For those who don’t know the case: This lives in the subscription plumbing behind Creative Cloud plans used by Photoshop and Acrobat, right where creatives meet billing screens and regret. A proposed stipulated order filed by the U.S. Department of Justice would resolve a federal case over online subscription enrollment and cancellation practices. The total settlement value is $150 million.

The proposed order requires a $75 million civil penalty payment to the Department of Justice. It also requires $75 million in free services for qualifying customers. The case also named two employees, Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani, and the proposed order would resolve the case against them as well. Court approval still matters here. The proposed order only takes effect if the court enters it (As far as we understand it – I am NOT a lawyer and not even a US Citizen – take all of this with a muntainsized grain of salt!)

What the government said went wrong

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The legal hook is the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, often shortened to ROSCA. ROSCA generally requires clear disclosure of important subscription information and simple ways to cancel.

The allegations centered on two themes. First, important information about subscription plans, including Early Termination Fees, appeared in fine print and inconspicuous hyperlinks. Second, subscribers faced cancellation flows described as convoluted and inefficient, with unnecessary steps, delays, unsolicited offers, and warnings.

The Early Termination Fee point matters to artists because it tends to surface only when a project wraps, budgets tighten, or a studio pipeline shifts. That is exactly when a cancellation flow becomes part of production reality, not just a legal footnote.

What changes the proposed order requires

If the court enters the order, the required changes focus on disclosure timing and exit friction. Any Early Termination Fee and how it is calculated must be clearly disclosed before enrollment. That disclosure must happen before customers get locked into a subscription that can trigger the fee.

There is also a requirement tied to longer free trials. For any free trial lasting longer than seven days, customers must be reminded before the trial converts into a paid subscription that includes an Early Termination Fee. The order also requires easy ways to cancel subscriptions. The thrust is simple: if a subscriber can sign up without needing a scavenger hunt, they should be able to leave without one too.

These requirements land squarely on the unglamorous screens that most product teams treat as a footnote. For working post and VFX artists, those screens are still part of your toolkit because they decide whether an account can be trimmed cleanly during downtime or whether a production ends with finance drama.

What the company said it will do

Adobe said it finalized a settlement agreement that ends the litigation filed in June 2024 related to disclosure and subscription cancellation practices. The statement said it disagrees with the government’s claims and denies wrongdoing.

It also said it agreed to provide $75 million worth of services for free to customers that qualify, and that it will proactively reach out to affected customers once the appropriate court filings are made and accepted. The statement also said it agreed to a $75 million payment to the Department of Justice.

Why this hits creatives where it hurts

This story is not about a new brush engine or a faster render. It is about the moment you try to leave a plan. Subscription software sits in the same mental bucket as storage. You only notice it when it fails, when it fills up, or when it refuses to let go. For artists, that moment often arrives between gigs, at a studio wrap, or after a toolchain change.

Products like Photoshop and Acrobat get mentioned in the underlying enforcement action because they are part of the broader subscription universe in question. That matters because these are daily drivers across design, editorial, previs, and deliverables.

If the court enters the order, the practical impacts will show up in enrollment screens, trial conversion reminders, and cancellation user experience. Those are the touchpoints that determine whether a subscription feels like a utility or like a trap with a user interface.

The legal frame in plain English

ROSCA is a US federal law that targets certain online sales tactics and requires clear material terms and express informed consent in covered scenarios. It is part of the broader consumer protection toolkit used by the Federal Trade Commission. The enforcement action here used ROSCA as the named statute and targeted both disclosure of material terms and cancellation mechanisms.

There is no need to be a lawyer to understand the production takeaway. If a tool’s checkout flow hides costs behind links and the off ramp feels like a puzzle, regulators now have a well established playbook to challenge that pattern under existing law.

What is still not spelled out

The public settlement materials describe the $75 million in free services for qualifying customers, but they do not specify which services, which plans, or which product bundles will be included. They also do not spell out the exact criteria that define qualifying customers. There is also no public schedule in the materials for when customers will be contacted beyond the note that outreach follows court filings being made and accepted.

What to do with this information in a pipeline context

If you manage seats for a team, this is a reminder to treat subscription lifecycle as part of pipeline hygiene. Procurement, offboarding, and account access are as real as colour management and version control.

If you are an individual artist, the practical watch items are the upfront fee disclosures, the free trial conversion reminders for trials longer than seven days, and the ease of cancellation requirement. Those items are the ones that affect how risky it feels to try a short-contract plan.

As always, new tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, and that includes billing flows and cancellation paths, not just features and performance. Two things can be true at once. A creative app can be excellent, and the subscription experience around it can still need guardrails. The settelment and its required changes target that second part.

And if you have ever had to schedule time to cancel something the same way you schedule a render, you now have a fresh reason to keep screenshots of signup terms in your project folder, right next to the license keys and the delivery checklist. Yes, that sounds ridiculous. So does a canclelation flow that needs more endurance than a night shift.

