For years, I did my photo editing with the GIMP and BreezeBrowser Pro. About a year ago, I finally made the jump to PhotoShop CS5 because I needed more control over RAW conversion, and I have been very happy with it.
I have gradually been getting more serious about video. Up until recently, I had been using Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate for editing video. It is fairly powerful for a consumer making home and event videos, but I found it limiting in a number of ways when I tried to use it for film projects. Initially, I was more interested in the photographic work than the post-production work, so I was okay with that. However, I am finding myself taking responsibility for more parts of a film project. Also, even if I am not responsible for the editing work on a film, it is good for me to understand the process by having experienced it. So I recently upgraded to the Adobe Production Premium bundle, which includes Premiere, After Effects, and a bunch of other stuff.
I have been crashing through video courses (a subscription to lynda.com is well worth the money) and getting up to speed with some of the products. I have been doing well with Premiere, and I am quite happy with it. It has a ton of capabilities that I will be able to make use of. I can’t wait to dig into After Effects.
One of the products included in Production Premium is Flash. Even though I have been involved in web development and internet applications for a very long time, I never got into Flash, mainly because I couldn’t justify the cost. But now I own it. So I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent and have been learning Flash. Flash is neat, but the synergy between Flash and other things is really blowing my mind. I can develop iPhone and Android apps in it, and I already have one in mind. I can import Flash into Premiere to create video or for compositing. Allegedly, I can use Flash with Encore for creating DVD menus.
So, suddenly I have all these new software products and capabilities at my disposal, and my brain is becoming overloaded with the possibilities.