Adobe, Photoshop (25.6.0), Why Is "Make Frames From Layers" Completely Out Of Whack?

 Adobe Photoshop 25.6.0 weirdness...

Adobe, what on earth are you thinking? I have stills, numbered 001 through 005. I use File / Script / Load Files into Stack.

I select my 5 pictures, click on Sort By Name, and OK.

Photoshop imports all 5 slides and stacks them in order, great. I now have 5 layers with 001 at top, and 005 at the bottom. So far so good.

001 being selected, I click on Create Frame Animation. The Timeline populates with 001 as the first image of the animation, OK.

Then I go to the Timeline hamburger menu, click and select Make Frames From Layers.

Photoshop populates the Timeline with 5 frames, except... they are in REVERSE ORDER! 👀😡 👿 005, 004, 003, 002, 001.

Why Adobe?

So then I have to add a step, select all the frames in the animation, click again on the hamburger and select Reverse Frames. Now it's in the correct order.

This behavior DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. Why would we want to sequence images in reverse order as default? Seriously?

See for yourself.

Adobe Encore CS6 Asks For A Serial Number Current Adobe Cloud Subscription

 Today Adobe Encore refused to start, asking for a serial number. I am an Adobe CC subscriber, and I use Encore from time to time to author and burn discs.

I have an old Mac frozen on macOS Mojave, with Premiere Pro CS6, Media Encoder CS6 and Encore CS6 installed.

Adobe has removed Encore CS6 from CC. Adobe CC app does not offer CS6 as a choice in the older apps installs anymore. Encore is EOL and frozen. Some functionality has been removed (Dolby AC3 encoding.) But as a current CC subscriber, you can continue to use PP, AME and Encore CS6.

If like me you have them already installed on your system, you're good to go. If not, you might need to do some research to find stand alone CS6 installers on the web. Alas Adobe have removed their own links, and is making sure everything old is getting erased.

If Encore is asking for a Serial Number at startup, it's probably because you haven't used it in a while. But because you are a CC subscriber, you can still launch and use Encore as explained in this Creative Cow Forum entry here. Obviously it has to be on a compatible system. I haven't tried Encore on anything newer than Mojave.

How to do this is as follow:

• Launch Premiere Pro CC or any Adobe app. Go to Menu/Help and Sign out.
• Launch Premiere Pro CS6. It will ask you to Sign in via a web browser. Do so with your CC credentials. Adobe may request a second identification, and send you a code. Get it and enter your code.
• Premiere Pro CS6 will launch, let it fully open. Create a new project even just to make sure it works.
• Click on PPCS6 Menu/Help and make sure "Deactivate" is active and not greyed out.
• If it is greyed out, close and relaunch PPCS6. Check again.
• If it is still greyed out, quit and launch Premiere Pro CC this time, not PPCS6. Sign in if you are asked to. Quit PP CC.
• Launch PPCS6 one more time and check again Menu/Help, this time "Deactivate" should be active / not greyed out. That's the status you want.
• Now launch Encore CS6 and it should just open without asking for a serial number.

It might take you a while before it launches. It took me a good 30 minutes to get it to work, but it eventually did. Encore on my system is reasonably stable, and works as intended.

Happy BD / DVD authoring! ... Not for very long probably...

Adobe Premiere Pro Recommended Hardware 64GB RAM Minimum

OK so Adobe in its mansuetude recommends 64GB of RAM minimum to run PP in a professional environment:

64GB Minimum! WHAT??

This info is taken from Adobe's "Best Practices & Workflow Guide" that you can download here. 

64GB, this is a huge amount of RAM. And they even say to go higher for complex projects. How much higher? 128GB? 256GB?

Yes, I know Premiere will work just fine with less, duh! That's not my point. Adobe recommendation is 64GB or more. Who are we? Rockefellers?

I mean, I agree that more is better, but it's also expensive and inefficient at some point. Fast cores, sure, more cores, of course, it will help rendering speed. Faster ssds and drives, faster ethernet, obviously.