// Settlement and injunction details, $75 million civil penalty, $75 million free services, cancellation and disclosure requirements, named employees, court filing and date
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/adobe-agrees-150-million-settlement-and-injunction-resolve-alleged-violations-restore-online

// Company statement on finalizing settlement, denying wrongdoing, $75 million free services, $75 million payment, outreach after court filings
https://news.adobe.com/news/2026/03/adobe-statement

// FTC action filed June 2024 and allegations about fees and cancellation hurdles
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-takes-action-against-adobe-executives-hiding-fees-preventing-consumers-easily-cancelling

// ROSCA statute reference
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes/restore-online-shoppers-confidence-act

// Case docket reference
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68860528/united-states-v-adobe-inc/

The post Adobe settles US case over cancel terms first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Adobe Substance 3D Painter is a texture painting hub that spits out textures and masks for other DCC apps.

Warp to Geometry, because decals deserve better

Substance 3D Painter has a new option called Warp to Geometry aimed squarely at one of texturing’s most reliable time sinks: projecting decals onto surfaces that refuse to behave. The feature lives as a new toggle in the contextual toolbar. When enabled, decals follow the curvature and topology of the mesh they are projected onto. The stated goal is cleaner results on complex surfaces, including cases where curvature shifts sharply and projection artifacts become obvious.

The practical change is easy to describe. A decal projection that would normally fade at the edges when the surface bends hard can retain its shape instead, with the toggle stopping that edge fade in the before-and-after comparison shown for the feature. If your decal workflow involves anything more dramatic than a flat panel, the point is clear: fewer hand fixes and fewer compromises to keep projected detail readable across tricky shapes.

Viewport post effects step up the lookdev game

Painter now includes additional post-processing effects in its built-in renderer. The intent is to let artists preview assets in the viewport under conditions that are closer to final renders. There are now 10 post effects in total. New options include lens flares and film grain. In other words, the viewport can lean further into presentation and context, so you can judge a surface with more of the usual render seasoning already applied.

This is still a preview context, not a final render pipeline. It is a way to iterate with more of the finishing layer visible while you paint, adjust, and evaluate. As always with shiny new viewport tricks, test new tools and innovations before using them in production.

Flatten layers, export fast, keep the editability

A new Flatten action has been added inside the layer stack. The workflow improvement here is about speed and convenience, especially when you want to get something out of your stack without committing to the full export pipeline. The flow described is simple. You can group layers and merge them to create a flattened copy. That flattened copy can be exported to disk. The payoff is a quicker path for getting textures or masks out of Painter so you can test them in other DCC applications, without having to go through the full export pipeline.

Crucially, flattening does not have to mean losing your ability to keep iterating. The original group can be saved as a Smart Material, making it possible to edit it in future. That is a useful balance for anyone who wants fast outputs for testing while keeping the layered logic intact for later adjustments. This is also the kind of change that quietly speeds up team communication. A flattened export is easier to pass around, and a saved Smart Material keeps the authoring side reusable for the next asset that needs the same treatment.

The end result is less friction when you need quick texutres for a test, while still keeping the layered work ready for a more considered pass later.

Project setup tweaks and a nod to USD workflows

Painter 12 also updates parts of project setup and iteration. The New project dialog has been reordered to make key settings quicker to access. There is also a new checkbox for reimporting the project mesh in the Project configuration dialog. Taken together, these are small adjustments that aim to reduce the number of clicks and the time spent hunting for the setting you always use.

Beyond that, there are smaller feature updates and bugfixes, including to USD workflow. Even when changes like these do not grab headlines, they often show up as day-to-day time saved, especially on projects where geometry keeps evolving and the texturing side needs to keep pace with mesh updates.

Platforms, licensing, and the money part

Substance 3D Painter 12.0 is available for Windows 11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 8.6 and 9.2 or later, Ubuntu 22.04 or later, and macOS 12.0 or later.

Perpetual licenses are available via Steam and cost $199.99.

The software is also available via Creative Cloud based 3D and AR subscriptions. Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions cost $24.99 per month or $249.99 per year. Substance 3D Collection subscriptions cost $59.99 per month or $599.99 per year. That gives teams and individuals a choice between a one time buy through Steam or subscription access through the 3D and AR plans, depending on how they prefer to budget tools and how often they expect to stay on the latest major versions.

If you are planning to fold these features into an existing pipeline, keep the usual discipline. Validate the new projection behavior on your typical asset types, check that flattened exports match what downstream expects, and confirm viewport effects do not mislead your approvals when compared to your final render targets. And yes, do a quick proejct side-by-side on something ugly, curved, and full of detail. The tools are clearly aimed at those moments.

