Another former Serious Magic application, Ultra is a keying and blue/green screen application with some fabulous capabilities and features. While owned by SM, its two big selling points were that it could do some great “real world” chroma keying from less than ideal source material, and that it was a very inexpensive solution for what it offered. Now part of CS3PP it is virtually cost free. And its nearest competition may very well be something that is also included with CS3PP, the Keylight Plugin that comes as part of AE Pro.

Obviously there are many benefits to working within AE and doing your keying within that compositing environment. However Ultra offers more than just keying. The program is surprisingly versatile and has more than basic compositing and effects creation tools built right in. It even supports its own format of virtual 3D sets that allow some great effects. (Unfortunately the virtual set format is proprietary and users cannot create their own in their 3D software. Hopefully this will change)

Which option to use—Ultra with its more limited compositing, or AE with its more limited keying controls—is a factor of the type of work you are doing and the way you like to work. Since both options are in the box ready for your use, it is really an example of your only problem is your plethora of options.

Bottom Line: Ultra is a program we expect to be doing more work with given more time and the appropriateness of projects. While we spent some time kicking its tires and liked what we saw very much, it doesn’t yet have an Adobe interface and polish. In fact its ergonomics are atypical and it feels rather like an in-house development project. But that is ok as it is easy to learn, powerful and versatile to use, and we hope sure to evolve under the Adobe umbrella.