Adobe justification for this is rather vague:

Video frames decoding, OK sure, 6k, 8k, 12k is gonna tax the system RAM. How many pros work with higher than 1080/4k 24/30 resolution though, I'd be curious. Also this function is shared with hardware / GPU, and with these getting more and more powerful, less system RAM should be needed, not more.

Project data... Gobbling RAM like this? And how much of it is really used? And why is it not more efficient at using RAM? At some point throwing more raw power at bad code is not making the software better.

So how about looking hard into optimization for a change Adobe?

Adobe Media Encoder Stuck Rendering "Reading XMP" - With Fix

 Adobe Media Encoder is broken again (v 24.1.1)

When Exporting from Premiere, Send to Adobe Media Encoder, nothing happens, AME gets stuck "Reading XMP", or not even showing anything. One of the many complains.

Yet another bug 🐛 that's been plaguing AME for the longest time. Can't you guys FIX THIS SHIT once and for all Adobe?

Note that this bug is not systematic. Sometimes everything works as it should, other times it gets stuck. Usually when you're in a rush to export something.

I tried a possible fix: open AME Preferences, Uncheck "Import sequences natively". Quit AME. Remove XMP altogether, no go.

Uncheck "Import sequences natively"

Unfortunately it only worked for one export. The next day, same thing happened again: AME stuck "reading XMP."

Quitting Premiere, restarting Premiere does not work either. AME gets stuck Establishing Dynamic Link, then stuck reading XMP.

What works for me:

(1) In AME Settings, General, turn off "Enable Parallel Encoding". Why is it turned on by default Adobe?

Uncheck "Enable Parallel Encoding"

 (2) Create a Custom Preset, or Edit your Preset, then click on the "Metadata" Button.

Click on Metadata, bottom left

"Create Sidecar File" is the default export option. NO GOOD. Why is it the default Adobe? I understand it might have something to do with Markers that's broken, although many users report that they are not using Markers at all. Whatever, in any case it doesn't work. So, turn Export Options to "Minimum required" or "None".

Export Options - Select "Minimum required" or "None"

Click OK, then SAVE and use this new Preset to encode.

(3) Sometimes even steps (1) and (2) are not enough to get AME to start encoding. If it still gets stuck, delete every single job from the queue. Leave AME open, go back to the Premiere  sequence, re-Export via send to AME. Re-apply the saved presets and hit render.

After these 3 steps, (AGGRAVATION x 3!) AME eventually does its job properly without getting stuck.

What a convoluted unnecessary process Adobe, shame on you.

Adobe Premiere, Why on F#$%^#* Earth Do You Put A Black Frame At The End Of My Video????

 Adobe Premiere is such a piece of garbage.

I export a h264 video selecting an In and an Out points. The Out point is 1sec into a graphic, the same graphic continues for a whole 10seconds after the Out point. On export the resulting h264 file last frame is black.

Why is it not showing my graphic? WHY??????

I mean ADOBE? What do you have to say? It's been documented FOR YEARS! Just Google "Adobe Premiere puts a black frame at the end of my h264 export". It's a BUG!!! 🪲🪳🦟 BUG, BUG, BUG!!! Fix it already.

If I Send To Adobe Media Encoder instead of direct exporting from Premiere, SAME THING!!! By the way, selecting Hardware Accelerated or Software Only doesn't not make an iota of difference, same fuckup. So now I have to export a ProRes version, that works just fine, and then encode a h264 with AME? Nope! Doesn't work either. 🖕

Apple Compressor to the rescue. APPLE COMPRESSOR, works just great with h264, Adobe???

 What a mess. Premiere "Pro" Uh???? It would be laughable if it wasn't disgusting.

!!!UPDATE!!!

Adobe Media Encoder 24.1.1 SEEM TO BE WORKING FINE NOW.

I tested Export on Premiere 24.1, and the bug is FIXED with Premiere as well! No more black frame at the end of h264 exports. Yeah! Finally.

Thanks Adobe!

