[Nevin Styre]

I wonder if intel was running out of the old slower processors but still had/has stock of the slightly faster ones, forcing this mild refresh.

[Nevin Styre]

Hey look, “new” icon next to Mac Pro in the store… Looks like it’s all the same with a bump in default ram config

[Nevin Styre]

This is the way I do it, it only works if the texture below is all solid colour vector shapes, no raster images.
If your background texture has any shapes with strokes, you will first want to “object->expand” those shapes before doing this.

First make a simple square shape larger than your texture and crescent, choose a simple colour that doesn’t have to do with the design(ex: bright green/pink).
Make the layer order so that your crescent shape appears on top of the new square shape, now select both the crescent and square, open your pathfinder window and hit the “merge” button. Right click on this new merged shape and “ungroup”, select the crescent portion and delete it or hide it (hiding it is a good idea if you want to still utilize the shape afterwards). Now you have your “cookie cutter”, a solid colour square with your crescent hole cut into it. With the cookie cutter as the top most layer, select all the shapes of your background texture and the cookie cutter shape, again go into the pathfinder window, and again hit the “merge” button. After the merge, right click to “ungroup” this new shape and then select and delete your cookie cutter part. You should be left with your texture cut into the crescent shape, group everything together for easy positioning/transformation and you’re good to go.

[Nevin Styre]

Yeah it is possible and fairly simple, last year I migrated mid-project from mac to PC in CS5.5. The only thing is some codecs inside quicktime containers may require purchasing 3rd party tools to work with in windows(like HDV/xdcam clips in a .mov container), but your project may not have any of them so it could work right away with no additional codecs.

[Nevin Styre]

Yeah it is a new feature in CS6, but depending on your disk speed and/or file size of your document it could be the cause of the hangs. To disable it, go into your preferences and under the “File Handling” section uncheck the box next to “Save in Background”.

[Nevin Styre]

It might be the background autosave feature.

[Nevin Styre]

If it is not necessary that all the layers remain vector shapes you could always go Object->Rasterize on each layer that has the clipping path, make sure to select the “On Transparent” option. When you import a layered AI into AE it will create a comp that has all the layers aligned properly, copy the layers from that comp or work from that comp to start with everything lined up.

[Nevin Styre]

I’d try to not have to do this in post, moving, flashing different coloured concert lights seems like it will probably be a pain with keying. You could fake it by having your main guy on a platform way in front of the stage, then carefully framing it from the front with a long lens shot(with a deep depth of field) so that he looks like he is standing on the stage way behind him, adjusting the concert lighting so it hits him like it would if he were actually on the stage. Fake 1/3 size mic stands & audio monitors on the platform with the main guy might help sell it(if they belong/match other shots that is).

[Nevin Styre]

Well to me, if it is an option that is enabled inside the effect, then I assume that rendering will have that in it, whether it is designed just for referencing or not, what you see is what you get in most cases. Alternatively if you’re worried about leaving this on in the future, instead to see your original next to your color corrected clip you could go to Sequence->Match Frame while in your corrected clip. This is different than split view in that it is a side by side and it is really only for checking stopped frames next to eachother (playing back CC’d or original doesn’t sync playback the other), but this way it has nothing to do with the effect & leaves your CC’d image alone.

[Nevin Styre]

So you are turning off an effect on a clip and are surprised you need to render again? Of course that’s how it works, premiere can’t read your mind and know that you only wanted it on temporarily.