… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #685: Troubleshoot Premiere Pro Issues

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Here are ideas you can try to keep your system running smoothly.

Topic $TipTopic

This tip originally appeared as an Adobe Support article. This is an excerpt.

Having problems with Premiere Pro? The trouble-shooting guide linked above has tips on the following issues:

  • Why is my rendering slow?
  • Why doesn’t my timeline show any video preview?
  • Why am I getting choppy playback and poor performance?
  • What can I do to optimize the playback performance?
  • Checking for issues with applied effects
  • Checking for issues with plug-ins
  • What can I do if I think my hardware setup is not optimal?
  • Why does my audio playback keep getting stuck?
  • How do I get better performance with h.264/h.265 media?

EXTRA CREDIT

Here are more tips on how to optimize your system for video editing with Premiere Pro and After Effects.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #686: Optimize Your Premiere Pro System

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The four keys are: memory, storage, graphics and CPU.

Topic $TipTopic

This tip originally appeared as an Adobe Support article. This is an excerpt.

The four key variables for a great video production system are memory, storage, graphics, and your processor. Here are tips from Adobe on how to optimize your system.

  • Memory. Professional video workflows rely on system memory. A good video editing workstation should have at least 32GB of memory— and as much as 128GB.
  • Storage/hard drives. Fast storage is critical for video production. Use solid-state NVMe or SSD storage. Unless you have a fast RAID array, spinning disks generally do not offer sufficient speed for HD and 4K video production.
  • Graphics. The GPU is used for onscreen rendering and export, priority areas for video production. Premiere Pro is engineered to take advantage of the GPU. After Effects is also GPU-optimized. Graphics card with at least 4GB of memory (VRAM). (Optional) Multiple GPUs, including eGPUs, can be used to speed up rendering and export.
  • Processor/GPU. For CPUs, clock speed matters more for After Effects. Multiple cores have more impact for Premiere Pro. The sweet spot for running both applications is a fast CPU with 8 cores. Core i7 or Core i9 Intel processors or AMD equivalents are strongly recommended. Fast clock speed at least 3.2 GHz, or higher.

EXTRA CREDIT

Thinking of upgrades? Here’s where Adobe suggests you spend your money, in priority, for Premiere Pro:

  1. More RAM — up to 128GB if your motherboard supports it.
  2. A faster GPU (or additional GPUs) for faster rendering and export
  3. Faster (or more) NVMe or SSD drives
  4. Faster CPU

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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #666: Productions Overview

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Productions can help both single editors and teams.

The Productions folder, showing all available projects.

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Productions are a new way for editors to organize and collaborate on projects. Here’s a quick overview of this new feature:

  • You can edit in Premiere as always without ever using Productions.
  • Productions can be used by a single editor using local or shared storage, or a team, using shared storage.
  • Productions don’t require Internet access.
  • Productions are available to any Premiere editor who has updated to the latest version (April, 2020).
  • Productions easily support breaking large projects into manageable chunks.
  • Only project files can be stored in a production folder.
  • There is no limit to the number of projects stored in a production folder.
  • Only one production folder can be open in Premiere at a time, however, there is no limit to the number of production folders that can be created.
  • Different editors can work in different productions at the same time.
  • Any project can be opened Read-only, however only one editor can have read-write access to a project at a time.

EXTRA CREDIT

I created a recent webinar that shows how to use Productions in detail. You can find it here: here.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #667: Productions: What the Icons Mean

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The icons tell the story of file status and ownership in the Productions folder.

A typical Productions folder, showing file status and current owner.

Topic $TipTopic

Productions are a new way for editors to organize and collaborate on projects. This is a summary of what the icons and colors mean in the Productions panel in Adobe Premiere.

  • Hollow rectangle. The project file is not open on any system.
  • Solid rectangle. The project file is open on at least one editor’s system.
  • Name. The owner of the file, or, if the file is open, the name of the editor with read-write access.
  • Red lock. The file is currently locked as read-only. However, if no one is using the file, it takes only a single mouse click, after opening the file, for an editor to switch the project to read-write.
  • Green pencil. The file is open on your system and you have read-write access.

Productions allows multiple projects to be opened on multiple systems at the same time, though only one editor has read-write access to a project at a time.


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Tip #668: Productions: Toggle Read-Write

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Switching between read-only and read-write is a single mouse click.

Green indicates you have read-write permission. Red indicates read-only.

Topic $TipTopic

Switching a project between read-write and read-only (and back) is a single mouse click. Here’s what you need to know.

First, if someone else has the file open read-write, you can’t take over the file, you can only have read-only access until the other editor releases it to the group.

Open the file from the Production panel. If someone else has the file open or if you are the only person who has the file open but were not the creator, it will open as read only.

To switch a file between read-write (green pencil) and read-only (red lock) simply click the pencil or lock icon in the extreme lower-left corner of the Premiere interface.

EXTRA CREDIT

A good reason to switch a file to read-only is to allow another editor to add graphics or titles to an ongoing project.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #624: Not All Captions Look Alike

 

Captions are designed for simplicity, not fancy formatting.

