Chapter One. Getting Started

Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium Edition includes a wealth of feature-rich programsPremiere Pro, After Effects, Encore DVD, Audition, Illustrator, Photoshopand two time-saving workflow technologies, Dynamic Link and Adobe Bridge. Most of these applications have several books from multiple publishers that explain how to use them. In this relatively short book, I won't try to describe how to use each program from scratch.

The purpose of this book is to help you save time and improve video quality by using the suite's integration-oriented features to reduce the number of times you render your video, and the number of editing generations. I'll also provide tips that simplify your workflow and help you use the video-related tools available in all the programs to maximum advantage.

I'll assume that you have a basic working knowledge of all programs in the suite, and that you'll spend most of your time in Adobe Premiere Pro, adding content funneled in from Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe After Effects.

I'll also assume that you'll want to edit your audio in Adobe Audition and output some of your projects to DVD in Adobe Encore DVD. As you can see from the Table of Contents, this book follows this workflow from start to finish. Overall, if you're looking for some ideas on how to boost creativity and productivity, especially via enhanced integration between the applications in the Production Studio, you'll find this book helpful. If you're looking for a soup-to nuts-guide from capture to output, you'll be better off with a Visual QuickStart Guide for the respective application.

The first chapter starts where most of your video projects will begin: choosing a preset in Premiere Pro. Then I'll discuss how to customize Premiere Pro's workspace, identifying principles that work similarly in all suite programs. I'll also talk a bit about Adobe Bridge, a great application for sifting through your content (and media provided by Adobe with Production Studio), and finish with an overview of the inter-program integration options available in Production Studio.