The post Adobe releases Substance 3D Painter 12 with decal warp first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Adobe Firefly is Adobe’s browser-based generative AI studio within the Adobe ecosystem, complementing Creative Cloud tools. The Firefly Video Editor adds AI-assisted video editing in the cloud, positioned for fast-turnaround content and lightweight workflows.

From blank timeline to first cut

Adobe has introduced Quick Cut in beta for the Firefly Video Editor. The company describes it as an AI-supported feature that generates a structured first-draft edit from a natural-language description. According to Adobe’s documentation, users describe their video concept in natural language. Quick Cut then creates an initial sequence that serves as a starting point for further refinement. The stated goal is to reduce the time spent reviewing footage and assembling a first edit.

Adobe positions this as a response to a common bottleneck in video production: the initial review and assembly phase that precedes narrative refinement. The feature is presented as particularly relevant for formats such as social media videos, product demos, interviews and event recaps. The beta is available from today.

Text prompts as edit instructions

Adobe specifies that users can describe the intended structure or concept of a video, such as an interview or event recap. Quick Cut uses these inputs to automatically generate a structured draft edit. The resulting edit can be refined and adjusted by the user. Adobe states that creators retain control over parameters including aspect ratio, pacing and B-roll organisation.

There is no published information on supported codecs, maximum timeline length, track limits, or interchange formats. It is also not specified whether sequences can be exported to other Creative Cloud applications such as Premiere Pro.

Positioned for fast-turnaround content

Adobe explicitly frames Quick Cut as optimised for “creator workflows,” particularly for social videos, product demos, vlogs, and event recaps. The documentation highlights use by hobby editors and time-constrained creators who want a structured starting point without engaging in a complex editing process.

This positioning indicates a focus on rapid content production rather than high-end broadcast or feature post pipelines. There is no mention of advanced editorial controls such as multi-cam handling, script-based editing, EDL export, or collaborative review workflows. Whether Quick Cut will expand beyond these use cases has not been announced.

Firefly as a creative AI hub

Quick Cut is part of Adobe Firefly, which Adobe describes as its all-in-one creative AI studio. Firefly spans image, video and other generative workflows within Adobe’s broader Creative Cloud strategy. Adobe states that Quick Cut integrates with the existing Firefly Unlimited offering. The company presents this as enabling greater iteration speed and flexibility. As with other Firefly features, Adobe emphasises commercial safety in relation to its own Firefly image and video models.

Unlimited Firefly and model access

Adobe is offering access to Quick Cut beta through the Firefly app. Users can register until 16 March to benefit from what Adobe describes as unlimited image and Firefly video generations at resolutions up to 2K.

The offer applies to customers on Firefly Pro, Firefly Premium, 4,000-credit, 7,000-credit and 50,000-credit plans. Adobe states that this includes unlimited generations using image models such as Google Nano Banana Pro, GPT Image Generation and Runway Gen-4 Image, alongside Adobe’s own Firefly image and video models. No detailed technical comparison between these third-party models is included in the announcement. Adobe does not specify which models are used by Quick Cut for edit generation versus image or video asset generation.

What is not specified

The currently available documentation does not clarify several points relevant to professional pipelines. There is no explicit statement about media ingest limits, storage quotas, or project retention policies within Firefly Video Editor. Integration with on-prem or MAM systems is not mentioned. There is no information about API access, automation hooks, or enterprise deployment models.

Colour management, LUT handling, audio track control, and support for professional camera formats are not described in the Quick Cut overview. These omissions may reflect the current scope of the beta, but they are not addressed in the official text. Professionals considering use in production environments should evaluate these factors directly within the beta before committing deadlines or client deliverables.

Beta status and production caution

Quick Cut is explicitly labelled as beta. As with any beta feature, stability, performance and feature completeness may evolve. New tools and innovations should always be tested before use in production.

// https://helpx.adobe.com/de/firefly/web/firefly-video-editor/create-quick-cut/quick-cut-overview.html

The post Adobe adds Quick Cut to Firefly Video Editor first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The September 2025 update of Adobe Photoshop (version 26.11) is modest in scope but introduces a structural change: cross-app cloud projects. Alongside that, Adobe has added Firefly asset import and vector rendering for CJK text. The typography and Firefly updates are clear feature upgrades. The cloud projects, however, touch the way teams manage and share assets across applications.

From Libraries to Projects: what changed?

Creative Cloud has offered “Libraries” for years: shared collections of colours, brushes, symbols, and logos. Libraries are lightweight, designed to pass assets around quickly. But they do not handle project-level structure or permissions.

Photoshop 26.11 introduces cloud projects as containers for multiple file types and assets across Illustrator, Photoshop, and Adobe Express. Unlike Libraries, cloud projects can: Group full files (not just swatches or elements) into a single unit. They also can Assign user roles: editors can change content, while commenters can only review and annotate. So to Keep project-wide organisation, rather than loose collections of items.

