How to import "Stereo" audio as two discrete Mono files in Premiere Pro

By default Premiere imports audio as Stereo. 

But when I get files with say a boom mike on CH1 and a lav on CH2, I want to bring the audio as two Mono files, so that I can adjust levels -among other things- separately.

Go to: Premiere Pro CC/Preferences/Audio, and set: Default Audio Tracks / Stereo Media to Mono.

Easier than to change it after import.

See picts. below.

Adobe help link:
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/clips-channels-tracks.html

How to apply Adjustment Layers to a single Layer or Group in Photoshop? ...Clipping Mask!

The Adjustment Layers are great, but they modify all layers that are staked below. How to exclude some layers form the adjustment?

Easy: Select the Adjustment Layer, and "Create Clipping Mask" (Alt+Command+G) and the Adjustment Layer will now clip to the underlaying Layer or Group selectively, without altering other Groups or Layers.  Neat.

You can do the same by clicking on the left bottom icon of the Adjustment Layer Properties Panel:

Another way is to hover over the space between the Adjustment Layer and the Layer or Group below it in the Layer Panel, hold "Option" and you will see the Create Clipping Mask small icon. Click on it.

Note that it is reversible: you will now see the "reverse / undo" Create Clipping Mask icon, click on it and the Adjustment Layer is back to "normal" - affecting every layer below - mode.

How to mute working audio in FCPX without muting video as well

When round-tripping from FCPX to ProTools (or another audio editing/mixing app) and back, at the end of the mixing session, I bring my stereo DIAlog and MUSic stems into FCPX and sync them up.
Then I check proper sync against the working audio - still attached to the Video clips.
When all is good, it's time to mute the working audio.  But how to do it without muting image as well?
Normally you'd mute a clip by pressing "V", this mutes both audio and image.
To mute audio only, select all your clips, and Right Click (CTRL Click) Expand Audio Components
Then select only the audio portion of the clip and hit "V".  The audio component is selectively muted.  Right Click (CTRL Click) Collapse Audio Components, and Master away!

Resolve 12.5b broken Color Setting in the Dip To Color Dissolve (Yes I know it's beta.)

The Dip To Color Dissolve behaves erratically in Resolve 12.5b causing the app to crash. In the Inspector, the Color Setting doesn't show properly, any attempt at modifying the Color while in this state will result in a crash.

After several attempts at replacing the transition, the proper display of Color will show, and things will be fine - no more crash.  Eventually, after a crash, the Color setting will show its normal state.

Erratic behavior1:

 The Color setting has a slider and a box with "0.000" in it.

Erratic behavior2:

The Color setting displays a slider and a box with "--" in it.

Any attempt at modifying the Color in both cases will crash Resolve.

Normal behavior:

Here it shows its normal state, clicking on the rectangle opens the color wheel, and all is fine.

Color wheel pops-up on clicking the rectangle.

Premiere Pro 9.2 to Resolve 12.5b via FCP xml

Good news: Export Final Cut Pro xml works well.  Cuts are accurate, speed changes (including keyframing) are accurate, L and J cuts, scaling is accurate (including keyframing.)

All these work equally well on Merged Clips, ah!  I just transferred a small 30sec. project, so nothing big, we'll see how it goes with longer projects.

Retime preferences need to be reset in Resolve, as the Premiere settings do not translate.  No biggie.

Cross-dissolves translate perfectly and can be modified further into Resolve.

On the other hand, Dip to black dissolves translate fine, Dip to White dissolves turn into Dip to black dissolves for some reason.

You'd think: Easy enough to change them back to Dtwd I'll select the transition, open the Inspector, change Video Transition Style to something else, then select Dip to Color Dissolve again...  Nope.

Any attempt to change the transition either results in instant CRASH, or the BALL OF DEATH or if you're lucky enough to be able to open the Inspector panel, the Color Setting will CRASH Resolve. Interestingly enough, sometimes after the crash (but not always), the Color setting behaves properly... Go figure.

Note that after a crash, the Resolve Project comes back as it was the last time it was saved.  You will loose anything you've done between the last save and the crash. You've been warned.