Adobe Premiere Pro 2024 (24.0.0.58) Error code -1609629690 Exporting h264, And Solution

Premiere Pro throws an error compiling movie on exporting a h264 file:

Error compiling movie.

Render Error

Render returned error.

Writing with exporter: H.264

Writing to file: /Volumes/G Vulcan 4TB/[2152] MCV OpenHands/MCV OH Chuck/ Masters/Masters Web/CP_OHC_Chuckwild_01.mp4

Writing file type: H264

Around timecode: 00:00:02:00 - 00:00:02:05

Rendering at offset: 0.000 seconds

Component: H.264 of type Exporter

Selector: 9

Error code: -1609629690

 The media / clip itself is h264, editing into a default Timeline.

Other people have been reporting the same error, and for them turning off "Hardware Encoding" seem to work, albeit slowly.

For me, it's turning off "Use Maximum Render Quality" (leave it unchecked) that does the trick. 

If I check the "Maximum Render Quality" box, it leads to the error, no matter what. It's perfectly happy with "Hardware Encoding" always on.

Mac M1, macOS Ventura 13.6, Premiere 24.0.0.58

Adobe Bridge 13.0.3 Has A Memory Leak On Mac M1 With macOS Monterey 12.6.2

 Adobe Bridge 13.0.3 is in Death Star mode on my Mac mini M1...

Look at this! Bridge is doing nothing, just sitting there in the background, gobbling 46GB of memory all by itself!

Is this a joke Adobe?

And how about Photoshop, similarly doing nothing, just being open in the background, vampirizing nearly 10GB of RAM?

In comparison, I'm actively using FCP and it is content with a mere 8GB, flying though a Multicam HD project like butter.

And by the way, I only knew about this because of the pop up window, no slow down or other weirdness while editing! Still a lot of things to improve with macOS, but we've come a long way.

In any case, please fix this Adobe!

Not A Day Passes Without 🤬 Premiere Crashing 🖕🖕🖕

 11:14am

11:35am

F&$K YOU PREMIERE!

Adobe Premiere Does Not Draw Waveforms Properly, Another Bug 🪳

The bugs 🐛 🪲 🪳 are crawling around with Premiere. This time it's in the form of finicky waveforms drawing... Or lack of shall I say...

Isn't this a wonderful behavior?

Good luck keeping your sanity with this kind of waveform drawing! Oh! By the way, as you see here, it will draw eventually after you playback or zoom-in/out, but next time you open the same file, the same empty sections reappear.

I always remember Premiere being shitty with waveform drawing, so it's not like this problem is brand new. Who cares? Just delete these pesky peak (.pek) files once in a while, what are you complaining about?

Who f$c^*ng cares!?? Not Adobe obviously! Good luck editing audio.

The bugs 🐛 🪲 🪳 are everywhere with Premiere!

More Adobe Premiere Pro Bugs - It's Endless

 Here is another bug! Premiere is so buggy, stay away from it!

When you try to transcribe, or in my case re-transcribe, a Sequence, I get this error message and nothing gets done:

A low-level exception occurred in RawPCM (Exporter:17)

Great! Worked fine on the assembly timeline though. Oh! Wait, apparently if you use any audio FX, or even, god forbid, if you adjusted any levels in the timeline, Premiere throws this shit in your face and does nothing.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/a-low-level-exception-occured-rawpcm-exporter-17/td-p/12944658

Lovely! Users only reported this bug 6 month ago, we only had two or three versions of Premiere since then. The bug is still there.

Wonderful, thank you Adobe!

--- UPDATE ---

You won't believe this! So I had enough with premiere and I went for a walk to lower my blood pressure. Lo and behold I come back to the same Sequence, same Project, everything the same as I left it an hour ago. I didn't touch anything. For the life of me I click on Re-transcribe sequence and... It goes through and is currently transcribing!!!

Meaning the workarounds and/or whatever reasons peeps believe Premiere is giving this error message are all BS. My Sequence is completely mixed, with clips, and tracks levels, and sound effects galore! And this time it has decided that it would go through with transcription.

What the F*U#% IS THIS ADOBE???

