Top New Features in RED 4

16 Bit Color

The inclusion of 16 bit deep-color in RED 4 provides users with the ability to generate smoother gradients and ensures precise color correction via a larger color palette, which expands the color gamut from 16 million (8 bit color) to 279 trillion colors (16 bit.) Working in 16 bit color provides protection against accumulating rounding errors that occur when performing multiple color corrections to image media clips and also reduces the probability of mach banding (color stepping) when generating gradients.

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New User Interface

RED 4 includes a redesigned, modifiable user interface. the redesigned composite window includes a mini timeline providing users with the ability to add and modify keyframes without having to go to the master timeline window. Other new features in the composite window include a show / hide timeline toggle switch, a color depth toggle switch, additional play controls, timeline marker creation and navigation controls and a button that enables you to add the current comp to render queue.

The timeline window in RED 4 features the ability to concurrently display an unlimited number of comps from the same project, with each composite occupying a separate tab. The action of selecting any tab in the timeline by clicking on it brings the selected comp into view and ready for preview or additional modification.

Improvements to the project window include a media tab, which displays a thumbnail and list view of all imported media associated with the open project. information such as the media name, type, size and length are displayed in this window. Clicking on any of the name, length, type or size buttons will cause the media to be sorted according to the selected criteria.

The shortcut buttons located in the timeline, which in previous versions of the product were locked into a factory preset position now can be repositioned to accommodate your workflow by dragging them to the position that suits you best. The buttons themselves have been redesigned with larger icons which light up when the cursor is passed over them to make selection easier.

Clone Paint Tool

A welcome new addition to the new raster paint system in RED 4 is the clone paint brush. Users can now clone areas from one part of the image source to another area within the same image, or even from a separate image input taken from another track in the timeline.

RED 4's revised paint engine also features full support for Wacom tablet pressure channels, which means that you can use the data recorded by the Wacom tablet device to control various aspects of the paint stroke, such as opacity, size and color. Because the paint system is completely non-destructive, you always retain the ability to edit any stroke even after the project has been saved.

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Image Based Brushes, multiple layers supported

Another cool feature in RED 4's new paint system is the ability to paint with image media as the paint source - any image or clip residing on your system can be used as a paint brush stamp. Most of the standard media file formats are supported including native photoshop files, both flattened and layered and movie media.

When using layered photoshop files as the brush source, each individual layer can be automatically sequenced over the course of the paint stroke, either in the order that they exist in the photoshop file or in a random order. When using a movie clip as the brush stamp, the movie will update as the user moves through the timeline.

Wacom Tablet Support

With the addition of support for pressure sensitive Wacom tablets, users that work with these pressure sensitive tablet devices can use the tablet to drive raster paint strokes a variety of different ways. The data gathered from the tablet includes the following: pressure, velocity, direction, tilt and bearing - any of these channels can be used to drive the color, opacity, and size of the brush along the leangth of the stroke.

Vector Trace

The new vector trace function in RED 4 provides users with the ability to convert imported raster bitmap images into editable vector spline shapes, which can be animated or extruded into 3D objects with stylistic options such as bump maps, texture maps, lights and shadows.

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Motion Path

Animating shapes along a custom spline path in RED 4 was made even easier than before with the addition of the new motion path filter, which automatically positions nested items along the length of the user drawn spline path.

Simply nest the objects that you want to animate along with the motion path filter into a container, draw a spline path and RED will automatically distribute the nested objects evenly along the drawn path.

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Motion Key Foreground Object Removal

The new optical flow based motion key filter, which is included with RED 4, enables users to remove foreground objects from a scene with little effort required by the user. Objects that pass through a scene can be isolated and removed completely as if they were never there to begin with, and the user need only create a few rough keyframes which are required to show the filter where the object to remove from the scene is located.

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Optical Stabilizer

Another optical flow based filter is the optical stabilizer, which can be used to remove unwanted camera shake from an image with no user input other than applying the filter to the clip and selecting stabilize from a pop-up menu. image stabilization couldn't be made easier or faster than this.

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Subtitle Generator

New in RED 4 is the ability to import subtitle files. A convenient option included with the subtitle import feature is the ability to automatically fit all of the imported titles into the title safe area of the comp by wrapping the text onto additional lines. User marks can be generated automatically either for all titles included in the imported subtitle file or only when RED has modified one of these files using the auto-fit function. The imported titles are fully editable in RED and when the subtitle work is complete, the result can be exported out as a movie file, or as a Final Cut Pro XML file.

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New BCC Filters

RED 4 ships with over 150 filter effects, which are conveniently separated into the following 11 categories: Colors and Blurs, DigiEffects Delirium, Distortion and Perspective, Effects, FEC Plug-Ins, Generators, Keys and Matte, Lights, Motion, Time, Wipe Transitions. Each of the filters that ship with RED 4 includes a preset manager, which can be used to load any of the included 1500+ preset effects settings. The preset manager can also be used to save custom settings, which can be shared with BCC filters that have been installed into any other host on your network.