Well folks it’s here!  Adobe CS5 is online and all engines are hot.  I know this review is just my humble opinion, but I have been using Adobe products since Photoshop v3.  I have seen some bad upgrades (V4) and some great ones (V6) but this one tops them all!  I love it.  It’s that plain and simple.

The updates for this upgrade have impacted each of the products in the master collection.  The addition of the Flash catalyst, and Flash builder are important ones to note.  All the programs have been made 64bit native as well.  This is a HUGE improvement for the performance minded artist out there.

The biggest upgrade here though is the After Effects program.  Not only has it gone 64bit, upgraded Mocha to V2 (this is the planer tracker) but has added what I believe to be the BIGGEST jump forward to motion graphics in a long time.  The RotoBrush.  Such a simple name for such a powerful tool.  Sortta like “Wheel”.

For those of you new to motion graphics, rotoscoping is the act of painful hours masking off sections of a video or an object in order to do a multitude of things.  The list starts with simple color correction all the way to lifting and actor out of a piece of footage and placing them in another location.  Normally this is done with green screen work, but that is not always available to the artist. (or the green screen is not done well).  With the Rotobrush I took an old piece of vid I did awhile ago and had to use a TON of masks to cut my actor out and put a new background behind him. Hours and hours of key-framing the masks (there were 18!) all for a 10 second shot that was not thought about before hand.  I re-did the exact same shot in under 15 minutes. grrrrrrrr! When I think back on all the other projects I had worked on and the time they took……. I know I lost many weeks of my life I will never get back.

Now if you are thinking all your roto problems are gone, forget it!  This tool goes way far to making life better for us artist out there, but nothing out right now can make the pain all go away. (but almost) now it is no longer the one thing I dread more than paying for tickets to see a concert by a young man my daughter thinks is the best thing since sliced bread. (place image in mind of lots of blonde hair swishing to a fro ….. shudder)

Well until next time when I place a vid tutorial on how to use the Rotobrush up for your perusal.

Shannon