It's maddening I tell you. Adobe Premiere, the most unreliable NLE software champ 🏆 ever. 

Adobe Please Add This Feature Request To Premiere That 400+ Users Are Asking For

Reorder / Rearrange Video and Audio Tracks

It would be amazing to simply grab a track and move it up or down in the order of the sequence. This was something I could do easily back when I used Vegas Pro. Occasionally, I have big, complex sequences and would like to reorder the tracks for organization purposes or for shipping off to audio master. Thanks!

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33891022-reorder-rearrange-video-and-audio-tracks?page=1&per_page=20

Seriously, yes!

Adobe, users have been asking for this feature for 4 years now. Please add it to Premiere ASAP, it is mind boggling that it it still does not exist in Premiere. It should be a priority.

Every other NLE / DAW does it. Even your own Audition does it! Why not Premiere?

On top of it, as of version 22.6.2 on Mac M1: Premiere screws up h264 footage. Premiere has a Warp Stabilizer bug. Premiere has a bug displaying Multicam audio waveforms. AME has a Create New Ingest Preset bug.

What are you guys doing, Adobe?

Adobe Premiere And Media Encoder Are Totally UNRELIABLE On Apple M1 Silicon macOS Monterey

 Premiere 22.6.2 and Media Encoder 22.6.1 have been pissing me off for the past few weeks. I had to take over this project that was started in Premiere, and I have experienced problems after problems with Sony MP4 and GoPro footage.

Image tearing up randomly, no matter what I try, it happens one way or the other. Premiere or Media Encoder, Silicon or Intel version, GPU, no GPU, Hardware accel, not accel, whatever I try, nothing works and I end up with tears and macro blocking on export.

I finally got fed up and transcoded everything to Apple ProRes. It's just 10 x the media size, whatever.

 Guess what. Freaking AME teared random images in the middle of random clips! I kid you not, this is not even edited, this is a raw MP4 clip from a Sony camera, transcoded to ProRes with AME.

And this is happening, at random:

What on earth is going on Adobe? Look at this macro blocking! Two minutes into a 10 minutes clip. This total crap goes on for a full 30 frames!!! An entire second of media screwed by Adobe.

This is a second attempt at the same transcode. Perfect. Wait, what???

Conclusion: Adobe is not ready for Silicon M1 Macs. Do not use Premiere or AME for reliable operation if you are on a Silicon Mac with Monterey.

Adobe, FIX THIS NOW!  And don't tell me it's Apple's fault. FCP and Resolve work reliably with MP4 footage. There is zero reason why this is happening but your laziness. At this point you should give me money to use your a$$ software, not the other way around.

Adobe Media Encoder Stops Encoding In The Middle Of A Job - Warp Stabilizer Bug

Mac M1, macOS Monterey, Premiere Pro 22.6.2, AME 22.6

  Two weeks on Adobe Premiere / AME and I'm fighting hell daily. Premiere is the plague of the business.

OK so after the unresolved issue of Premiere tearing up h264 footage on export, now AME decides to stop in the middle of a job (Premiere Project / Timeline / Export Media / Send to Media Encoder.)

The program is 21min., AME stops at 11min. No warnings, no message, nothing, just stops as if it was done. Whatever Entire Source or In/Out Selection is used, same result.

Checking the Timeline I see that Warp Stabilizer has been used on some clips (I inherited this project) right where AME calls it quit.

In the Timeline it actually shows a black frame at the tail of each of these Warp Stab clips. Why? Another Premiere bug.

I killed all these stabilization effects, and what do you know, it goes through encoding the entire program this time, no problemo.

So basically Warp Stabilizer in Premiere is UNUSEABLE, at the minimum UNRELIABLE and it makes AME stop encoding the program as soon as it is encountered.

Adobe, fix this NOW!

Adobe Media Encoder Create New Ingest Preset Bug on Silicon Mac

 Adobe is such an unnerving company. If you try to create a new Ingest Present for Premiere Pro on a Mac Silicon using the AME Silicon version, you're out of luck and you will go crazy trying to figure out why the stupid app refuses to create a new Ingest Preset.

