Edit Faster with Premiere's New Masking & Workflow Updates with Mandy Celine

Summary

Editor and director Mandy Celine demonstrates recent Premiere updates designed to make editing and masking faster. Host Ryan Sylvvi provides context and relays questions from the chat.

Premiere Mobile: Keyframing

Premiere Mobile now supports keyframing transform changes. Celine shows how to add a keyframe, move a clip, adjust its scale or position, and create a quick pop-in or slide-out.

The feature makes it possible to build simple custom transitions and animate stacked clips directly on a phone.

Premiere Desktop: Masks and Tracking

The main demonstration features the Object Mask tool, which selects a subject and tracks it forward or backward through footage. Tracking creates keyframes in Effect Controls, and users can adjust the mask with the lasso or rectangle tools.

Celine uses masks to isolate a dancer, change the subject’s color, adjust the background, and place text behind a person. Masks can also be inverted or assigned to opacity so effects apply to either the subject or the surrounding image.

She also uses a rectangle mask to track a car’s license plate and apply a Gaussian blur. Multiple masks can be used on a clip, for example, to obscure several faces or objects.

Shape masks and tracking can support creative treatments, too, such as making a background react to an isolated subject.

Practical Guidance and Limitations

Celine says the tool performed well on moving subjects and fine details such as hair in the examples shown. It can also distinguish some objects, such as glasses or headphones, from a person.

Low contrast, fine or wispy hair, and overlapping colors may require extra checking and refinement. Celine recommends watching the track, adjusting mask expansion and feathering, and correcting areas such as gaps around arms. For precise shapes, use the appropriate drawing tool rather than relying only on preset shapes.

Masking is not always a one-click final result. Celine notes that other approaches, including After Effects rotoscoping, may still be useful for difficult cases. The AI mask processing shown runs locally on the computer.

Other Workflow Updates

• Properties panel: Resize and adjust graphics without switching to a different panel.
• Film Impact effects: Access effects through either a dedicated panel or Premiere’s Effects panel. Celine applies a chromatic effect to isolated footage.
• Video transition handles: Blend clips by dragging handles, with duration feedback while adjusting—similar to audio handles.
• Firefly Boards to Premiere: Send a generated visual into Premiere through a menu command. It appears in the project’s Firefly downloads bin.
• Adobe Stock panel: Browse video, templates, images, and audio, including free and paid assets. Celine cites about 92,000 free assets across these categories.
• General improvements: Faster performance, improved color-managed thumbnails, easier media relinking that remembers more file paths, reduced disk-space use on Mac, and improved footage-format support. Celine also mentions Nikon footage receiving Rec. 709 treatment on import.

Demonstrations and Tutorial Takeaways

1. Animate clips in Premiere Mobile using transform keyframes.
2. Select and track a person with Object Mask, then refine the selection and apply effects.
3. Track a license plate with a rectangle mask and blur it.
4. Use masks to isolate subjects, modify backgrounds, recolor objects, or place graphics behind a person.
5. Refine masks with feathering, expansion, and targeted corrections for more natural edges.

Main Speakers and Sources

• Mandy Celine: Guest presenter; director, editor, and founder of Breadbox Studios.
• Ryan Sylvvi: Adobe Live host.
• Audience questions and comments: Viewers in the livestream chat.