Thursday, January 14th, 2021 Posted by Jim Thacker

Adobe ships After Effects 17.6


Adobe has released After Effects 17.6, the latest version of the compositing software.

The release adds a new automated Lighting Correction option to After Effects’ Content-Aware Fill system, which should result in fewer artefacts in shots where lighting changes significantly.

Content-Aware Fill now automatically compensates for lighting changes in source footage
First introduced in version 16.1 of the software, and updated steadily ever since, Content-Aware Fill is an AI-driven object removal toolset similar to its namesake in Photoshop.

In previous releases, the new pixels in the filled region of the image were generated from a single reference frame, and did not take account of subsequent lighting changes in the footage.

That could result in noticeable artefacts in shots with exposure shifts, lens flares or god rays, as in the lower right of the frame in the video above.

The new Lighting Correction option provides the option to correct lighting within the fill layer generated, rather than by adding extra fill layers by hand.

It has presets for Subtle, Moderate and Strong lighting corrections – the latter intended as the default – and according to Adobe, “does not impact … performance” when enabled.

Other changes in After Effects 17.6 include new default colour space and gamma settings for footage captured on RED Digital Cinema cameras: you can find a list of new settings here.

Pricing and system requirements
After Effects 17.6 is available for Windows 10 and macOS 10.13+ on a rental-only basis. In the online documentation, the release is also referred to as the January 2021 update.

Subscriptions to After Effects alone cost $31.49/month or $239.88/year, while All Apps subscriptions, which provide access to over 20 of Adobe’s creative tools, cost $79.49/month or $599.88/year.

Read a full list of new features in After Effects 17.5 in the online release notes