In essence, a cloud project is Adobe’s attempt at a collaborative folder, integrated directly into Creative Cloud apps.

Collaboration: practical gains and limits

For freelancers and small studios, cloud projects could simplify version control. Instead of shuttling Illustrator vectors, Photoshop comps, and Express exports back and forth via email or cloud drives, everything lives in one Adobe-managed container.

For larger pipelines, the situation is less straightforward. Many VFX, post, and design studios already rely on dedicated asset management (ShotGrid, ftrack, or in-house DAMs). These systems support pathing, metadata, and automation in ways Creative Cloud has historically struggled with.

Questions remain open:

• How are conflicts handled if two editors open the same file?
• Does Adobe keep a file history or only the latest save?
• How are large binary files (e.g. layered PSDs >1 GB) treated inside projects?

Adobe has not provided detailed technical documentation on these points. Until clarified, projects should be considered convenience features rather than replacements for established pipeline tools.

Permissions: useful, but basic

Role-based access in cloud projects is limited to two tiers: edit and comment. Unlike enterprise DAM systems, there is no granular control over layers, linked assets, or export rights. For example, a user with “comment” rights cannot modify a PSD, but they can still see full-resolution assets. This may raise concerns in projects with strict confidentiality requirements. For teams needing more controlled distribution (for instance, advertising agencies under NDA), traditional controlled file-sharing may remain preferable.

The Firefly angle

The new Firefly integration is deliberately narrow. Firefly-generated images can be imported into Photoshop for refinement, but Firefly remains a standalone app. Edits are non-destructive, meaning the Firefly original is preserved while Photoshop creates a modified copy. This workflow may fit well with cloud projects. Teams could keep Firefly outputs and Photoshop refinements in the same shared project container, reducing file duplication across drives and emails. Still, without in-app generation, the workflow remains split across two applications.

CJK text: better previews, fewer headaches

Typography in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) has long been one of Photoshop’s weaker areas. Raster-based previews made text appear jagged and inconsistent, especially when shared across machines. Photoshop 26.11 replaces this with vector-based rendering. On-screen previews should now match Illustrator’s fidelity, giving artists sharper results and reducing misalignment in multilingual layouts. In cloud projects, where documents may be passed between different Creative Cloud versions, this could cut down on errors.

Adoption strategy: cautious roll-out

Photoshop 26.11 is available via Creative Cloud subscriptions at no extra cost. Version rollout may vary by OS and region. For individual users, cloud projects and Firefly import may improve daily efficiency. For studios, adoption should be cautious. Cross-app projects may not play well with custom pipeline scripts or local render automation.

As always: test before deploying to production.

The post Photoshop 26.11: Firefly hops in, CJK text sharpens up first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Adobe’s June 2025 update to After Effects (version 25.3) introduces two targeted enhancements focused on precision and workflow clarity.

Smooth Zoom in Panels

Users can now perform fluid, continuous zooming—whether scrubbing, pinching, or scrolling—in the Composition, Layer, and Footage panels. This delivers more precise framing control without the typical “jump” between zoom steps

Reveal Project in File System

Need to locate the AE project file on disk quickly? A new “Reveal in File Explorer/Finder” command pops open the containing folder and highlights the file—saving time and guesswork

Integration with Premiere

Though this update doesn’t change the Dynamic Link with Premiere Pro, it retains the ability to export AE projects to Premiere, preserving timeline fidelity and smoothing inter-app workflows.

Stability and Workflow Reliability

This isn’t a flashy overhaul. Adobe focused on dependable features, leaving UI, performance, and under-the-hood engines untouched. Still, Adobe advises verifying stability in production pipelines before launch .

Here is a list of Fixed issues in the June 2025 release (version 25.3)

Dragging files from the list of files into the thumbnail or summary area now correctly moves them to the top of the hierarchy.

Selecting Help > Reveal Logging Files more than 24 hours after enabling logging no longer causes After Effects to crash.

Viewport interactions no longer experience lag on systems with AMD GPUs.

Cache Before Playback in the Preview panel now functions correctly, ensuring the timeline fully caches before playback begins.

The view no longer shifts left when resizing the Composition, Footage, or Layer panel with rulers visible.

The Animation Options name in the Timeline panel now correctly updates in the Properties panel when changed to None.

Improved selection and interactive performance when working with many Shape layers.

The Info panel now correctly displays over-range values for colors when hovering over a solid in a 32-bpc composition.

The Render Quality slider is now responsive when adjusting in Advanced 3D comps that contain many 3D Shape layers.

The properties of selected layers now continue to be shown in the Properties panel when orbiting or moving the Default camera view.

The keyboard shortcut for Split New Viewer and Toggle Lock now matches the View > Split with New Locked Viewer menu command.

