Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Premiere Pro (PPRO) CS6 was released in May 2012.

What's New in Premiere Pro CS6

Adobe Prelude
Adobe SpeedGrade
New Preset Browser
Rolling Shutter Repair effect
Warp Stabilizer Effect
Improved multicam functionality
New Audio Mixer (with some design/features taken from Audition)
Adaptive audio tracks
Three-Way Color Corrector
On MacOS, some gestural controls are supported (e.g. pinch, swipe).
Native import of ARRI Alexa, RED Scarlet, RED Epic, and Canon Cinema EOS C300 footage.

Overview & Review

Premiere Pro CS6 makes a number of changes to the interface. Whereas the previous version (CS5) was mostly about under-the-hood performance (rendering etc), this version is mostly about interface performance.

The default workspace is slightly leaner, hiding the media browser and devoting more space to monitors. A great improvement is that the transport controls under the monitors can be customized and even removed altogether. If you use keyboard shortcuts and/or third-party controllers, these buttons are wasted space so it's great to be able to lose them. Interestingly, I found that even though I use the keyboard and a Shuttle Pro for most editing, I did miss the buttons after I removed them. It turns out that I'd been using the onscreen buttons more than I realized and having to use only my keyboard or Shuttle Pro took a little getting used to. I also noticed the absence of the mouse-driven jog/shuttle control (it's been removed completely). In the end I've decided that I'll go without the buttons in return for the extra screen space.

In the timeline, tools such as trim and ripple edit behave slightly differently and you have a few more options. A big new feature is the dynamic trimming with keyboard control (e.g. JKL trimming, numeric trims). Among other enhancements, you can double-click an edit point to bring up a trim panel directly in the program monitor, which is quicker and better than the old trim panel.

Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, some of them have been changed; for example, Go To Next/Previous Edit is now the Up/Down Arrow.

Adjustment layers are available in the timeline. This allows you to apply an effect to the adjustment layer and have it affect multiple clips below. Fantastic!

The zoom and scroll controls in the timeline have been neatly consolidated into a single dynamic scrollbar at the bottom of the panel. At the top of the timeline you can now remove the Time Ruler Numbers and/or the Work Bar Area. Personally I find the concept of the work area to be largely redundant, given that you can do all the same things using in and out points. To me it makes much more sense to lose the Work Area Bar and get a bit more space in the timeline. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe phases out the work area altogether in future versions.

The mouse scroll wheel now has more options (with Crtl/Cmd and Alt/Opt modifiers) to scroll vertically or horizontally as well as zoom in and out.

The Project Panel is nicer, with functional 16x9 thumbnails that allow hover scrubbing and adding in/out points.

According to Adobe, the Mercury Playback Engine has been improved. Timeline operations should be smoother and rendering should be noticeably faster. Personally I haven't noticed any significant improvement but I haven't tested it empirically. One thing I have noticed is that timeline playback can continue while making certain changes or edits that would previously have stopped playback.

Miscellaneous New Features

Ctrl/Cmd-~ toggles fullscreen playback (no chrome).
To duplicate a clip in the timeline, Alt-drag it to a new location.
You can choose which clip to use timecode from when using merged clips.
Project Panels tabs.

Discontinued Features

Device Central.
CS Review Service.
Photoshop layers are no longer rendered as video (to create video from Photoshop layers, export to video from Photoshop).

Conclusion

This is a solid upgrade. Not essential by any means, but enough nice new features to make it worthwhile.

Author: Dave Owen, Originally published: 2012-06-10