If you click on Create New Ingest Preset, you will not go anywhere, the Preset won't be saved, and as a matter of facts, the window that opens is not even the correct one, it shows only a "Save As" button that doesn't save the Preset as Ingest Preset, but strictly as an Encoding Preset, unusable for Proxies creation.

It's a BUG Adobe. And it has not been fixed as of AME v 22.5.

To be able to create a new Ingest Preset, one has to use the INTEL version of AME. Accessible to launch under Creative Cloud app, AME, the three dots on the right, Open (Intel.)

Then with AME Intel running, on clicking Create new Ingest Preset you do get the proper window and the Save button, and it does save your preset as an Ingest Preset that works with Premiere.

That no one at Adobe bothered to check if this worked with the Silicon version is telling.

PS: AFTER you've created your first user Ingest Preset using AME Intel, for some reason AME Silicon allows you to create more and behaves as it should. Maddening.

Premiere Pro, Adobe Media Encoder - h264 Exports Problem, Image Tearing Up

  Mac mini M1, macOS Monterey 12.3.1, Premiere 22.5.

 Footage is h264 1080p 59.94. Editing Multicam 2 angles (same thing happens with non Multicam Clips btw.) Hardware acceleration is enabled (Same thing happens when Hardware Acceleration is turned off.) Exporting h264 VBR 1 pass, (the same thing happens with CBR.)

 Why on earth is Premiere Pro crapping up h264 exports? This is what I get in the exported file:

Last image before a "problem" cut, looks fine

First image after the cut, what the hell is this?

It goes on being total crap for 21 frames

Then for some reason it's back to normal at frame 22

 Why is this happening Adobe? What makes it even more infuriating is that it feels TOTALLY RANDOM. Why does it happens on this cut and not on another one? I'm not cutting at the very first frame or at the very last frame of a Multicam Clip.

 They are hundreds of other cuts exactly like this one in this piece. I'm far from fast cutting. The shots in this Sequence are between 2 and 19 seconds. All cuts are fine but for two that are severely damaged on export, like what you see in these picts.

 Note that nothing is visible on playback in the Program window at 1/2 res, it all looks good.

 Sequence is not rendered, but if I force render, the same thing happens. If I check use Previews for Export, the same thing happens.

 When I try to change the position of the cut, the crap goes away on the next export. But then some OTHER cut gets damaged that wasn't before! Totally at random, totally AGGRAVATING!!

 What a waste of time...

 This is painful!!! This should not be happening! Adobe FIX this abnormal behavior now!!!

--- I tried to Flatten the Multicam Clips on each side of the cut, and lo and behold, now I can SEE the tear in the image, but only if I go frame by frame over the cut. Playback is still just fine and shows absolutely nothing. Bizarrely, the tear appears on the second frame after the cut, not the first one like in the exports. If I stop the cursor over the teared image, it goes back to normal after about a couple of seconds!! What??! 

--- If I add an Adjustment Layer over the "problematic" cut, and play frame by frame, the tear is gone. But it's still in the export... Same thing if I overlap the clips a little.

--- If I do not use GPU, same thing happens.

--- If I use Software Only, same thing.

The only thing that works is to change the position of the cut. But since you cannot predict what will happen, you have to change the cut position, export the section with the cut, QC that, and if the image is still tearing up, adjust some more until it doesn't.

THAT"S NOT A WAY TO WORK !  THIS IS WRONG !  I WANT TO BE ABLE TO CUT ANYWHERE !

MAXIMUM AGGRAVATION ADOBE !

Photoshop Power User Tips - Layer, Smart Object, Replace Content and Relink to File

 When you have an image embedded into a Photoshop project as Smart Object and you have resized it and done some work on it. How to swap for another image all the while keeping the work you've done?

Easy: Select the smart object/layer, in the Menu, go to Layer, Smart Object, Replace Contents and Select the new image.

That's it! And it's powerful. That's particularly handy when doing BD or DVD chapter menu pages with thumbnails.

