-
FCP-X “Lightroom for video”
Spent the evening last night at a lecture by a national Adobe Lightroom expert.
I’m not a still guy, but I try to learn something about parallel disciplines and last night was very interesting. And Since Adobe’s foundation was originally more successful extending Photoshop than extending Premier (at least back in the day), I thought what I saw and heard might be interesting to the video folk here.
He made some points. Among many…
Lightroom being a database not actually a photo browser like Bridge or a photo editor like Photoshop.
He opined that this is important because everything goes faster if you’re dealing with a database rather than manipulating original files.
He also talked at length about efficiency, noting that with the specific tools in Lightroom, he can do nearly all of the work he needs to do to manage, prepare, and export his pictures for his clients inside Lightroom -and rarely goes into Photoshop these days unless his clients are specifically willing to pay extra for custom retouching. He noted he actually prefers to leave that to others – like agency art directors – so he can remain productive in his core competency – which is photo creation over photo re-touching.
As he described his workflow, he talked about shooting 3000 to 5000 or more images on a typical shoot – having to cut that down to 200-300 in an initial pass – then concentrate on getting 100 – 200 of those “client ready” for review as quickly as possible.
He spent a lot of time talking about metadata tagging workflows that enable precisely that. Instinctive, rapid rough sort – rather than burning time obsessively looking back and forth between two similar images trying to figure out which one might be “more perfect.”
Essentially, he’s leveraging metadata and tagging to ruthlessly drive efficiency – so he can make more money faster.
The reason I’m writing about this here, is that with cameras becoming less expensive and more prevalent – our industry is seeing vastly more raw footage generated than we ever had to deal with in the past.
The thing that struck me most was the 3-part approach he showed out of Lightroom. 1. Build the database via tagging. 2. Attach additional metadata to it to express your editing decisions. Then Batch export in order to satisfy multiple constituencies who have differing needs – essentially creating not just ONE master – but multiple masters for uses ranging from emailing client review files to archiving.
This seems to me to be very much like the X rebuild. Most of the Lightroom approach for stills – is expressed similarly in X. (Tho obviously photo management and video stream management are vastly different in data scope and throughput considerations.)
Lightroom has clearly come to dominate professional photography in the past few years.
So for those on Premier, I’d be interested in your thoughts. I’ve seen Premier as a big tool for a specific set of editorial tasks much like Photoshop for stills.
Is a tool like X that seems to be built more on a Lightroom style approach to video – a fair metaphor?
I know many here wanted a more Photoshop approach in X than Lightroom. But I wonder if the wider market sees more potential in the rapid manipulation and management approach – as opposed to deep-file precision rebuilding and repair approach that Photoshop is so known for?
Will Premier continue to expand on the current approach? And if so, will Adobe ever do for video what they did for image manipulation – bring out a “lightroom” approach for video?
Interesting questions.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
37 Replies
-
[Bill Davis] “So for those on Premier, I’d be interested in your thoughts. I’ve seen Premier as a big tool for a specific set of editorial tasks much like Photoshop for stills.”
I would never compare Photoshop with PP. In any case i would compare it with AE. Somehow, AE is Photoshop in motion.I think that a Lightroom approach for video managing would be interesting for distribution of raw material for news and so. In the end this is not much related with video editing, or at least I don’t see this the kind of tasks that an NLE must be designed for.
rafael -
“Premiere”
And I’d say X is more akin to iPhoto & Aperture. Both of which are similar, but preceded Lightroom, and share many of the same terminology and interface nuances.
-
[Bill Davis] “Will Premier continue to expand on the current approach? And if so, will Adobe ever do for video what they did for image manipulation – bring out a “lightroom” approach for video?”
They already have. It’s called Prelude.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
BTW, the Prelude product manager is Wes Plate, a name that should be very familiar around here. I expect this program will get very very good. It’s currently at version 1.0.2.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
I’m not exactly sure why this is a revelation. Apple did this first with Aperture and basically the database management functions are similar between Aperture and Lightroom. The same team that developed Aperture developed iMovie and FCP X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
PS: And the reason Lightroom dominates is because Apple has given all signals of having lost interest in Aperture. It’s simply a vehicle to sell iMacs and MacBook Pros. They haven’t been keeping ahead with the feature set. Meanwhile Adobe keeps making Lightroom better.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Prelude is young, yet.
It was certainly developed for a very specific broadcast workflow at first, I hope it broadens up to more workflows. It has lots of potential.
I would love it if it could help color manage/conform Log based footage, or help to consolidate, or help with a non news type of setting.
On a separate note, has anyone here transferred their collection from Aperture to Lightroom? How was that process?
-
Thanks.
I don’t follow the Adobe products, so I wan’t aware of prelude.
The MacWorld review of it said…
“It helps you ingest and manage large amounts of recorded content from various sources and lets you organize the clips and also add directorial notation and rough cuts to pass on to an editor. You might say it’s the director’s tool for managing and selecting the dailies—the footage shot on any given day.”
Is that a fair representation?
It seems counter to what I watched about Lightroom, since I was shown not only organizational tools but tools that enabled the user to largely perfect and export finished results as easily for a client as for another department.
Again, just trying to clarify my thinking about these products.
Essentially, the goal of most photographers using lightroom is to get the job DONE there. Rather than
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
[Bill Davis] “You might say it’s the director’s tool for managing and selecting the dailies—the footage shot on any given day.”
Is that a fair representation? “
Yes, that seems fair and accurate to me.
[Bill Davis] “It seems counter to what I watched about Lightroom, since I was shown not only organizational tools but tools that enabled the user to largely perfect and export finished results as easily for a client as for another department.
Again, just trying to clarify my thinking about these products.”
I haven’t done much work with Prelude yet other than to just open it and poke around, but my impression and everything I’ve read about it says that it’s more geared to prep than finishing. It has tools for doing a first pass assembly and rough cut, but it’s really not intended to be a full-blown editor. I think this makes sense given how it’s positioned in the workflow.
When you think about it, photo touch-up is a much more specific task than full editorial so I can see how it might be possible to get images client ready in Lightroom. Editorial really is a much bigger job. That said, the program is very new so who knows how much will be possible with future versions.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
I believe Prelude was also developed more for News Producers that are not editors. It was a product that was specifically written for CNN and someone else. They just through it in the CS6 suite.
My guess, when Prelude 2.0 comes out, it will be miles ahead (aka, Encore 1 to 2). The foundation is there with Dynamic Link, as even after a project is taken to Premiere, you can still make changes in Prelude and it updates through DL.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up