I then tried to purely replace the Dip to Color Dissolve with the Resolve flavor... Well this transition appears to be BROKEN in 12.5b.  The Color setting behaves erratically, and when the Color does not appear, there is instead a slider with a box and "000" in it. Trying to change that value will crash.  Eventually after a few attempts replacing the Dtcd, the proper Color setting shows up: a rectangle with the selected color in it.  Clicking on the rectangle will open the color wheel.  So it's all Resolve fault.
http://humanuser.blogspot.com/2016/04/resolve-125b-broken-color-setting-in.html

Premultiply Alpha...

I just got bit by the Premultiply Alpha option in the Motion Export... Or so I thought:

What happened?  I edited my graphics into FCPX Timeline, and added Basic Titles above them, as seen in the below Timeline:

While cutting and previewing, all was fine (I never render in FCPX, Background Render is always turned OFF.)
After Exporting though, there were jumps in the background colors when the Titles appeared on-screen:

Clearly, before the Title shows up, the Background color is darker (wrong.)

When the Title pops up, the Background color changes.

Why you would ask?  Well, I had a semi transparent background in my Motion graphics, that's why.

OK, so I thought let's Export WITHOUT Premultiply Alpha.  I did and I got this:

Here it's all good, no changes before / after the Title.

Could it be that the proper way to export from Motion in this case is without Premultiply Alpha?  ...

Turns out, I should have added a Background to my graphics in FCPX!   Like so, in this case a Custom Generator (set to black):

The results:

All good this time!

DaVinci Resolve 12.5b

Kicking the tires of Resolve 12.5b:

- Much more responsive! I think BMD and Adobe are busting their chops to reduce FCPX advance, and that's a GREAT thing!

- Better playback speed, good. Although with some thingss like file overlay it chokes like before.

- The file overlay is not resized when changing frame size, not at the Project, nor at the Clip level. That needs to be fixed. Something I do often: work on the full size Timeline, insert a full size overlay, render a half size Proxy with burned-in overlay. Well the overlay does not get resized by half. Not right. By contrast, the "build-in" overlays, like Source TC, etc. do resize properly.

- And by the way, I would like to have a better preview of the output BEFORE hitting Render.  Adobe does it, one can even compare Source/Output, I would like to see this implemented in Resolve.

- Seem to me that rendering speed is improved as well, not by a lot more, but somewhere like 1.5 possibly, one and a half time real time, as opposed to real time before for a similar rendering task.

- Waveform display in the Viewer, multi Composite modes, yeah!  Full screen Playback, cool!

- The Auto-Sync works fine, I would like to be able to fine-tune the audio after it's been merged though. Except in Clip Attribute where there is a vague "Linked Audio", or in the Media Pool where it shows 4 channels (fro ex.) instead of the Clip 2 channels. I would like to be able to quickly see in the Media Browser that any Clip has synced audio, and the name of the audio clip attached.

- Fine tuning of the synced audio is possible in the Media Pool: Show the Audio Offset Column, and it will display (in Sec. and 1/100th of a Sec?) the Offset applied to the audio file.  Double click in this box, and you can adjust the value for perfect sync.

- There is also a convoluted way of doing it via the Media page, with the audio tab open, use Option Comma/Period to offset by one frame before/after, or Option Right/Left Arrows to offset by 1/10th of a second.
In my test, I can only offset one way: in advance with Comma and Arrow Left.  Period and Arrow Right seem to be non operant.  Maybe a bug?
The biggest bug is that it has no provision for appending tracks... It replaces the embedded tracks with the separate ones - Even if I first Auto-Sync to append audio...  So for appending tracks, the above Fine Tuning is the only viable one. For now.

- There is a way to add Timecode to a non Timecoded Clip (from TC less DSLR say), LTC recorded onto the camera audio track will be used to generate a Timecode track - Right-click on the clip and select "Update Timecode from Audio-LTC." I got to try this.

- Note on audio recorded without Timecode: Set the Timeline Frame Rate in the Master Project Settings BEFORE importing the audio, else just like FCP legacy, Resolve will stamp the imported audio to the FR of the Settings - and then audio will eventually DRIFT if on the wrong FR.  Double check Frame Rates for all clips in the Edit page /Media Pool.

More to come.