In addition, Relink to File will create a link as oppose to embed the image into your project.

Adobe Encore - Internal Software Error Message On Build

 I was ready to build my project when Encore flashed the following error:

" adobe encore internal software error: /Volumes/Builds/Amawat/Main/XcodeProjects/AuthorCore/../../Sonic/DVDCreator/FormatLib/Vobulator/TitlePlanner/CVOBUPlanner.cpp, line 332"

What a mouthful! I Google the whole thing and it looks like there are a few different things that can generate the error. This eehelp forum posts from god knows when was helpful in putting me on the right track.

As it happened the culprit was an end marker too close to the end of the movie/file.

This last marker is too close to the end.

Moving the marker back one notch and the build flew right through.

This is good.

Adobe Hardware Recommendations for Premiere

Adobe has published this page of hardware recommendations for Premiere and AE users:
https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/attachments/hardware-recommendations.pdf

Of interest:

- GPU should have at least 4GB VRAM.

- PP and AE will use all GPUs available (including eGPUs) for rendering and export. More GPU = more speed rendering and exporting. Notice they didn't specify NVDIA or AMD. On Macs, Metal implementation is better, but still not there 100% for what I can experience.

- As before, three drive optimal configuration: System Drive, Media Cache Drive, Media Drive. The fastest the drives, the better. NVMe flash > Sata Flash > Spinning Drive for both System and Cache. RAID Array best for Media.

- Intel i7 and i9 (Quicksync capable, best for h264/h265 encoding/decoding*) or AMD Ryzen recommended. 8 cores optimal count.

- 32 RAM minimum, 128 for high end systems. PP and AE are RAM mongers.


* That's nice and dandy, that said pro editors do not cut with h264/h265 Media.

* For h264/h265 exports with Premiere/AME, I did not see much of a difference between my Mac mini i7 4 cores and my Xeon 6 cores MacPro. OK that was two years ago and maybe I should try again. On the other hand, the Mac mini did smoke the MacPro when encoding with Compressor. See the older post here.

Every Time I Quit Premiere

Every time I Quit Premiere... It does not quit and instead it hangs.

I have to Force Quit, and every single time...

Thanks for nothing Adobe.

Which is faster? Mac mini 2012 vs. classic Mac Pro 2012, Encoding HD 1080 h264 comparison

Encoding a 60min. HD ProRes422 to HD h264 (Best/MultiPass Quality) file on cMP (6 cores Xeon), and on Mac Mini (quad core i7)

1) Using Compressor:

1a) cMP = 210min. Abysmal!

VTEncoder almost never goes over 400% CPU

Using only 6 cores at 70% and 6 cores at 10%. Total never goes over 40% User CPU load.


1b) Mini = 50min. Best results!

VTEncoder barely goes over 200% CPU

Using only 4 cores at 10% and 4 cores at 5%. Total never goes over 40% User CPU load.

2) Using Adobe Media Encoder:

2a) cMP = 90min. Meh.

AMEncoder goes up 750% CPU

Using 6 cores at 80% and 6 cores at 60%. Total goes over 65% User CPU

2b) Mini = 84min. Meh.

AMEncoder goes up 600% CPU

Using 4 cores at 80% and 6 cores at 60%. Total goes over 65% User CPU

3) Machines configs:

cMP 2012 6 cores 3.46GHz, 32GB Ram, Radeon 7950 3GB.

Mini 2012 4 cores i7 2.3GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz), Intel 4000 1.5GB

Conclusion: Even though its specs are underwhelming compared to the cMP, the Mini wins with Compressor.

The cMP is really terrible! (x4 real time!!! What?) The Mini encodes the 60min. file in less than 50min. - under real time. 

On the other end with AME (which is much more power hungry) it's about the same on both machines and it takes longer than real time (x1.5 real time more or less.)

The Mini sports a dedicated h264 encode/decode chip, makes sense that the performance is better, it seems though only Compressor is accessing this added power. Adobe? What the heck??

Have a good day!