I just wanted to note that I don't use Premiere Pro any more. I made the decision to use After Effects for ALL my projects, even though After Effects isn't intended for long video editing projects, I just find it a million times easier to use.   Since the very first day I used After Effects (about ten years ago), I just fell in love with it. Everything behaves exactly as you'd expect it to. Everything is precise, giving you a feeling of complete control over everything. You can position things EXACTLY where you want them, to the exact pixel. Coming from a Photoshop background, this is essential to me. You can navigate around the project easily. After Effects is probably the best application I've ever used. It just works so well. So logical and intuitive to use. I feel like IT serves ME, and not the other way around.   In contrast, Premiere Pro has got worse and worse over the years. I enjoyed using the original Premiere in the 90s, it was all pretty solid back then and I felt like I was in control over the program. But it's just become such a mess. It's PAINFUL to use now. One of the worst things is the "lunatic asylum" scrollbar system, which makes you feel like you're losing your mind as they randomly, haphazardly move around the project, leaving it more to luck and chance where you'll end up.   I could list dozens of serious problems I have with Premiere Pro but I guess this isn't the place. I'll probably make a video about that sometime because I have so much to say. I just wanted to share this decision I've made in case anyone finds it interesting. I felt so HAPPY and FREE when I finally decided never to have to battle against the mess that is Premiere Pro ever again, and instead use After Effects, the application that does what I tell it to and puts me in control.   Of course, if you love using Premiere Pro then I'm happy for you, but it just wasn't right for me! ... View more

The interface color is by far one of the worst things about Adobe Premiere Pro. Premiere always used to be a nice light gray. Using it felt optimistic, happy, and wholesome. But all this black is SO depressing! It looks like some shady "application of the night". It might be fine for those up at 3am editing something seedy. But working during the daytime, Premiere's dark interface sends you to sleep. It's not in line with a professional application. The current interface color options are a joke - you can either have black, or dark gray (which actually makes the text harder to read so there's no point). Many Premiere Pro users are designers who have strong opinions about the way things look. It depresses us having to use something so dark and unattractive. Every good designer knows that dark text on light is far easier to read for prolonged periods, which is why most websites (including this one) use dark text on light. The text in Premiere Pro is hard to read, and I honestly can't see scrollbars at all! PLEASE make Premiere Pro light again (along the lines of the colors of Premiere 5.0) or at least provide an option for it to be light. Ideally, give us more color options, perhaps even a few built-in preset themes? This would change the entire way I think about the application. Currently, I think of Premiere Pro as something dark, sinister, unwholesome, and unprofessional. Also, the default colors are horrible. The interface uses various blue/green-blue colors that are garish, inconsistent, and too saturated to be paired with black. What you need for the program to look professional is a much softer blue, with a consistent hue throughout. And that turquoise color used for audio clips is a truly, truly horrible color! Totally harsh, unnatural and garish. It's a good job we can change that color, but it baffles me how such an ugly color could come out of the box as default. ... View more

Update: Just for the record, the feature I was asking about here has been implemented in DaVinci Resolve 17 - it's called the "Magic mask" tool.   So those here saying such a feature couldn't be done were wrong, frankly. ... View more

That's great, and I love your persistence here! 🙂 However, Color Overlay only affects the layer itself - it's no good for overlaying a color over everything below. ... View more

Thanks, but Hue/Saturation is no good to me because: 1. You can't change the opacity/intensity - I usually don't want "full on". 2. Also, you can't paste in RGB hex values (or use a color picker), so it's not ideal for consistency/branding. ... View more

I've requested this feature to Adobe: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/42297328-single-color-option-for-tint-effect ... View more

Hey thanks Ro, both those are excellent solutions and work great! Thanks so much! 🙂   Though I still think it would be really useful if AE had a single-color tint option. ... View more

