Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Review

Mac Life by Steve Paris

When Apple released Final Cut Pro X last year, many veterans were up in arms. FCPX wasn’t just an update to the program they’d come to rely on--it was a complete departure from what they were used to. You either loved it or hated it, and Adobe was only too pleased to welcome new clients to its platform. With Premiere Pro CS6, Adobe is working very hard to make sure its clientele stays put.

The entire interface has been redesigned. Everything is centered around the editing process with very large Source and Program monitors at the top, and huge thumbnails in the browser section. Although they take up a lot more room, the thumbnails are extremely useful for seeing at a glance which clip you want, and Adobe took a page from iMovie and Final Cut Pro X, letting you mouse over a clip to skim through your footage. It also does one better: click the clip to reveal a small timeline. Drag a clip’s playhead to look through it, and if you’ve already set In and Out points, they’ll appear there as well--this functionality almost makes the Source monitor redundant.

Such a focus on your clips leaves less room to display tools like the traditional jog and shuttle controls, although it’s hard to imagine who would miss them when everything can be controlled with keyboard shortcuts--which are a more efficient way of working, anyway.

Many of CS6’s new features appear to be a direct response to Final Cut Pro X--it’s great when a rivalry brings out the best in the competitors. read more...