The warning when deleting an in-use footage item now correctly refers to the number of instances, rather than the number of compositions.

Alt-double-clicking the Zoom tool now instantly centers the view without delay.

After Effects no longer crashes when using Advanced 3D on systems where the Windows user folder name contains Unicode characters.

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Want the new update? It’s available now via Creative Cloud. Current subscription terms apply—so check your plan before upgrading.

The post After Effects 25.3 Adds Smooth Zoom first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

On April 29, 2025, at 10 AM distributor ComLine hosts a live session on Adobe Express—part product demo, part positioning statement, part classroom for creatives. Presented by Adobe Senior Specialist Sven Brencher and moderated by Andreas Christensen, Business Development Manager Software, the session will give attendees a hands-on look at Adobe’s fast-track content creation tool, now tightly integrated with Adobe Firefly and a native social media planning tool.

Rounding out the event team is Johannes Borm, Director of Marketing at ComLine, who acted as host and stage-setter for what turned out to be both a sales argument and a practical how-to.

Adobe Express: Streamlined Creativity

According to Sven Brencher, Adobe Express is not a stripped-down Photoshop or Premiere. It’s a purpose-built tool aimed at users who want to create content quickly and with minimal friction. Whether that’s for photo, video, web, or print, the software promises ready-to-go templates, brand kits, and drag-and-drop logic, without requiring full-scale Creative Cloud expertise.

Firefly Inside: AI That Thinks in Templates

A highlight of the session is Firefly’s integration into Adobe Express. Firefly is Adobe’s generative AI engine, which now sits at the heart of Express—offering real-time suggestions and layout proposals as users build out content. Brencher will demo how Firefly can propose visuals for social media posts, streamline graphic production, and aid in variation generation—all within the same UI.

The Social Media Planning Tool: No More Spreadsheet Sprints

Integrated directly into Express, Adobe’s social media planning tool lets users create, schedule, and publish posts from a single dashboard. Brencher positions this feature as a native alternative to external schedulers—giving teams the ability to plan entire content calendars without exiting the app.

Additionally, Borm notes that Express forms a compelling component in volume licensing scenarios—particularly for universities and schools, where simplicity, speed, and price-per-seat matter more than having every CC knob and slider.

Education, Simplified

One part of the session focusses on Adobe Express in the educational context. With institutions looking for tools that reduce onboarding time and keep learning curves low, Adobe and ComLine jointly frame Express as a lightweight but capable solution. The emphasis: fewer buttons, faster output, and a good-enough-for-most-results logic.

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More information about upcoming ComLine events is here.

The post Express Delivery: Adobe, ComLine & the Speed of Content first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Advertorial.

At Adobe MAX London, Adobe served a helping of updates across its Creative Cloud and Adobe Express platforms, but the centerpiece of the show was undoubtedly Firefly Model 4. The new generation of generative AI arrives embedded into a restructured, web-based Firefly app—Adobe’s “one-stop shop” for image, video, audio, and vector generation. Not satisfied with just a model update, Adobe brought along a cast of supporting features aimed squarely at production artists.

Firefly Image Model 4: Higher Resolution, More Control

Firefly Image Model 4, now the default image generator in the Firefly suite, is Adobe’s fastest model to date. It enables prompt-based generation of images in up to 2K resolution, with control over structure, style, camera angles, and zoom. Artists can iterate visual concepts, recompose frames, and even output larger formats without sacrificing quality.

Firefly Video Model: Text to Clip, and Back Again

Also now generally available is the Firefly Video Model, an IP-safe and production-ready system capable of creating 1080p video clips from text prompts or source images. Intuitive camera controls, atmospheric elements, and custom motion graphics make it more than just a novelty—it’s a full video ideation tool. Current brand adopters include dentsu, PepsiCo/Gatorade, and Stagwell, suggesting Firefly is not just demo material.

Vector Workflows, Text-First

The new Adobe Vector Model underpins a freshly released feature: converting natural language prompts into editable vector graphics. That includes logos, packaging concepts, icons, and patterns—all SVG-ready and adjustable post-generation. The feature is now available for all Firefly users and positions Adobe as a player in procedural vector generation.

Partner Models in the Firefly Ecosystem

Firefly now supports external models through its web app, with a rollout including OpenAI, Google’s Imagen 3 and Veo 2, and Flux 1.1 Pro. Users can seamlessly switch between these and Firefly-native models, with clear attribution via embedded content credentials. Adobe plans to expand model diversity with future integrations from fal.ai, Ideogram, Luma, Pika, and Runway. Enterprise users can toggle third-party models on or off, ensuring data policy compliance.

Firefly Boards: Moodboarding Meets Machine Learning

Now in public beta, Firefly Boards offer a collaborative interface for brainstorming, concepting, and feedback. Think: moodboards with auto-generative support. Teams can iterate on hundreds of variants simultaneously and funnel visual concepts directly into production environments. This feature was formerly known as Project Concept.

