Workflows and setup

Preview files Preview files made on one platform are not available on the other. When a project is opened on a different platform, Premiere Pro rerenders the preview files. When that project is then opened on its original platform, Premiere Pro renders the preview files yet again.

High-bit-depth files Windows AVI files containing either 10-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed video (v210), or 8-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed video (UYVU) are not supported on Mac OS.

Preview rendering The playback quality of unrendered non-native files is not as high as playback quality of these files on their native platforms. For example, AVI files do not play back as well on Mac OS as they do on Windows. Premiere Pro renders preview files for non-native files on the current platform. Premiere Pro always renders preview files in a native format. A red bar in the timeline indicates which sections contain files needing rendering.

Cross-application workflows

You can use various other Adobe applications to enhance or modify the assets used in a Premiere Pro project. Also, you can use Premiere Pro to edit projects begun in other applications.

Edit a clip in its original application

In Premiere Pro, the Edit Original command opens clips in the applications associated with their file types. You can edit clips in the associated applications. Premiere Pro automatically incorporates the changes into the current project without replacing files. Similarly, Premiere Pro sequences placed in other applications, such as Adobe After Effects can be opened with the host product’s Edit Original command.

1Select a clip in either the Project panel or Timeline panel.

2Choose Edit > Edit Original.

You can export a movie from Premiere Pro with the data necessary for the Edit Original command. In the Export Movie Settings dialog box, choose Project from the Embedding options menu.

Working with Photoshop and Premiere Pro

If you use Photoshop to create still images, you can use Premiere Pro to make them move and change. You can animate an entire image or any of its layers.

You can edit individual frames of video and image sequence files in Photoshop. In addition to using any Photoshop tool to edit and paint on video, you can also apply filters, masks, transformations, layers styles, and blending modes. You can paint using the Clone Stamp, Pattern Stamp, Healing Brush, or Spot Healing Brush. You can also edit video frames using the Patch tool.

In Photoshop, with the Clone Stamp, you can sample a frame from a video layer and paint with the sampled source onto another video frame. As you move to different target frames, the source frame changes relative to the frame from which you initially sampled.

After making edits, you can save the video as a PSD file, or you can render it as a QuickTime movie or image sequence. You can import any of these back into Premiere Pro for further editing.

If you use Premiere Pro to create movies, you can use Photoshop to refine the individual frames of those movies. In Photoshop, you can do any of the following:

•Remove unwanted visual elements.

•Draw on individual frames.

Last updated 1/16/2012

Workflows and setup

• Use the superior selection and masking tools to divide a frame into elements for animation or compositing.

Online resources for Premiere Pro and Photoshop workflow

•Franklin McMahaon provides a video tutorial that demonstrates creating a title in Photoshop for use in Premiere Pro in this video tutorial from Layers Magazine.

•This Premiere Pro tutorial video by Phil Hawkins at Infinite Skills shows how to import files between Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

•Jarle Leirpoll shows how to automate production of lower thirds with Photoshop and Premiere Pro in this article on the ProVideo Coalition website.

Comparative advantages for specific tasks

The strengths of Premiere Pro lie in its numerous video editing features. You can use it to combine Photoshop files with video clips, audio clips, and other assets. You can use the Photoshop files, for example, as titles, graphics, and masks.

In contrast, Photoshop has excellent tools for painting, drawing, and selecting portions of an image. The Photoshop Quick Selection tool and Magnetic Lasso tool make it easy to create a mask from a complex shape. Rather than handdrawing a mask in Premiere Pro, consider doing this work in Photoshop. Similarly, if you are applying several paint strokes by hand to get rid of dust, consider using the Photoshop paint tools.

The animation and video features in Photoshop Extended include simple keyframe-based animation. Premiere Pro, however, provides quite a bit more keyframe control over various properties.

Exchanging still images

Premiere Pro can import and export still images in many formats. For greatest versatility, however, use the native Photoshop PSD format when transferring individual frames or still image sequences from Photoshop to Premiere Pro.

When you import a PSD file into Premiere Pro, you can choose whether to import it as a flattened image, or with its layers separate and intact.

It is often a good idea to prepare a still image in Photoshop before importing it into Premiere Pro. Examples of such preparation include correcting color, scaling, and cropping. It is often better to change a source image in Photoshop than to have Premiere Pro perform the same operation many times per second as it renders each frame for previews or final output.

In Photoshop, you can create a PSD document that is set up correctly for a specific video output type. From the New File dialog box, select a Film & Video preset. In Premiere Pro, you can create a PSD document that matches your composition and sequence settings. Choose File > New > Photoshop File.

Exchanging movies

You can also exchange video files, such as QuickTime movies, between Photoshop and Premiere Pro. When you open a movie in Photoshop, a video layer is created that refers to the source footage file. Video layers allow you to paint nondestructively on the movie’s frames. When you save a PSD file with a video layer, Photoshop saves the edits that you made to the video layer. Photoshop does not save edits made to the source footage itself.

You can also render a movie directly from Photoshop. For example, you can create a QuickTime movie from Photoshop that can then be imported into Premiere Pro.

Color

Premiere Pro works internally with colors in an RGB (red, green, blue) color space. If you want to edit video clips you create in Photoshop in Premiere Pro, create the clips in RGB.

Last updated 1/16/2012