Creative Cloud 2015: the big yearly update rolls out

Adobe has released the 2015 version of Creative Cloud for most all its apps, with software updates beginning to rollout throughout the day. There’s a big gotcha for installations, if you want to keep previous versions installed and avoid complications when installing CC 2015 applications, uncheck the overwrite old apps button in Advanced Option.

Adobe has released the 2015 version of Creative Cloud for most all its apps, with software updates beginning to rollout throughout the day. There’s a big gotcha for installations, in addition to plug-in compatiability, if you want to keep previous versions installed and avoid complications when installing CC 2015 applications, just uncheck the overwrite old apps button in Advanced Option.

Details on video-oriented CC apps were released in April at NAB 2015, and covered here in Adobe CC ‘Next’ video tools at NAB 2015. There will be more detail and links on some apps there. Here’s a few intro videos on Creative Cloud 2015 for orientation:

Jamie Spencer posted Creative Cloud 2015 Keyboard Shortcuts cheatsheets for many apps.

For After Effects, some may have issues with a few details on previews, but After Effects 13.5 is the most significant re-architecture so far done on the working codebase. Adobe has redesigned how After Effects utilizes processor threads, runs the UI, and writes frames. This should result in faster interactions with the UI, faster previewing, and eventually substantially faster renders. Also included is the new Character Animator, a linked but separate app, the Face Tracker, and a limited version of CC Libraries. According to Chris Meyer, “CC 2014 (13.2) and CC 2105 (13.5) use the same project file format, with no need to do a Save As. You can bounce back and forth between the two pretty effortlessly”

The new version of Premiere Pro brings substantial new color control features and a new transition, Morph Cut, to smooth jump cuts. The new Lumetri Color Panel doesn’t have an intriguing design, but is easy to set up and and adjust, once you see it’s more like a property than separate effects. It doesn’t take long to see that color correction and grading can be done quicker, with vignetting just a few extra clicks. There’s also handy new task-oriented workspaces, as well as improved scopes for the long-suffering Premiere user, though a favorite model may not be present.

Before moving on to some resources on the video apps, here’s a few highlights from the total package of Creative Cloud 2015. Note that Lynda.com has a full range of tutorials on the big update in Explore Adobe Creative Cloud 2015, and more will be popping up here on PVC.

•      Photoshop CC introduces Artboards, for design of cross-device user experiences in a single document to quickly preview them on a device; and a preview release of Photoshop Design Space, a new work environment focused on the needs of mobile app and web site designers. There’s more via the Help new features summary, and in Julieanne’s Top 5 New Features in Photoshop CC 2015.

•      Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC both gain a new Dehaze feature, which appeared first as a MAX sneak last October. Dehaze eliminates fog and haze from photos, including underwater shots, to create clear images. Haze can also be added for an artistic effect. See the Help new features summary, as well as Prolost for helpful presets.

•      Illustrator CC is now 10 times faster and 10 times more precise than CS6. Powered by boosts to its Mercury Performance Engine, users can now pan and zoom smoothly without delays. With the new Chart tool (preview), designers can also create beautiful custom charts and share them with others via CC Libraries. See the Help new features summary for more info.

•      InDesign CC gets its own Mercury performance boost with zooming, scrolling, and paging through complex documents now twice as fast. InDesign now also allows users to publish and distribute documents with a single click. See the Help new features summary and InDesign Secrets for more info.

•      Dreamweaver CC has more responsive web design capabilities that let designers quickly lay out and build production-ready sites that adapt to any screen size. See the Help new features summary and the Dreamweaver Team Blog for more info.

•     Creative Cloud-connected mobile apps Adobe Shape CC, Adobe Color CC, Adobe Brush CC, and Adobe Photoshop Mix are now all available for Android in the Google Play Store. Then there are 2 new mobile apps: Adobe Hue (formerly Project Candy) to capture and share production “looks” that combine quality lighting and color schemes for video, film and broadcast, and Adobe Preview CC for previewing mobile designs.

•      Adobe Stock, built into CC apps, is a new market place for stock photography, with over 40 million high res graphics. You can launch Adobe Stock directly within CC desktop apps, add images to Creative Cloud Libraries and then access and work with images across multiple desktop tools. Stock contributors will have increased commissions, straightforward and transparent pay out options, and a growing global audience of users.

