAux speakers* to try out, recently. These are studio monitors designed to be ultra-portable allowing content creators the option to work on video and music projects wherever they go. The speakers feel nice and sound. . .well, just watch the video below to learn more about the GoAux 3* speakers.
Image: Ant Pruitt all rights reserved
*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.
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
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
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.
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.
The team at Blackmagic announced a new line of ATEM Mini products today. These models are the ATEM Mini SDI, SDI Pro and the SDI Extreme ISO.
Image: Blackmagic Design
ATEM Mini devices are pretty popular with popular live streamers, youtubers and content creators in general. Including my friend, PhotoJoseph.. The devices are quite useful in allowing a creator to run their own broadcast network as long as enough planning and effort is put in. I’ve previously spoken about the Extreme ISO on my channel, actually.
The main change with the new ATEM model is the input types. Previous models were packed with HDMI inputs. The new models use SDI input. This is an interface more popular in the broadcast camera space. Just like the previous ATEM family, it seems that the better value is to go with the Pro version or higher. Blackmagic mentions the features for the new SDI models below:
ATEM SDI Switchers Features
Features miniaturized control panel based design.
Supports connecting up to 8 cameras or computers.
Live stream via Ethernet on ATEM SDI Pro and Extreme models.
Phone tethering for remote streaming via mobile data on ATEM SDI Pro and Extreme models.
Records to USB disks in H.264 on ATEM SDI Pro and Extreme models.
Automatically standards converts and re-syncs all SDI inputs.
Includes free ATEM Software Control for Mac and Windows.
4 upstream ATEM Advanced Chroma keyers on ATEM SDI Extreme model.
Up to 6 independent DVEs on ATEM SDI Extreme model.
Customizable 16 way multiview on ATEM SDI Extreme model.
The new ATEM Mini SDI models start at $395. Granted, I don’t advise going with the base model. The Pro is $795 and the Extreme ISO is available for $1495. More information can be found on the Blackmagic website. You can order an ATEM Mini SDI from the folks at Adorama.*
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Each summer, Adobe pushes out features for its video editing software aimed at making the creative workflow more efficient. Whether it’s leaning on AI with Adobe Sensei, adding new features or just simply adjusting the user interface. Today’s the day for the latest on the Adobe Premiere Pro* updates.
Video creation is great, but apparently, video creation for social media is even better. With platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok pushing the video viewing behavior from the traditional “landscape” 16:9 aspect viewing to “portrait” 9:16 aspect viewing, it’s been critical that content creators embrace not only shooting for vertical viewing, but also editing for it. Adobe has added a dedicated Vertical workspace for this purpose. It has also updated the Essentials workspace to really help editors that are on a single screen or laptop.
Image: Adobe
Working with proxy files in video editing is nothing new, but Adobe has opt to make it more obvious to the editor that proxy files are being utilized in the project timeline. This is done by adding badges to the clips in the timeline that are proxies, as well as adding badges to the file in the project bin.
Image: Adobe
The update also includes the ability to add nice looking shadows and gradients to text you create as graphics in your video. The interface is still the same, there’s just another field added.
Image: Adobe
Other updates include improved performance for M1 Apple computers as well as additional GPU-Accelerated effects. More info on the update can be found on the Adobe blog post here.
*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.
Adobe has announced new updates for its Lightroom photo editing software. It’s the time of year where the children are out of school, vacation and travel time is picking up and more images will be snapped with your favorite camera of choice. Perfect time to get the most out of your photos and videos with updated editing tools. Here’s a quick look at some of the Lightroom updates announced.
Image: Adobe
You’ve been able to add video files to Lightroom for a handful of years now. Granted, I didn’t see much use for it, personally, but the capability was there. You couldn’t really do an “edit” to the video file if you needed to. Even something as simple as shorten the video. Makes sense considering Adobe offers several other video editing options with its Premiere Pro,* Premiere Rush* and After Effects* software. Now you can import video files to do some very light retouching as well as trim the video. You can’t create video with multiple clips are anything like that, but if you’re trying to retouch a single file, you can do so. This of it how you’d use the native photos app on your iPhone or Android device. There’s usually a simple video touch up option in it. This is the same as that, just with Adobe tools and AI included. This update is available for Lightroom, Lightroom on mobile and also Lightroom Classic.
Adobe’s Sensei AI has continued to get better over the years to help speed up the post-processing workflow. The mask tool in Lightroom is useful for doing selective adjustments. Now you can create a mask in a photo and apply the same type of selection as well as the parameters to another photo in your group. So if you’re trying to do a selective adjustment on a person to, but would like to apply the same processing to a product shot, you can with copy and paste. The AI will recognize the subject of each image and process accordingly without you needing to adjust your selection.
Image: Adobe
Also in this update, Lightroom Classic has been rewritten to export utilizing the GPU on your system where applicable. This is BIG and should give a boost in performance.
More information about the updates such as adaptive presets, red-eye removal and more can be found on the official Adobe blog post. Get the Adobe Photography package for just $9.99 a month* with my affiliate link to step up your photography processing game as well as help support me and my efforts.
*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.
From time to time I get the opportunity to be on our news show Tech News Weekly. I’ll be the first to mention that I’m not much of a “news guy,” but I do enjoy filling in for my co-host when they’re out of the office. Check out our discussions below. Don’t worry, no one will ever confuse me as a top-notch news anchor. Thanks for watching.
The folks at Blackmagic Design were kind enough to send me an ATEM Mini Extreme ISO* to play with for a couple of weeks. MAAAAAAN this device. . .I won’t say much here. Just watch my video below. But before you watch the video, check out the tech specs:
8 inputs
2 USB-C outputs
Supersource
ISO recording
Camera controls for BlackMagic Design cameras
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Canon has been on a tear with its mirrorless camera offerings the last year or so. Then we saw a new pro-grade, full-frame body was coming available. The EOS R3. This is the mirrorless option that Canon states will stand between the EOS R5 and the flagship 1DX II, although the 1DX model isn’t mirrorless.
30 frames per second high speed shooting
rugged build with excellent weather sealing
4K video recording with Canon Log (c-log) 3
6K RAW video capability
Dual pixel autofocus for animals, bird and human eye detection
rumored 24 megapixel stacked image sensor
Pretty beefy specs, as expected. Especially considering that at least one photographer was lucky enough to shoot the 2021 Summer Olympics with a pre-production R3. Says a lot about the potential capabilities of this camera.
The shipping date is November 30, 2021. I also know that you can get your pre-order in with the squad at Adorama on this page*. Do you plan on getting one? I can’t say that I plan on it, but it would be nice to play with one. Stay tuned.
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This week I had the honor and pleasure of joining my friend Don Komarechka on his podcast, Photo Geek Weekly. The discussions ranged from light-hearted to heavy to geektastic around the world of photography. I also share my pick of the week, which is a camera I absolutely loved. I really enjoyed being on his show. Click through here to check out the show notes of the episode on his page. Or you can just click here to play the episode.
Also, make sure you check out his new book about the world of macro photography. I was gifted the book and it’s UNBELIEVABLE. Get it here. It’s truly a “universe at your feet” when it comes to macro photography
Image by Ant Pruitt All rights reserved