Firefly Services and APIs: Automating the Repetitive Stuff

Firefly Services are a collection of production-grade APIs that integrate Firefly’s generative models into enterprise workflows. Among them: a beta Photoshop API to automate high-volume editing tasks; a Text-to-Video API and Image-to-Video API for turning assets into animated clips; and soon, a Text-to-Image API powered by Firefly Model 4 and an Avatar API for generating product-centric video content. Brands like Accenture, The Estée Lauder Companies, and Gatorade are already using these tools to shrink production timelines.

Content Authenticity and Commercial Readiness

All AI-generated content receives embedded Content Credentials, which disclose the model source—be it Firefly or one of its partners. Adobe emphasizes that Firefly models are “commercially safe,” trained with respect for creators’ rights and designed to support, not replace, human creativity. See the full information HERE. So far, Adobe has been the only GenAI-Player without actual controversies – credit where it’s due!

Pricing and Availability

Firefly Image Model 4, Firefly Ultra, and the Firefly Video Model are available now via the Firefly Web App. Firefly Boards is in public beta.

Firefly continues Adobe’s all-in embrace of AI in creative workflows—but remember: AI-generated concept art is cheap, rendering it stable for production is the real trick.

The post AI All-Inclusive: Adobe’s Firefly Goes Full Creative Suite first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Günter Hagedorn.

In nuce: Blackmagic raw files (.braw) can now be transcoded natively via the cloud with Alteon.io. This was recently announced by the developer Alteon.io. The new feature should save creative professionals many hours of work. The manufacturer is advertising further time savings if users utilise the free Alteon Accelerate application. Alteon.io is described on the manufacturer’s website as an all-in-one hub solution for creative professionals, but also as a content management system. Alteon.io works with cloud storage, Web3 integration – and places a high value on security. In addition to .braw, Alteon.io also supports .mxf, .avi, .mov and .mp4. Support for the .r3d and .ari file formats is planned for the future. Once files have been uploaded to Alteon.io, users can access either transcoded proxies or the original files.

Further information: The company Blackmagic Design, which offers 12K cameras at an attractive price-performance ratio, has become an important hardware provider in the broadcasting sector in recent years. Alteon announces that it wants to follow Blackmagic Design’s example of offering equipment for content producers at affordable prices. Matt Cimaglia, co-founder of Alteon, notes overlaps between the users of Blackmagic Design and Alteon, and emphasises an awareness of cost-conscious budgeting, while at the same time taking into account the quality of productions, as a unique selling point for the clientele of Blackmagic Design and Alteon.

Click to continue: all further information on alteon.io One of the cameras that delivers high-resolution (moving) images, whose users could benefit from Alteon.io, is the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 (Digital Production reported on 4 July 2022). Another relevant camera from Blackmagic Design is the Ursa Mini Pro 12K (see our report from 29 October 2021 and our corresponding product test “Eye to eye with the pixel monster” by Prof. Uli Plank on page 92 of issue DP 06 : 2021). For this report, we have used a corresponding online entry on provideocoalition.com. We would like to thank our colleagues there.

The post Off to the cloud with Blackmagic raw files? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: In the detailed article “Frame.io Brings FiLMiC Pro to the Cloud – Testing the Workflow”, published by our friendly colleagues at Provideo Coalition, the experienced editor-slash-colourist Oliver Peters explains the possibilities that open up for users with the “Filmic Pro” app.

An overview: Below is an outline of what you can expect when reading the article. Does filmmaking in the cloud with Filmic Pro sparkle like pearl wine – or is the C2C dream bursting?

• How does the integration with Filmic Pro work? After you have finished your recording, the app encrypts the proxy file. Both low-res and high-res files are saved on your handset – within Filmic’s clip library.
• The workflow in a practical test: Can the filmmaker’s work prove itself in a use case? To find out, Oliver distributes his producer, his editor and his videographer in three different cities – purely hypothetically.
• Part 1 – Production on location: Here Oliver explains which settings you need to make in the app, which setting modes he chose for his shoot, and which upload settings you should select
• Part 2 – Offline editing: In his experimental set-up, Oliver parks his producer in a café to get to grips with offline editing using proxy files. Oliver also explains how to juggle footage in Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro.
• Part 3 – Online editing: At his workplace, the videographer transfers the footage from his iPhone to his laptop at home. To test online editing with Filmic Pro, Oliver uses Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro and Da Vinci Resolves. How will the editing tools fare in the endurance test?
• Conclusion: Was the cloud-to-cloud workflow able to convince professional Oliver – or does the integration between Frame.io and Filmic Pro fall flat? Find out in the course of this useful read!

Click further: You can browse through the complete article with our expert colleagues at provideocoalition.com.