Thank you for your reply. That article is too basic for my level, I've been using AE for a couple of years and have a good understanding of precomposing, having made some very complicated videos and animations.   I'm not sure what "wrong preconceptions" you think I have? I don't think AE is an 'animated version of Photoshop'! I merely wondered if AE had a single-color tint effect, that's all.   Surely a simple tint effect would be much more elegant than using multiple layers precomposed? You could quickly drag a tint effect onto objects and layers, click on the adjustment layer right there and see all the effects, change them, and see the results immediately in the current comp. Then you have fewer nested compositions and less clutter.   Is it really naive of me to want a tint effect? ... View more

Yes, it can be done with a solid, but that can't be added to an adjustment layer.   Let me tell you what I'm trying to do so you can understand...   I simply want to animate a circle moving across the screen, and everything in that circle needs to be blurred and tinted blue.   It seems to me that the right way to do this is to set up the circle as a shape layer, then an adjustment layer for the blur/blue tint - masked to the circle shape. Is that right?   But if the blue effect uses a solid, that's another layer that needs to be masked separately, requiring a duplicate of the circle shape - not a very elegant solution, right? ... View more

I know this is an old thread, but thanks again for this answer. I now use a more up-to-date version of Photoshop and this trick works very well for me! Thank you! 🙂 ... View more

Solution 1: Deselect "Use Graphics Processor" —Doesn't work: This disables scrubby zoom, making Photoshop completely unuseable!   Solution 2: Change "Drawing Mode" to "Basic" —Had no effect on my machine   Solution 3: Disable "Antialias Guides and Paths" WORKS PERFECTLY! ... View more

Update: I've made some discoveries about this problem: First, the feature is called "Scrubby Zoom". There's a "Scrubby Zoom" checkbox in the zoom tool. It's grayed out on my machine. The reason it's not working is because this feature uses the GPU, but Photoshop no longer accepts my GPU! This is ridiculous as it's a perfectly good GPU. So rather than buy a new GPU, I'm just going to have to revert back to an earlier Photoshop! ... View more

(Sorry about the double-post. This forum doesn't let me delete or edit posts.) ... View more

I have the same problem! I've just installed Photoshop 2020 and when I hold Ctrl+Space, instead of zooming, it draws a zoom selection box! Resetting the prefs made no difference!   There's no way I can use Photoshop like this! I feel so handicapped not being able to zoom smoothly! I only 'upgraded' to this version for the bug fixes, but I can live with the old bugs if necessary.   I also notice this version of Photoshop has no option to show the pixel grid. I wonder if that is related to the problem?   I'm on Win 7 x62, with a Sapphire ATI Radeon 4670 graphics card. ... View more

I have the same problem! I've just installed Photoshop 2020, and when I hold Ctrl+Space and drag the mouse, instead of zooming, it draws a zoom selection box! Resetting the prefs made no difference.   There's no way I can use Photoshop like this! I feel so handicapped not being able to zoom quickly and smoothly. Losing this feature would be like having an arm chopped off! The only reason I "upgraded" to this version was for the bug fixes, but I'm happy to go back. I could work around the bugs.   I wonder if this has something to do with OpenGL? I notice that this version of Photoshop has no option to show the pixel grid, which apparently requires OpenGL?   My OS: Win 7 x64 My graphics card: Sapphire ATI Radeon 4670 ... View more

> At some point, you're going to have no choice at all.   I do have a choice - I'll stick with old verisons, even if that means permanently sticking with CS6 from 2012.   To be fair, I was quite happy with Creative Suite. Everything seemed much more stable and less buggy back then. The GUIs were much nicer, with *vastly* more tolerable splash screens. Plus I got to own the software forever (and still do, of course).   For me, Adobe haven't added any features in the last 8 years that I find indispensable. Nothing on my wishlist has been implemented yet. ID has improved very little, while Premiere Pro just seems to get worse all the time and I'm so sick of it that I'm likely going to move to DaVinci Resolve (which does run in Linux). The only feature I'd genuinely miss about CC is Photoshop's "Preserve Details 2.0" scaling, which is useful, though I can replace it with the good old PhotoZoom plugin.   The only Adobe program I genuinely think goes from strength to strength is After Effects, with very worthwhile and useful new features being added in each release. It will be a shame to lose out on that, but the draw of AE isn't strong enough to get me to install Win 10. I'd seriously rather change career than have to use Win 10! ... View more

