This morning, Adobe announced a series of updates for both Premiere Pro and After Effects. Leading off is built-in review and approval tools with Frame.io, which is included as a part of both programs.

Integrated reviews and collaboration with Frame.io

Frame.io’s professional, easy-to-use workflow lets you share a link to your video or composition with your team, client or any other reviewers you want. They can comment and draw on the video and you will see their time-stamped feedback directly in your timeline. 

When finished, your reviewers can approve directly using the web link or award-winning Frame.io app. This helps you get to final faster and it is a pleasure to use.

Frame.io is built-in to the new versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects, including as a part of your Creative Cloud subscription.

Subscribers get 100GB of dedicated Frame.io storage, allowing for uploading media to the cloud of up to five active projects.

Frame.io Camera to Cloud is also included, which takes files straight from your camera and puts them in the cloud as soon as you stop recording.

To get started, update your apps and sign into the Review with Frame.io panel with your Adobe ID. If you’re using an older version of Premiere Pro or After Effects, you can install the Frame.io panel or visit Frame.io directly.

Additional updates to Premiere Pro

In addition to Frame.io, Premiere Pro sees several new features, including a redesigned import and export experience, as well as Auto Color.

New import experience

The new Import mode introduces a more visual and intuitive experience that makes it easier for new users to get started, and helps experienced users work faster. Instead of being faced with project settings when starting a new project, you’ll be presented with your media.

Selected assets are collected in a tray at the bottom of the Import window, providing a first glimpse of the emerging storyline. When the user clicks Create, Premiere Pro brings the media onto the Timeline as a new sequence, ready for editing.

Editors who prefer to build their sequence from the Project panel can import their media as individual assets. To speed up the process, users can favorite frequently used locations for source media, hover scrub thumbnails to review clips and copy assets from camera cards with MD5 checksum verification while they have started to edit. If specific import workflows are needed, users can simply create empty projects and use existing import options.

Navigate easier with the new header bar

The new header bar makes navigating in Premiere Pro faster and easier. Users can click on the Import, Edit and Export tabs to access different areas of the application. Editing workspaces, such as Color, Graphics and Audio, are available via a customizable dropdown menu on the right-hand side. Quick Export now includes a new Preset Manager, allowing users to save and access preferred output settings for any available export format.

Post to online platforms with the new export mode

The export experience is easier and more intuitive, giving options to post to social platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The new Export mode gives users all the power they’re used to in a streamlined, user-friendly design that takes the guesswork out of optimizing output formats. The user chooses their export destinations, and Premiere Pro presents recommended settings for each.

Experienced users can easily modify any of the output settings via accordion menus, neatly organized below the current export setup, and save custom export presets.

Along with optimizing exports for different purposes, Premiere Pro can upload videos directly to FTP sites and social platforms, with the option to post privately for review before going live. The entire workflow can be customized, including export destinations and the new Preset Manager for output settings.

Speed up color correction with Auto Color

Previously known as Auto Tone during its beta program, Auto Color uses Adobe Sensei to help users fast track their first-pass color correction. Auto Color applies intelligent adjustments to video clips, helping new users become familiar with the color tools and experienced users work faster before moving on to secondary corrections, such as skin tones or skies.

Auto Color adjustments are reflected in the re-organized slider controls at the top of the Lumetri panel: users can easily fine-tune individual parameters or the overall results with the new Intensity slider.

Thousands of new, free Adobe Stock assets

Adobe Stock now has thousands of new free assets available in Premiere Pro, including high quality HD video, professionally designed Motion Graphics templates and more.

And for creators who need more, Adobe Stock has introduced an affordable new multi-asset subscription.

Additional updates to After Effects

In addition to Frame.io, this update to After Effects includes native support for Apple silicon chips, Scene Edit Detection and more.

Up to 3x faster with Apple M1 chips

With native support for Apple silicon, After Effects now runs twice as fast on M1 computers and up to three times faster on M1 Ultra systems compared to previous generation Macs. Adobe Sensei machine learning features, like Roto Brush 2 and new Scene Edit Detection are faster, and playback is also smoother.

For example, EXR decoding is two times faster and ProRes decoding is up to 4 times faster on new M1 Ultra systems versus previous high-end models.

Faster rendering enhances the creative process: It makes it easy for motion designers to explore ideas and iterate more quickly on their compositions. Last year After Effects performance was improved across the board with Multi-Frame Rendering, with users seeing speed gains of up to 4x on the same hardware. Native support for Apple M1 systems only builds on these gains. With two significant speed boosts in just 6 months, After Effects has never gotten faster so fast.

Scene Edit Detection

Scene Edit Detection uses machine learning powered by Adobe Sensei to identify cut points in rendered sequences, helping motion designers work more efficiently with edited content. Users can add markers to these edits or split them into layers for faster project setup.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning powered by Adobe Sensei accelerates the time-consuming aspects of creative tasks without sacrificing creative control over the results. Along with Scene Edit Detection, Adobe Sensei features in After Effects include Content Aware Fill and Roto Brush 2.

3D in After Effects: Extended Viewer and Binning Indicators for 3D Layers

The Extended Viewer makes it easier for motion designers to navigate 3D space and move 3D layers by showing 2D and 3D layers located outside a frame’s edge when using the Draft 3D engine. Users can hide or dim the areas outside the frame to see what the final result will look like.

Binning Indicators for 3D Layers helps users keep their 3D compositions organized by showing which 3D layers render together in the same 3D space.