Clicked back: We already told you on 28 April 2022 that Filmic and Frame.io have joined forces to make the Filmic Pro Cinema camera app available within Frame.io’s cloud services.

The post Practical test of the Filmic Pro app with Frame.io! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

Why transcribe?

With social media content being consumed everywhere, captions are becoming increasingly important – both for viewers and for data-driven edit workflows – text is easily searchable and instead of sifting through hours of footage, you only need to type the one quote into the search box to find the spot in the interview.

Adobe Premiere has just taken a huge step forward here and integrated the transcript tool into the current 2021 version (see article in issue 21:03, or here Speech-to-text Help Site). As part of this, the entire subtitles workflow has been linked to the Essential Graphics Tool and can be used intuitively. We have tested this and fed it with various voice recordings – in German and English, of course, and a little French, Allgäuerisch and Pfälzerisch. You can find videos here – and of course at postproduction-tutorials.net.

Why in Premiere?

There are other tools and tricks to get an automatic transcription, but if you’re already editing in Premiere anyway, it would be “unwise” to add another tool to the pipeline. Other news about the latest update can be found here: Premiere Pro What’s New/ User Guide

And for those who say “But I’ve always done that by hand”: respect and appreciation, but we suspect that there is potential for saving time and effort in your pipeline. Because unlike many tools out there, “Speech to Text” is included for free in the Creative Cloud – so you don’t have to worry about additional costs.

But how?

To put it very quickly, this is how it works: For the transcription, the audio is rendered and uploaded to the Adobe server. After a few minutes, the text is displayed and you can select the subtitle type and one of the text layouts already created in advance in the Essential Graphics Panel. The subtitles are now distributed in blocks on the subtitle track in the timeline. The blocks can be merged or separated as required. You can change the texts both in the subtitle window and directly in the programme window.

If you want to change the text layout, you can simply select one or more text blocks in the timeline and change the parameters in the Essential Graphics Panel or select another previously created track style. The transcript can be exported as text or SRT file. Importing the SRT file into the video uploaded to YouTube also worked straight away. That was the very quick version – but let’s go through it in detail – with screenshots and adjustments.

And now step by step

It’s best to use a concrete example: At the beginning of the year, I recorded a remote interview with Noel Powell, the programmer of these innovative After Effects templates, for my Creation FX article in DP 2021:01. I’ve been wanting to edit and transcribe this for a long time to publish it on my tutorial portal. Preferably also with German subtitles.

Firstly, I transcribed the entire interview, as a transcript is particularly helpful for long interviews when selecting unnecessary parts. As the video follows the text, you can simply cut and mark the relevant parts.

The easiest way to transcribe is to switch to the new subtitle workspace. Then select the timeline to be transcribed and click on the Transcribe tab in the text window.

After selecting the language and starting the transcription, an audio file is automatically rendered and uploaded to the Adobe Cloud.

The transcribed text then appears in the text window after a short wait and can also be edited directly there. The timeline runs in synchronisation with the highlighted text passage.

Different speakers can also be recognised. The names of the speakers can be edited by clicking on the 3 small dots. It is not immediately obvious that there is a small bar on the side of the window that can be used to scroll to the second speaker in order to change it.

There is a search field at the top of the transcript window that you can use to search for words or quotes. This allows you to quickly find text passages in interviews, for example to correct misspelled technical terms or simply to find important text passages. By clicking on the circle-arrow symbol, you get a replace function to effectively correct repetitive errors.

Transcribing clearly spoken texts works very well. The tool also copes quite well with English technical terms in a German text. Once the errors in the transcript have been corrected, the subtitles can be created. They now have their own track and the look is controlled via the Essential Graphics Panel.

Subtitles, nicely done

The best way to do this is to create a template in the Essential Graphics Panel in advance, which you can then select directly when creating subtitles. Simply click with the text tool in the programme monitor and write a representative two-line text. Then select a suitable font, set the colours, border, shadow and background to your liking and save it with “Create style”. The text style then appears immediately in the project window. It can be saved from there by right-clicking on “Export text formats” for later use in the Adobe Creative Cloud, for example. From there, it can later be dragged and dropped into another project.

All text styles available in the project can be selected directly in the dropdown of the “Create subtitles” tool. In this way, the type design can be modified very easily and you can quickly switch between different layouts so that the subtitles can also be adapted to the customer CI. The subtitles are then divided into blocks on the subtitle track at the top of the timeline. The blocks can then be easily merged or separated as required using the arrow icons. They can also be changed in length or moved just like images or videos using the corresponding mouse tools.

If you want to modify some subtitles, you can select individual ones or even several using the Shift key and edit them in the Essential Graphics window, for example to change the colour of the text background for a speaker. Subtitles can also be positioned differently if they are overlaid with a name insert. The easiest way to do this is to use the Align and Transform widget by clicking on one of the nine squares.