Thanks, Laubender! Really helpful 🙂   Thanks also, Mr Levine. Believe me, that was not a 'rant' against Windows 10, just a very brief explanation of why I (and a third of Windows users) don't use Windows 10. I care about the way things look, and just looking at Windows 10 makes me feel sick, I could never install it. (Then again, Adobe's GUIs have been veering toward ugliness in recent years, with an increasing trend toward white text on black, which I cannot bear.) For me, the way things look comes first above all else.   As for Linux development costing tens of millions of dollars. Gosh, that seems a lot. Adobe already has the software design and code in place, so it's only a matter of making it compatible. There are plenty of good coders out there who would work at a reasonable rate. Adobe could start with just Photoshop and see how it pans out. Perhaps that's optimistic or naive of me, but that's how I see it. ... View more

Sure, Windows 7 is no longer officially supported, but it's still highly popular, used by one third of Windows users right now.   Some Adobe applications had already ditched Windows 7 two years ago, when it was still the world's most popular operating system. ... View more

> I downgraded back to 7   Windows 7 is NOT a downgrade! Windows 10 is the downgrade! Windows 10 is a travesty of an operating system. It is hideously ugly. Plus, I take privacy seriously, and Windows 10 has done away with privacy. So there's no way in hell I would touch that hellish operating system.   It's very sad that after 26 years of using their software, Adobe has now abandoned me, and all Windows 7 users.   I mean, this isn't just like when we switched from Windows 95 to Windows 98 - or from XP to Windows 7. In those cases, there was a clear need for a newer, better operating system, and the newer version had been massively improved. Each release also looked much more attractive. However, the switch to Windows 10 is a HUGE step backwards! Windows 7 is a great operating system, perfectly suited to modern requirements. Windows 10 offers no improvements, looks ugly, makes everything worse, and destroys privacy. Why would anyone want it? Not me!   For now, I'll continue to use old versions of Adobe software, and keep praying that maybe one day Adobe will support Linux. If Adobe supported Linux, I would be happy to make the switch. But design is my life, so right now I'm stuck with Windows 7. ... View more

…since design is my whole life, I can't move to Linux if there's no Adobe.   (This site truncated my message and won't let me edit it!) ... View more

