After Effects CS5.5 / Reviews

“The Warp Stabilizer in Adobe After Effects CS5.5 made our shot completely amazing. Shooting via a mini helicopter with a 4K Red strapped to it certainly gave us unbelievable scope for movement, but boy was it shaky. Shooting wider than we needed, and at 1/2000 shutter speed to minimize motion blur, combined with the amazing technology behind Warp Stabilizer allowed us to turn a jittery 'insect cam' shot into a Hollywood money shot. It is an amazing tool that not only quartered our workload, it made the shot viable.”

"After Effects CS5.5 delivers the most exciting upgrade for anyone involved in 3D. The Camera Lens Blur effect and the Depth of Field controls enable high-quality focus simulations with exquisite control to produce beautiful, out-of-focus highlights. With Light Falloff settings, light intensity over distances in a 3D scene can now easily be decreased. After Effects CS5.5 opens many new opportunities to create, light, and produce 3D scenes that are beautiful and realistic, faster and easier than ever before."

"Adobe After Effects CS5.5 brings a ton of goodness to the motion graphics/VFX process. With the speed of the new gorgeous camera lens blur, the accuracy of the warp stabilizer, and the dual timecode view in the timeline, I've been able to work faster on tight deadlines and produce amazing creative results."

“The new warp stabilizer in After Effects CS5.5 lets me instantly smooth the motion in handheld footage, while the dual timeline takes the guesswork out of selecting source footage. These are both fantastic new features in After Effects CS5.5 that save so much time and improve the quality of my work. Also, the new stereoscopic 3D workflow in After Effects CS5.5 really helps with creating realistic depth and 3D effects — without requiring a tedious set-up process.”

“Adobe tools are now a mainstay in our workflow and we are already excited about what Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium has to offer. In particular, the frame stabilization and speed improvements in After Effect CS5.5 are impressive.”

“After Effects CS5.5 is a major win for cinematic realism. Now we can take a handheld shot from an HD camera and, using Warp Stabilizer, make it look like we used a dolly or steadicam. With the new Camera Lens Blur, we can create incredible effects that make an otherwise ordinary shot sing, just as we might do with shallow depth of field when shooting. Finally, new caching options can seriously speed up our workflow. After Effects CS5.5 is a terrific upgrade that lets visual effects artists deliver exceptional production value, faster – without requiring sizeable budgets."

"It's easy to become so familiar with the applications you use every day that you forget how much potential they have. Yet, Adobe continues to surprise me with new functionality and just fundamentally useful features added with each new release, and they've done it again with Adobe After Effects CS5.5. Warp Stabilizer, with its ability to raise the quality of handheld footage, really stands out. The first time I used this tool, I was smiling from ear to ear. Add this to the many other refinements in After Effects CS5.5, and it's an even more powerful, fun, and productive tool than ever."

"Native 64-bit processing in Adobe After Effects CS5 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 can dramatically enhance a video production class. Specifically, 64-bit enables faster editing workflows, better special effects, and easier HD filmmaking — this means students can increase their productivity, creativity, and overall quality of their work."

"The Roto Brush tool in Adobe After Effects CS5 is mind blowing. What previously would have taken days to accomplish — and only with the most painstaking effort – can now be accomplished in minutes and with tremendous ease."

"Because a good portion of our work is broadcast and video, we spend a huge amount of time using Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium software, with heavy emphasis on Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop Extended."

"We recently clocked a RAM Preview in After Effects CS5. Older versions of After Effects took a minute and 52 seconds. In After Effects CS5 with 64-bit support, a RAM Preview took 40 seconds. That’s not just ‘geekery’ — it’s a tremendous time savings we can put toward improving productions and implementing new concepts for customers."

"When we heard about automated rotoscoping in After Effects, we were all pretty skeptical, because rotoscoping is always painful, leaves us working late nights, and seems virtually impossible to automate. The new Roto Brush tool in Adobe After Effects CS5 is, in a word—amazing. Rotoscoping has always been a nightmare, but the new Roto Brush tool makes it a lot less painful and time-consuming. Along with the other enhancements in Creative Suite 5, all we can say is ‘Bring it on!’"

"I am excited about Adobe After Effects CS5 and the ability to preview comps on the timeline in real time effects. Also, now that After Effects CS5 is a fully native 64-bit application, I can preview HD comps at full resolution and work more seamlessly on video projects without interruption."

"I have used everything from Avid and Final Cut Pro to LightWorks and Edit and Fast—and my tool of choice by far is Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium including Adobe Premiere Pro. The integration among Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and Encore is a huge time saver—and Adobe solutions are a joy to work with."

"Adobe is always pushing the envelope in terms of expanding design options for artists and boosting productivity in an already robust tool—and After Effects CS5 is no exception."

"Native support for 64-bit operating systems in After Effects CS5 makes an already indispensable tool that much more valuable.I can now take full advantage of 64-bit performance through both my hardware and software, which means After Effects can use more RAM and I can work more quickly—even on the most complex projects. It all adds up to higher quality work completed more efficiently, which makes everyone involved happy."

"The Roto Brush in Adobe After Effects CS5 is one of the most exciting features introduced in a long time.It will significantly change the way I work because I can now include rotoscoping in projects where I otherwise couldn’t have considered it due to tight deadlines. It’s a huge timesaver, and the efficiencies gained open up new possibilities in visual effects work as I’m able to spend more time on other design aspects—which improves the overall creative quality of my projects."

"Students are often faced with time and equipment constraints which means they often shoot video without the use of a tripod. mocha for After Effects CS5 simplifies the process of motion tracking to stabilize footage shots with handheld camcorders. After Effects CS5 and mocha help us correct footage during the editing process and remove camera jitter."

"The Roto Brush tool in After Effects CS5 puts high-end film and video editing techniques in the hands of students — fueling their creativity and enhancing the skills they will take with them to college and industry. They are no longer restricted to filming in front of a green screen. With the Roto Brush they change their background after filming, a process that was previously too time-consuming and expensive to use in the classroom."

"When time or equipment is a factor, instructor's can provide stock footage and students can use the Roto Brush tool in After Effects CS5 to create a whole new look to the footage. Now, students will have the ability to mix and match footage and rotoscoping can be done in a fraction of the time it took before."

"The new Auto-keyframe mode in Adobe After Effects CS5 is a tremendous time saver and keeps students from forgetting to key in the keyframes. In the past, students would go through an entire timeline and realize they forgot to hit the button to create the keyframes. Auto-keyframe mode will be especially useful when working with animations, such as animating text on a path or customizing effects."

"This is something we would never have been able to accomplish had it not been for the native DSLR support in both Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5,” says Butson. “It is just one more example of the breakthroughs we can achieve by working with Adobe’s video tools."

"Previously, it might take us five hours to rotoscope something for a pitch. With Adobe After Effects CS5, we can do it in less than an hour, helping us get our concepts out the door faster, increasing the likelihood that we will win projects."

"The image quality with the RED ONE camera is stunning, and I didn’t want to lose that. I had the opportunity to test Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, and I took it. Working with Creative Suite 5, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, I can preserve all the 4K quality and work with all the metadata from RED so I have a lot more control. Then for further finessing, I can take the files into Adobe After Effects CS5 and work on them natively from there with full 64-bit speed."

"It’s almost magical to be able to tweak something in After Effects CS5 and tab back to the timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 to see how it looks. Other software packages don’t come close to measuring up in the area of integration. Adobe software gives you the ability to seamlessly go back and forth among the applications without intermediate rendering — the workflow is genuinely unique in the industry and it lets me work faster and with fewer creative interruptions."