However, you can also move and scale the text field in the programme window using the mouse.

Important: This step should be carried out after selecting the track style. If you change it again, all changes will be lost and all subtitles will be positioned in the same place again. This is because, as the name suggests, the track style always affects the entire subtitle track.

It would be advantageous to be able to apply a track style only to individual subtitles in order to work a little faster.

Once the subtitles have been created and corrected, there are various options for outputting them. As text to integrate an interview into an article or as SRT for YouTube subtitles.

Test subtitles before uploading!

The free Pot Player presented in issue 2020:06 is also suitable for checking the SRT files before uploading. It automatically displays the SRT subtitles if they are in the same directory and have the same name as the video file.
You can also see straight away that the display of SRT subtitles does not offer the same options as in the Premiere Essential Graphics Panel due to the format. Only simple formatting such as text attributes, text colour and text position are adopted via HTML-like tags.

There are also formats for various broadcast standards, which are embedded in the corresponding format when the video is rendered out. Of course, this only works with formats such as MXF, which also support this metadata. If you want to retain the graphic design from Premiere, the subtitles can always be “burnt in” to the video.

The SRT files can also be used to initiate translations. For example, you can copy them into online translation tools such as Deepl and have them translated there.

We copy these texts into the text editor and save them with the .srt file extension. Simply drag this into the project and into the corresponding timeline. This automatically generates a new subtitle track and the embedded timecode markers are retained. This ensures that the translated subtitles are in the right places again.

Languages

Well, it wouldn’t be “language to text” if it could only be a slightly Hanoverian German – so far there are 12 languages to choose from: English (US), English (UK), Simplified Chinese (Mandarin), Traditional Chinese (Cantonese), Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Italian, Russian. Hopefully that will be enough to start with, but it is likely that more will be added over time. Maybe even Allgäu and Palatinate! Or other special dialects – but as in all areas of AI development, that remains to be seen.

And here’s something to look at

In the future, there may even be a possibility for automated translations. But for now, there are various ways to use other tools to help – here’s an example workflow in the video for the variant with Deepl.

But as so often: under Premiere Pro Tutorials you will find practically all the functions of Premiere explained – it’s worth browsing. And if you want to see the whole workflow especially for Youtube again as a video: Here is a short English tutorial with Youtube SRT as an example.

And here is a long video in which Colin Smith explains everything in detail… But without translation.

And you want to test it?

As promised earlier: If you want to test it quickly on a video, you can send me a file with audio, and we’ll run it through the automatic transcription and send it back to you – if you’ve already exceeded the trial period.

Here is the interface to the DP Pipeline – upload the files via Wetransfer, Dropbox or whatever else you like. Enter your name and the email address to which we should send the srt file (or one of the other export formats). Please note: After transcription, the video file will be deleted immediately due to data protection.

And if you want, you can also take part in the raffle for a 1-year licence in the form, until 30 September 2021.

The post Premiere listens – and types! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Adobe recently published the major autumn release of the Creative Cloud apps. Adobe presented the new features at its own conference, Adobe MAX 2017, among other events. But it wasn’t just the latest technologies that were on show – with a focus on Adobe Sensei, Adobe also gave a preview of which tools are possible for future releases.

Scene Stitch

Scene Stitch has similar functions to the familiar content-based touch-up, but also allows you to automatically add image elements from collections.

Puppetron

Puppetron enables the transfer of different visual styles to the target image based on sample images. Adobe imagines this technology to be particularly useful in Character Animator.

Project Scribbler

Deep learning for drawing and sketching: Project Scribbler is designed to help with the visualisation of ideas and processes both photos and your own sketches. It can also be used to colour black and white images.

Project Deep Fill

Also based on Adobe Sensei, Adobe wants to improve existing content-aware features with Project Deep Fill in order to achieve more realistic and customised results.

Project Cloak

There was also an eagerly awaited feature in the tech preview: With Cloak, Adobe wants to bring content-based touch-ups from pure image editing into the video context.

Adobe has not announced when the technologies shown will find their way into Creative Cloud products. You can find more tech previews here.

The post Adobe MAX 2017: 11 future technologies first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The Mettle SkyBox Suite offers additional features for VR/360° workflows in Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. In the last DP issue 03 : 2017, we introduced you to the toolbox in use for 360° video productions. Adobe has now announced the acquisition of the Mettle Suite for the end of the year. Adobe wants to integrate the Mettle plug-ins seamlessly into the Creative Cloud products. New customers will no longer be able to purchase the Mettle tools, but existing customers will continue to have access to the purchased software via this page.

Early access

However, current Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers can now get early access to the plug-ins by sending an email to dvaplugin@adobe.com. You will need to include your Adobe ID and first and last name in the email. You can expect a response within 24 hours.

You can read more information about the takeover here.

The post Adobe acquires Mettle SkyBox Suite first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.