Color management in AE CS3

Mark Christiansen's After Effects 7.0 Studio Techniques has a great discussion of film, HDR, and 32-bit compositing, but AE8 adds a few wrinkles with a complete color management workflow through Project Working Space options, to preview color and simulate final output in different mediums like broadcast monitors or film stock.

As in Photoshop, I'd keep Color Management off to avoid inadvertent color shifts from embedding or converting to default profiles unless I've worked out a specific workflow. Files embedded with Adobe default profile sRGB might sneak in, so getting color management under control for all codecs and file types might take some serious thought. I had standardized on Adobe RGB (1998) and ruthlessly convert graphics from others if they use a profile. There's even a new utility filter to convert per layer, Color Profile Converter (pictured). I don't have a firm handle on the new color management yet (I'm fine as an NTSC island) but hopefully these Adobe white papers will help clear things up: Color Management Workflow in Adobe After Effects CS3 and Color workflows for Adobe Creative Suite 3 .

There's a basic video tutorial on color management in the Video Workshop. And you can also flip through the documentation for color and color managment at AE LiveDocs, for example High dynamic range color and Why you should use color management.

Update: this is a hairy issue...according to Studio Daily, "Post Logic Studios announced the launch of its Image Science Division...[to offer]...clients “the assurance of consistent color management across every stage of a production, regardless of acquisition format or output medium.”

Update 2: On the AE-List (18 Aug 2007) Chris Meyer responded to a question about a gamma shift between AE8 and AE7, "The short answer, in most "AE CS3 does not match AE7" cases where Color Management is _not_ enabled for the project (Project Working Space = None), is to enable the Legacy Gamma switch in the Project Prefs. The long answer is...a long answer. (I'm writing that chapter this week, as a matter of fact.) The text in the Project Prefs, Interpret Footage, and Output Module dialogs help, as does the Adobe white paper..."

Embedding video, plus iPhone video & Flash

John Dowdell notes advice from BBC interactive for in-page video attractiveness, while HD for Indies considers Making Content for the iPhone.

And it looks like Apple might be adding Flash to the iPhone according to the WSJ; see Next iPhone generation will support Flash. There's also plenty of other iPhone developments, like the free iPhoneDevCamp held at Adobe in San Francisco the weekend of July 6, Apple on Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone,and The AIR iPhone an AIR application that could possibly for fun be ported to FlashLite to work on cheap handsets.

Update: 8 Coolest iPhone Apps at iPhoneDevCamp plus iPhoneDevCamp Walkthrough.

Update 2: No BS iPhone Review from Gizmodo via HD forIndies.

Flash Video Content Protection

Adobe has a new white paper with visual explanations of some of the risks for delivering video on the Internet and how to protect content from stream capturing by Real Player and other tools using the built-in features of Flash Media Server. John Dowdell has good background and extra linked resources on this white paper, Video Content Protection with Flash Media Server.

Star Spangled Blues

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock


Back-to-back, chicken shack

Robert J. Allison noted in The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim world, 1776-1815 that the early version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" contained lyrics saying that the banner obscured the crescent as heathens were killed. More recent books after 2001 have a different bent, so many people might not know many of the facts. Someone interviewed Allison at Newsradio 1040 WHO, if anyone wants to listen.

More on the background of the Tripolitan War and this earlier song is at Triplopia, which adds: "This 'Song' was even set to the same music as 'The Defense of Fort McHenry' later called 'The Star-Spangled Banner' -- the English drinking song, 'To Anacraeon in Heaven'! So 'The Star-Spangled Banner' has its roots not in an Anglo-American war at all, but in a war with an Islamic country, so it’s interesting to see how that relates to current events."

This is from an 1805 version of the Star-Spangled Banner:

Columbians! a band of your brothers behold,
In the conflict resistless each toil they endured,
...
'Till their foes fled dismayed from the war's desolation;
And pale beamed the crescent, its splendor obscured
By the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation.
Where each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare,
Now mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.

Our fathers who stand on the summit of fame,
Shall exultantly hear of their sons the proud story,
How their young bosoms glowed with the patriot flame,
How they fought, how they fell, in the blaze of their glory.
How triumphant they rode o'er the wondering flood,
And stained the blue waters with Infidel blood;
How mixed with the olive the laurel did wave,
And, formed a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Hitchcock was a drama king

Film Techniques of Alfred Hitchcock reviews basics of suspense, camera angles, style, and editing for "filmmakers who are sad and depressed because their movie is so average that nobody will watch it." (via Reelpop)

I dont know, maybe it was the doses

Reelpop prescribes Incarcerex: "Anti-propaganda propaganda from Brooklyn-based animation artist Haik Hoisington, touted by Andrew Sullivan and Reason Magazine. Hilarious."

AE 8.0 is shipping

Michael Coleman, Product Manager for After Effects, announced that AE CS3 and Creative Suite 3 Production Premiium is now shipping!



The new features in CS3 include:

* Shape Layers
* Puppet tool
* Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended integration
* Adobe Flash CS3 Professional integration
* Per-character 3D text animation
* Brainstorm
* Complete color management workflow
* Adobe Clip Notes
* Enhanced performance & multi-core support
* Video for mobile

Check out Mark Christiansen's After Effects CS3: my Top Ten.

Update: Bob Donlon celebrates with some simple AE fireworks done with Particle Systems II.