A little bit of info on CS5

Ok, we know it’s been out for a couple of months now, but we thought we’d give you a little bit of info on CS5 for those who are thinking of upgrading or buying it for the first time.

The latest version of the program is now 64-bit native to take advantage of the full memory of the CPU, even when users are working on high-resolution projects. This also means that you can take full advantage of your systems RAM with previous versions of AE not being able to utilise more than 4Gb

A new Roto Brush tool, which works similarly to the Quick Selection tool in Photoshop, lets you easily isolate foreground elements in complex scenes eliminating the need for tedious rotoscoping.

After Effects CS5 features native support for the new AVC-Intra 50 and AVC-Intra 100 codecs, as well as expanded native support for footage from RED cameras… which is nice.

The new version also offers an auto-keyframe mode, includes an updated version of Synthetic Aperture’s Color Finesse colour correction tool, and now includes the Digieffects FreeForm plug-in.

After Effects CS5 also includes an upgraded version of Mocha for After Effects, a planer tracking system that ships in the box, as well as the Mocha shape plug-in, which lets you use tracking data in new ways. The new Mocha release also includes the ability to apply motion tracking to hand-drawn masks.

Included for the first time in After Effects CS5 is the Mocha shape plug-in, which lets you copy and paste multiple motion-tracked masks from Mocha to any After Effects layer, while preserving all their qualities. This is useful for shots that contain camera movements or moving objects that require masking.

Will Stencil Media be updating to CS5? Not yet unfortunately! We’re still using 32 bit processors, so we’ll have to upgrade those before we do. It’s a shame as the Roto Brush would be an absolute Godsend!

www.adobe.com