BRAW Studio for After Effects is available now

BRAW Studio for After Effects works with two plugins :

First, the BRAW Studio Importer imports the BRAW Source footage into After Effects. There is no way to modify the RAW Parameters on the Source footage that you see in the Project Panel, but we will see in the next section that you will be able to tweak the parameters on each layers instead.

The Importer will decode your footage using the "Camera Metadata" Parameters that were available at the first import of this file through the After Effects session : if there is a .sidecar file next to the .braw file, the importer will decode the footage using the Sidecar values (but if the Sidecar is added next to the file after importing it, you will need to restart After Effects to see the modification applied).

If there is no Sidecar file next to the braw file, then the RAW Parameters inside the .braw file will be used, when shot.

The importer will produce image in 8bits / 16bits / 32bits according to your Project Settings.

Once you added the BRAW Source in a composition, you can add the BRAW Studio Layer Settings effect (available in the effect list in the "Autokroma" category) on your BRAW Layer. It won't work and an error will be raised if the layer is not coming from a BRAW Source footage (for example if you precomposed the BRAW Source, then applied the Effect onto that precomposition).

For more informations on the BRAW Parameters in the Layer Settings, please read the section about Source Settings in our article "Introduction of BRAW Studio"

Notes :

You will be able to use Dynamic Link to work with Premiere Pro, but the RAW Parameters applied in the "Source Settings" of Premiere Pro will not be transfered by the dynamic link when from Premiere Pro you click on "Replace with After Effects Composition".

However, there is a workaround thanks to Sidecar files OR BRAW Studio Presets feature.

If you export your RAW Parameter in the sidecar (by pressing the button "Update Sidecar" in the Source Settings) BEFORE sending the BRAW file to After Effects via Dynamic Link, then as described in the previous section, After Effects will load the values inside this Sidecar file.

Otherwise, if you have already After Effects and Premiere Pro open, you can apply the Layer Settings on your After Effects BRAW Layer, and then "Load sidecar" or "Load Preset" which has been saved with Premiere Pro.

In After Effects, once you apply the Layer Settings to a BRAW Layer, if the "Comment" section of its Source which is available in the project panel is empty, it will be filled with some BRAW Informations.

For example, you can get in the comment section : "R.1 - S.4 - T.35 - G.0 - CR.12:1"

If you want to get more metadata here, please contact us !

If you don't want to apply any Layer Settings on top of your .braw, the quickest way to reach the Settings & License Popup is to go into the Interpretation of your .braw (right click in the item in the Project Panel!) and clicking the "More Options" button at the bottom left of the Footage Interpretation popup.

To get more performances from BRAW Studio, you should obviously reduce the playback resolutions. But you should choose 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 (1/8 being of course the fastest) instead of other resolutions (i.e. do not choose 1/3). They are faster because they are native to the way Blackmagic RAW file format works : each frame is encoded in the file in a progressive way that makes it really easy to decode it quickly in half, quarter and eighth resolution.