Tons More from Adobe: Project Candy Analyzes Photos to Create Color Scheme for Video

The tone of Adobe's announcement is a decidedly new one. While each and every program in their lineup of Creative Cloud video apps got some significant new features and usability enhancements, the overarching themes of this release are color and collaboration, and Adobe went out of their way to include features, including entirely new pieces of software, that play into these themes.

So without any further ado, here's the launch video that covers most of today's announcements:

Project Candy

The coolest piece from the announcement is a mobile app currently in development that Adobe is calling Project Candy. In essence, you take a screenshot of something that inspires you aesthetically -- maybe the sun is coming through your window a certain way, or a you see a mesmerizing combination of colors in a mural or something -- then Candy analyzes that shot and turns it into a tangible color scheme and look that can be applied to your videos in Premiere or After Effects. Here's an excerpt from the Adobe blog which sums up Project Candy very well:

Project Candy is a new mobile technology currently in development. If you know SpeedGrade then think of Project Candy as a kind of “Shot Matcher on your phone”: just point the camera at something and the app will grab a Look. Candy displays the Look for you as bubbles that show color and light in 3D space.

You can select a bubble to shift the midtone for the Look and adjust the overall intensity with a slider. As you tweak it, the Look is previewed in a reference image. You can also choose images and video from your camera roll for previewing the Look.

Once you like the Look, you hit the checkmark to save it. The Look is saved to your Creative Cloud Libraries. From there you will be able to access it in Premiere Clip (for on-the-go video editing), Premiere Pro, or After Effects. Again, if you want to bring your project (with that Look) into SpeedGrade, just use Direct Link and you’re in business.

Project Candy is an exciting proposition because it allows people to make images that bridge the gap between their inspirations and what they can tangibly create with Adobe's tools. If it works like it says, Project Candy will take all of the guesswork out of recreating aesthetics that we happen upon in our day to day lives and want to use in our creative work.

After Effects

Perhaps the biggest, yet most subtle upgrade to After Effects -- it's an upgrade that applies to Premiere Pro as well  is Creative Cloud Libraries. In essence, these allow you to create and access cloud-based libraries of creative tools directly inside of the applications, just as if they were another window. You can store graphics, looks created with Candy, color swatches, and all sorts of things, and then you can use these libraries for your own use between different applications, or you can use them to collaborate with other creatives.

Here's a quick breakdown of how Creative Cloud Libraries work:

Adobe also announced a brand new face-tracker that is insanely accurate and very easy to use, as well as some significant enhancements to the way media can be played and previewed in real time.

You can learn more about what's coming in the next version of After Effects over in this Adobe blog post.

Audition, Media Encoder, & Prelude

Check out the Adobe blog post that has the rundown on the new features in this latest update. Adobe also announced that they're offering 40% off your first year's subscription ($29.99/month) if you sign up by the end of May.

Source: Adobe Blogs