Thursday, June 19th, 2014 Posted by Jim Thacker

Adobe rolls out update to After Effects CC

Originally posted on 4 April. Scroll down for updates.

Adobe has announced the new features in its next, no-longer-version-numbered update to After Effects CC, including improved workflows for handling masks and badly shot greenscreen footage.

The upcoming release will be on show at NAB 2014.

Better tools for keying poor-quality greenscreen footage
For motion graphics and VFX artists, the main draw will probably be the new Key Cleaner and Advanced Spill Suppressor effects for rescuing poor-quality greenscreen footage.

The former recovers detail from previously keyed scenes, including those with compression artefacts; the latter suppresses colour spill from the background. Both can be applied with Keylight in a single preset.

You can also now add multiple masks to a single layer to confine effects to parts of the frame: for example, for selectively changing the colour of an actor’s eyes, or pixellating out a face in news footage.

Integration with other Adobe tools
Integration with Premiere Pro has been improved, with text templates created in After Effects remaining editable in Premiere; and masks created in Premiere automatically being converted when imported into AE.

There are also integrations of other Adobe services, including a new Kuler panel for viewing reference colour combinations; and the option to import Typekit fonts.

Other than that, the update adds support for RAW files from Sony F5, F55, and F65 cameras; improved previews on external monitors; and a bunch of smaller tweaks and fixes.

Updated 19 June: Adobe has now rolled out the new features as part of a wider update to its Creative Cloud online subscription program. You can read the official list here.

A Creative Cloud subscription currently costs $19.99 a month for a single application, or $49.99 a month for access to all of Adobe’s products.

Read more about the new features in After Effects CC in Adobe’s detailed blog post

Watch a more detailed demo of the new keying features from Motionworks’ John Dickinson