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Filed under: Editing •Post Production •

Premiere Pro C4 and After Effects CS4 Workflow Using the NEW Native RED R3D Plug-in

Optimizing performance

To optimize performance on your configuration, you may need to experiment with various combinations of settings for Maximum Bit Depth, Resolution and Quality in the Source Settings dialog, as well as adjusting Premiere’s playback quality settings.

Here are some adjustments you can make to optimize performance:

• Close all other applications when editing.
• Set Premiere’s Playback Quality setting to Draft if Automatic or Highest cannot play back in real time.


• Premiere’s default setting for the monitor’s zoom level is “Fit”. Setting the zoom level to 100% may also improve playback.


• Turn off thumbnails in the timeline.


• Setting Premiere’s rendering preference to “Performance” will generally improve playback performance on a multi-core machine. (Preferences > General > Optimize rendering for Performance).


Note that this requires additional memory to take advantage of parallel processing. Conversely, if you are attempting to render out at 4K resolution, you may want to consider setting this back to “Memory” so that the application has the head room to deal with large frame sizes.
• When Maximum Bit Depth is on in the Source Setting dialog, processing is at 32-bit float, and when off, processing is 8-bit.


(Turn this off to improve playback performance during editing in Premiere. When exporting to After Effects using Adobe Dynamic Link, this setting has no effect. After Effects always uses maximum bit depth.)
• When exporting using After Effects, quit all other applications including Premiere Pro and wait for these processes to close before continuing:


1. ImporterProcessServer
2. ImporterRedServer
3. Processcoordinationserver

 

This may take a minute or more after you quit the application(s). You can view the open processes in the Task Manager (Win) or Activity Monitor (Mac).

High resolution output from Premiere Pro

At this time, we recommend that Premiere sequences be exported through After Effects using its Render Queue. This method requires the least amount of memory and provides the highest stability for render intensive exports. Additionally, After Effects is required for all high bit depth exports such as 4k, 2k, Cineon, DPX, Targa and Tiff. There are 2 methods for exporting from Premiere via After Effects: importing a Premiere sequence directly into After Effects or importing a Premiere sequence using Adobe Dynamic Link.

Other RED export options from Premiere Pro, such as Export to Adobe Media Encoder and Send to Encore, have not been thoroughly tested. Results will vary depending on the complexity of your Project.

Exporting Premiere sequences using Adobe Dynamic Link to After Effects

Adobe Dynamic Link is only available in Creative Suite Production Premium.

After editing is completed in Premiere Pro using a working resolution sequence, RED media must be reset to higher resolutions for high quality export. This is typically performed as one of the final steps prior to the export process and provides full access to the native resolution and deep color of the RED media. In order to export at full resolution a new sequence must be created that matches the desired output resolution of the project.

For example, if your working resolution sequence in Premiere was created at 1K and the native resolution of the RED media is 4K, a common workflow would be to create a new 4K sequence inside of Premiere to be used specifically for the final export. The next step is to copy and paste the 1K clips into the newly created Timeline.Note that at this point, the clips do not fill the entire program monitor (they appear as smaller 1K clips). This is expected behavior as all 4K RED media is still set to decode at 1/4 resolution. Next, you’ll change the global RED source settings to 4K and the clips will appear at full resolution to fit the 4K output sequence.

For high resolution export, the global decode settings for the RED media need to be set to a higher resolution. In this example, let’s assume we want to export at 4K. After changing the RED decode settings to 4K, press OK. Next, save your Project in Premiere and quit the application. When Premiere Pro is reopened, changes will be reflected in your timeline and all 4K media will appear at full resolution in the 4K sequence. The project is now ready for export.

Unrendered red segments in RED sequences with resolutions greater than 1920 x 1080, will remain red and cannot be rendered to a preview file. Unrendered yellow segments in 1920 x 1080 and lower resolutions can be rendered using the Render Entire Work Area command in the Sequence menu. Rendering of either red or yellow segments isn’t required for export via Dynamic Link, which will correctly export these frames to After Effects.

The next step is to import a Premiere Pro Sequence into After Effects using Dynamic Link. After the sequence is imported, it can then be exported using After Effect’s Render Queue. This workflow preserves all edits, transitions and effects from Premiere Pro.


Step by step instructions:

1. Inside Premiere Pro, create a new sequence that matches your final output resolution (example: 2K or 4K)
2. Copy/paste your edited sequence from the working resolution sequence into the final output resolution sequence
3. Reopen the RED Source Settings dialog and switch the settings to full decode resolution (example: 2K or 4K)
4. Quit and relaunch Premiere in order for the settings change to take effect
5. To export the sequence, quit Premiere Pro and wait for all Adobe processes to close before continuing.
6. Launch After Effects
7. Choose: File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import Premiere Pro Sequence
8. Navigate to the Premiere Pro project and select the RED final output sequence you wish to export
9. After Effects will take a few moments to conform the imported sequence
10. Place imported sequence into a Composition and make sure it remains selected
11. Choose: Composition > Add Composition to Render Queue
12. Select your desired export settings in the Render Queue
13. Click on the Render button to complete your export

All transitions and effects applied in Premiere are sent via Dynamic Link. However, this method uses more memory than importing the sequence directly into After Effects. Depending on the complexity and size of your sequence, you may need to use the alternative method below, importing the sequence directly into After Effects.

Importing Premiere Pro sequences into After Effects for export

Use this option to import a Premiere Pro sequence directly into After Effects for export. Unlike Dynamic Link, all Premiere transitions and effects are not supported when importing directly into After Effects. For this reason, this method is most useful for cuts-only edits without transitions or effects applied in Premiere.

One advantage of this method is that creating a final output resolution sequence in Premiere is not required. You can import the working resolution sequence from Premiere and adjust the Composition settings in After Effects to achieve the desired final output resolution.

Direct import of Premiere Pro sequences or RED clips into After Effects requires setting up Interpret Footage’s Color Management for consistent color appearance between After Effects and Premiere Pro. See the Color Management instructions in the After Effects section below.

Step by step instructions:

1. When finished editing in Premiere, quit and wait for all Adobe processes to close before continuing (see note in the Optimizing Performance section).
2. Launch After Effects
3. Choose: File > Import File
4. Navigate to the Premiere Pro project and select the RED final output sequence you wish to export
5. After Effects will take a few moments to conform the imported sequence
6. Place imported sequence into a Composition and make sure it remains selected
7. Choose: Composition > Add Composition to Render Queue
8. Select your desired export settings in the Render Queue
9. Click on the Render button to complete your export

(Page 3 of 4 pages for this article  <  1 2 3 4 >)

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