◊ Check out Jamie Spencer’s Creative Cloud 2015 Keyboard Shortcuts cheatsheets for many apps.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 resources (team blog)

◊ Help has a new features summary.
◊ Be sure to see Premiere Pro product manager Al Mooney’s release announcement, with more on the Speedgrade blog, as well as What’s New Premiere Pro CC for NAB 2015 from Adobe’s Dave Helmley (video below).
◊ Josh Weiss (@reToolednet) has video overview (below), Premiere Pro CC – April 2015- New Features Teaser.
◊ Premiere Bro shared 15 “Small” Features in Premiere Pro CC 2015 and Scott Simmons offered positive takes in The Big Little things editors will love in the Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 release (new) and Have A Look At The Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 Update: A lot of new features including a surprise color grading overhaul. Also, reviews from Walter Biscardi and from Robbie Carman (in a 17-minute video) dug the new Lumetri color panels. 

Small new features in Premiere Pro CC 2015 that mean big by Jordy Vandeput continues the “little things” meme:

Josh Weiss (@reToolednet) has a video overview:

D.L. Watson shows how it works in Premiere Pro CC 2015 vs Blackmagic RAW and Import all RAW Files at Once!:

Adobe After Effects CC 2015 resources (team blog)

◊ After Effects Help has a pleasant New features summary.
◊ Be sure to see After Effects product manager Todd Kopriva’s deep-dive details, as usual, in what’s new and changed in the upcoming update to After Effects CC.
◊  See also Todd’s plug-ins and After Effects CC 2015 (13.5), since re-architecture means a new plug-in format. There’s more at Toolfarm and aescripts + aeplugins compatibility.
◊ Adobe Character Animator (Preview 1) now available by Michelle Gallina.
◊ features not available in After Effects CC 2015 (13.5) by Tim Kurkoski
◊ all about previews in After Effects CC 2015 (13.5) by Tim Kurkoski, which will need to be consulted over & over.

◊  Check out the Adobe Forum if you want to talk about the new features.

◊ We usually expect insightful overviews from Chris and Trish Meyer, who offer After Effects CC 2015, and a set of detailed videos at Lynda.com, After Effects: 2015 Creative Cloud Updates with Chris Meyer.
◊ Look out also for a video summary on new features from Motionworks, New Features in Ae CC 13.5 by John Dickinson. Mikey Borup and Sean Frangella also added video overviews (see below).
◊  Check out Adobe Character Animator Tutorial: 10 Tips for Getting Started from Dave Werner. There will no doubt be an avalanche of tutorials on this new app and related features.

Adobe Media Encoder CC (team blog)
 
◊ Help has a new features summary.

◊ Al Mooney posted all the new features in his announcement, What’s Coming Next to Adobe Media Encoder. The marquee feature for the next release is Time Tuner, which lets you adjust the duration of content at render time. and there’s also multichannel audio output with Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, plus support for encoding and decoding of JPEG 2000 in an MXF wrapper.

Adobe SpeedGrade CC (team blog)

◊ Help has a new features summary. It’s more about putting features into Premiere this time.

◊ Eric Philpot has the perspective from Speedgrade, What’s coming next to SpeedGrade and Creative Cloud? (Hint: it’s going to be colorful) and New Color Workflows in CC 2015, with more on looks and Adobe Hue (aka Project Candy).
◊ It’ll be interesting to see if Speedgrade goes the way of Apple Color. You can bring editing projects into Adobe SpeedGrade CC with Direct Link, now including support for the new Premiere Pro Lumetri color tools.

Adobe Audition CC (team blog)

◊ Help has a new features summary.

◊ Premiere timelines can now be streamed via Dynamic Link directly into the Video panel in Audition, with full native resolution and frame rate. There’s a Full-Screen mirror video display, Easy links for your multitrack clips to new media assets, changing the content while keeping all edits, automation, and effects. And there’s a good number of other features this time too!

Adobe Prelude CC (team blog)

◊ Help has a new features summary. Voice over recording is new, as are Additional Audio Tracks.