SRT Caption formatting controls in Apple Final Cut Pro X.

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When you import SRT files and XML files that have open caption data in them, Premiere Pro automatically converts these files to CEA-708 CC1 closed caption files. You can then edit these files and burn in the captions as subtitles while exporting using Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder.

However, SRT closed captions are designed for readability and flexibility, not formatting. The Federal Communications Commission’s rules about closed captioning include details about caption accuracy, placement, and synchronicity. They don’t say anything about formatting. Avoid problems – read this.

Captions are designed for readability and flexibility – you can turn them on or off, or choose between languages. Captions are not designed to be styled. All captions, except SCC, are designed to be stored in sidecar files. These are separate files from the media, but linked to it.

SCC captions, which can be embedded in the video itself — well, one language at least – are limited to two lines per screen each with only 37 characters per line. They also require a frame rate of 29.97 fps (either drop or non-drop frame). Yup, limited.

SRT captions are more flexible. SRT captions are known for simplicity and ease-of-use, especially when compared to other formats, many of which used XML-based code. It was adopted by YouTube as a caption format in 2008.

SRT captions only supports basic formatting changes including: font, color, placement and text formatting. HOWEVER, there is no clear standard for these style changes. Even if you apply them to your captions there is no guarantee that the software playing your movie will know how to interpret them.

For this reason, when exporting SRT files using File > Export > Media (screen shot), turn off Include SRT Styling for best playback results on other systems.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #651: Make Adjusting Color Curves More Precise

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Curves make selecting and correcting specific ranges of color easy.

The Hue vs. Hue curve in Premiere’s Lumetri color panel.

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Here are three tips to help make color adjustments more precise using Curves in the Lumetri color panel.

When adjusting color using Curves in the Lumetri color panel, press the Shift key to lock the control point so it only moves up and down.

Use the eyedropper to select more than one color in the same image. Each color will have it’s own control points. To restrict the range, use three control points.

While moving a control point, a vertical band appears to help you judge your final result. It is useful in the Hue versus Hue curve, where it can be tricky to judge the resulting hue. For example: you want to fine-tune some skin tone values which look a bit red. You can use the Hue versus Hue curve to select a range of red colors; with the center control point selected the vertical indicator helpfully shows you that pulling down shifts the red toward orange, which is much better for skin-tone.

NOTE: To make adjustment easier to see, drag the slider at the bottom to center your adjustments.

EXTRA CREDIT

Here’s an Adobe Help page to learn more.


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Tip #652: The Five Lumetri Color Curves

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The Color curves allow you to adjust colors in a wide variety of ways.

The Hue vs. Luma curve, with its range indicator visible.

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Premiere Pro offers five color curves in the Lumetri color panel that you can use to make different types of curve-based color adjustments to your clip.

  • Hue versus Saturation. Select a hue range and adjust its saturation level
  • Hue versus Hue. Select a hue range and change it to another hue
  • Hue versus Luma. Select a hue range and adjust the luma
  • Luma versus Saturation. Select a luma range and adjust its saturation
  • Saturation versus Saturation. Select a saturation range and increase or decrease its saturation

SAMPLE A COLOR

With one of the color curves tabs open, click the Eyedropper tool to sample a color in the Program Monitor. Three control points are automatically placed on the curve. The center point corresponds to the color you selected. For the three Hue curves, this Hue value is for the selected pixel. For the Luma and Sat curves, the point is placed corresponding to the Luma or Saturation value of the pixel selected.

By default, the Eyedropper samples a 5 x 5 pixel area and averages the selected color. Press the Command (Mac) or Control (Win) keys while using the Eyedropper to sample a larger 10 x 10 pixel area.

REMOVE CONTROL POINTS

  • To remove a single control point, select the control point and press Command + Click (Mac) or Control + Click (Windows).
  • To remove all control points and reset the curve, double-click any control point.

EXTRA CREDIT

Here’s an Adobe Help page to learn more.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #609: What Does Uniform Scale Do?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Disabling Uniform Scale allows stretching images assymetrically.

When Uniform Scale is turned off, height and width can be scaled independently.

Topic $TipTopic

By default, when you scale (resize) an image, Premiere maintains the aspect ratio. This means the image gets larger or smaller, but retains its overall shape. But, what if that’s not what you want?

When Uniform Scale is checked, whenever you adjust the size of an image, both height and width scale in proportion. This retains the overall shape (aspect ratio) of an image.

When Uniform Scale is unchecked, horizontal and vertical size can be scaled independently. This allows for some very interesting – and weird – visual effects. Especially when you keyframe the size changes over time.


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Tip #621: Color Management Secret in Premiere

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Color management not easy – but this menu choice helps.

Display Color Management is off by default. Turn it on.

Topic $TipTopic

A common complaint about Premiere is that colors often look darker in Premiere than in other software. This is caused by color management differences between software.

First, if you have a modern system, go to Preference > General and turn ON Display Color Management. (It is off by default.)

Second, read this very helpful blog by Carolyn Sears, at Adobe.


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