> Just curious, why are you clinging to Windows 7?   Windows 10 isn't an operating system, it's a joke, a travesty, a sham, a mockery. (Even its name is bogus, since they skipped Windows 9.) Almost every single thing about 10 it is worse than 7. I could spend hours listing things I hate about it, but the two biggest reasons are:   1. Ugly interface As an interface designer, the design of the interface is EVERYTHING to me. And Windows 10's interface is utterly hideous. For example, the windows don't even have borders. Everything looks so cheap and flimsy. Then you have "live tiles" - a disgusting, badly-designed, disorganized mess of chaotic shapes and colors. Plus, Windows 10 has such garish bright colors. I want an OS that looks sensible, professional, and provides a neutral platform for me to run my programs on, but Windows 10 looks like it's screaming for attention.   Then there's movement/animation in the Start Menu! Just looking at it makes me feel sick. The whole thing looks like it's aimed at trying to entertain pre-schoolers. There is no way on earth I would ever consider downgrading to something so ugly.   2. No privacy Unlike most people these days, I value my privacy. Windows 10 completely abolished user privacy - it sends logs of everything you do to Microsoft, including logging all your keystrokes, sending a list of all the sites you visit back to Microsoft, and hacking your webcam, sending videos back to Microsoft. I would never install an operating system like that!   In 2016 it became apparent that Microsoft have become unscrupulous when they forced every Windows 7 user to downgrade to Windows 10 against our wishes. We had months of nag screens, which could not be turned off, before eventaully having the new operating system being AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOADED and installed without our permission! Around the same time, they also began installing telemetry updates on Windows 7 machines to spy on users. Since this incident, I would never trust any new Microsoft operating system.   Another way that Windows 10 destroys privacy is by being far more "online" than Windows 7. Here in Windows 7, the only program that has access to the internet is my web browser. That is my gateway to the outside world, and I guard that carefully. I know that anything I do in my web browser is 'public' and everything esle is 'private'. But in Windows 10, the entire operating system connects to the internet - it even "synchs" so you can run it on a different computer. The division between 'offline' and 'online' is broken down, with the user losing his sense of personal privacy. It's as though Microsoft are trying to eradicate the concept of privacy and want everyone to consider their computers "public". That is absolutely NOT what I want from an operating system! I want connecting to the internet to be a CHOICE I make, not the default state of my computer!   Windows 7 is a great operating system with almost nothing wrong with it. There are a small number of minor shortcomings, like the terrible search function. Microsoft had ten years to fix/improve these shortcomings, but could not be bothered and ignored users' requests. Nevertheless, the shortcomings are easily worked around, sometimes with third party software.   Windows 10 DOES have a couple of neat features (like a 4-way Aero Snap) - but these are incredibly simple features which Microsoft could easily have added to Windows 7 with a few lines of code. It's not something you build an entirely new Operating system for. And Windows 10's "Snap Assist" is incredibly irritating. Then, Windows 10 comes bundled with a program called Cortana. The ONLY reason Windows 7 doesn't have this program is because Microsoft have deliberately refused to relase a Windows 7 version, which they could easily do. Not to mention, Cortana is nothing but a gimmick. No one uses it. You're not going to plug your microphone in just to effectively Google something verbally. It's clumsy. And if anyone left their microphone plugged in constantly, they should expect their every word to be sent back to Microsoft - not a good idea!   Windows 10 brings support for lots of things I have no interest in such as videogames, Skpye, multiple desktops, "synching", and touch-screen. I have no interest in such things! I don't play videogames. I don't use webcams. I only have one computer. And I hate touch screens with a loathing. Why would anyone want to reach over and touch the screen when you have a keyboard and mouse!?   The only major 'upgrade' I have ever wanted for Windows was a faster boot time. To this day, Microsoft have never offered this, and Windows 10 still takes just as long to boot as ever.   There's no way I'm swapping Windows 7 for a piece of junk like Windows 10 which spies on you. Never! I just can't understand how Windows 10 has become so popular when it's so obviously a downgrade, and so alarmingly non-private.   It is very unfortunate that Adobe no longer Support Windows 7, and it means that the time will come (soon) when I won't be paying Adobe another penny, and will fall back exclusively on old copies of software, as I am doing now with Premiere Pro. ... View more

Thank you sir for the update! ... View more

Maybe I haven't made my idea clear enough? No AI is needed. No supercomputers. And no magic. The calculations are quite similar to AE's existing motion tracking. (Even basic video compression is able to identify areas of minor/major movement in the picture.)   So let me try to explain how this might work…   I drag an effect onto my clip. The effect is called "Movement Rotoscope". It has a paramater called "Performers" which is set to 1 by default, telling the computer that there's only 1 performer in this scene, and it's only looking for one continuous area.   First, the computer tracks forwards through the footage looking for portions of the screen where there is major change over time. The computer starts to determine the 'outline' around the performer, and the more the performer moves, the clearer that 'outline' becomes. At first, his t-shirt may not be included as it's not moving much, but if he leans his body over towards the end of the video, the software will recognize that it's moving with him and part of the performer.   By the end of the footage, the computer should have a pretty good idea of where the 'outline' is around the performer. It then starts tracking backwards, following the performer based on the outline.   This may not be the best way for the software to work, but I do think it should be possible, given that we live in an age where a home computer can do such wondrous things as content-aware fill in a video, and deepfakes. ... View more

Thank you both. I don't have the original green screen footage, and there's no point me showing an example as I wanted to use it for all manner of different purposes.   I tried the difference key, thanks. It does a basic job of what I wanted, and I'll use it, but it's obviously not the tool I wanted.   I want a tool that simply identifies movement in the video and rotoscopes it for you. I don't see why After Effects doesn't have such a tool. It would be incredibly useful. It would mean you could do "green screen" without needing a green screen, you just shoot against a static background and After Effects would cut you out automatically.   I think I'm going to have to request this feature. ... View more