What's New in Sony Vegas Pro 12?
Vegas Pro 12, the new version of Sony's flagship NLE that debuted a few weeks ago, boasts several new features for online video production pros including simplified color matching, advanced mask creation and manipulation, and increased 64-bit support, while shipping as part of a new suite that includes Sound Forge Pro 10 and the HitFilm 2 Ultimate effects package.
Vegas Pro 12, the latest version of Sony Creative Software's flagship editor, has been available for a few weeks now. This article will highlight some of the new features that have been added. In all, there are dozens of new video and audio features, plus a handful of new formats supported in this NLE.
With this new release, Vegas 12 is available in some different configurations. You can choose just the Vegas NLE, or Vegas + DVD Architect, or a complete suite of powerful, "best-of-breed" applications that adds Sound Forge Pro 10, HitFilm 2 Ultimate, Vegas Pro Production Assistant 2, and some production music in for good measure.
This is the first time Vegas Pro has been offered in an "edit only" config for a much cheaper price. This could be an attractive buy-in to the Vegas platform for editors who already use Adobe Encore for disc authoring, or for those of us who deliver streaming/online content only. You can find out more about the configurations by visiting http://sonycreativesoftware.com.
This overview will focus on some of the new features in the Vegas Pro 12 NLE itself. In upcoming articles and tutorials I will visit the other components of the Vegas Pro 12 Suite.
Color Match
Have you ever needed to match footage from two different camera models? Or, have you ever set white balance differently on your cameras accidentally? Most of us have. Vegas 12 includes a simple plugin to help rectify that problem.
Identify the clip containing the color you like, and copy a frame from it (Figure 1, below).
Figure 1. Copying a frame
On the clip where the color will change, insert the Color Match plugin. When it opens, click the clipboard to paste the image that is on the clipboard.
Figure 2. Pasting the image
You can then drag the Strength slider to adjust how much color grading is applied.
There are other ways to determine what controls the color of the clip that is affected; for example, you can use a image file stored on a drive, a frame of video in the Vegas trimmer, or you can even select a portion of a window on the screen to define the color grading you want, but I find that syncing the camera clips and grading based on one of the cameras works well.
It's possible to apply the Color Match plugin to an individual event, a track, or an entire piece of media. I got some unexpected results when applying it to a track, so for now I just do it on a clip-by-clip basis. Here's a tip, if you want to duplicate the video filters and settings from one clip to another: Copy the piece of media that is set the way you like, and then Ctrl-click select all other pieces of media that you want to apply the effects to. Next, right-click and choose Paste Event Attributes, and all of the selected clips will have the same video filters (and velocity filters) as the piece of media that you copied.
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