Premiere Pro 22.3 is here and it introduces some changes that will definitely push away some season editors. So I thought I'd share my perspective on the new release. I hope you find it helpful.
This release brings the first stage of native frame.io integration into Adobe's ecosystem. And that's great news for most of us.
Basically, if you have an Adobe ID, you also have a frame.io account. And if you own a subscription (all apps or singular for Premiere or After Effects) you get an account with 2 users, 5 concurrent projects, unlimited reviewers, and 100GB of dedicated storage. That's much better than what they used to offer in their free account.
 |
I'm on a Pro account anyway so it's not applying to me but I think most users will definitely benefit from that change.
So far so good!
This release releases the Auto Color button which is powered by Adobe's machine learning engine. It's an improvement from the old Auto button and will be helpful for beginners. Intermediate and advanced users can probably use it for low-profile projects as a starting point.
 |
But I'm not excited about this feature because it's clearly for a different user group than me or most of CTTP's subscribers.
We want color improvements but there are dozens of more important things that could be fixed or added to Adobe's color workflow. And we're still far from satisfying solutions in that regard.
That's probably the most obvious and the most polarizing update.
The Import mode looks almost like Lightroom. We can add folders to Favorites, filer by media type, search, switch to a list view, create a sequence or bin with the imported clips, and copy selected files to another folder or a disk. Lightroom Import all the way.
 |
I'm very used to the old layout so I was frustrated at first.
Oh, come on. You're adding a Header Bar that cannot be removed like the old Workspaces panel? Do we really want Premiere to imitate Resolve?
But before I decide if I like this change or not, I should at least try to understand why they're doing it.
First, I've heard many people complaining about Premiere Pro's user interface. Saying that it feels like software from the past decade while Resolve looks and feels like it's from this age.
Whether we like it or not, a new generation of editors starts to use this platform and Adobe needs to keep up. That's probably their first motivation.
The second one is that their fastest user group is not intermediate and advanced editors but rather video creators of all types and sizes. From single moms starting a YT channel about their life with a toddler to firemen vlogging their rescue missions.
And while it feels like Adobe ignores that professional editors are the core of their success, I think there's actually more to all of this.
Inevitably, more and more people around the world will create video content. Most successful fresh talent filmmakers in a decade will have roots in content creation. Not in a film school. That's a trend and that's just what it is. In my opinion, that's actually a good thing.
And lastly, I hope that this decision also aims at rewriting part of the code to make it better for the future. Import and export workflow are the foundations of any NLE. If together with the new look they actually took care of the code as well, it might be good news in terms of stability and future improvement to those workflows.
Mind that it's just a guess. I know nothing specific about it and actually, I would not be surprised if the new workflow in the first iteration causes more problems than it solves. I'm probably sticking to the old workflow for the time being.
But I want to stay open-minded. I don't like the approach of sticking to old and good. I like to embrace change and progression. So on occasions, I will be giving it a go. Especially on less important projects where I'm OK with taking a small risk.
Also, there are a few good things about this new header bar.
First, we finally get a workspaces dropdown menu that looks promising. We can choose between showing workspace tabs or labels. And we can change the order of the workspaces as well as hide some that we don't want to see. Definitely a good move.
 |
The Quick Export button is now actually useful. First, you can add any preset to it. Second, we can now choose to "match sequence preview settings" which utilizes Smart Rendering.
If you don't know what Smart Rendering is, I have a full lesson about it in Editing Chef. A shameless plug. Just saying 😀
 |
We also get a dedicated button for Maximizing Video Output (Cinema Mode) which many people didn't even know about. So that's a great addition. Although again - it doesn't affect me or most of CTTP's subscribers as we already know a shortcut and will continue using it.
But yeah - the header bar will probably be non-removable which is surprising and will meet a lot of criticism from more advanced users. It's essentially taking away part of our working area. Although most of us work on high-resolution displays these days. So because the bar is actually more useful than the old Workspaces panel, I think I'm gonna get used to it.
A small but useful update. We now have these checkboxes as shown below:
 |
Yep - they added the same feature that I used for creating Shot Decks to After Effects. That's an appreciated improvement as I had to do cuts manually in AE many times in the past.
That's it. What are your thoughts about the new release? Disappointed? Frustrated about the header bar? Happy with the direction they're taking with it?
Let me know 🙂
