Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 6.0 User Manual

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dobe Systems, Inc. provides complete documentation in the Adobe PDF Help system. The Help system includes information on all the tools, commands, and features for both Windows and Mac OS. The PDF format is designed for easy navigation online, and support for third-party screen readers compatible with Windows. The Help can also be printed as a desktop reference.

avigating in Help

he Help will open in an Acrobat window with the bookmark pane open. If the bookmark pane is not open choose Window > Bookmarks. You can also navigate using the navigation bar, the index, or search the document.

At the top and bottom of each page is a navigation bar. Click Using Help to return to this introduction. Clicking Contents, or Index will take you to that section.

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he contents of Help are shown as bookmarks in the bookmark pane. To view subtopics, click the plus sign next to a bookmark. Each bookmark is a hyperlink to the associated section of the Help document.

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o ﬁnd a topic using the table of contents:

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o ﬁnd a topic using the index:

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ocate your entry, and click the page number link to view the information.

o view multiple entries, click Back to return to the same place in the index.

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ontents

allery of effects 4

Effects included with After Effects 34

3D Channel effects (Pro only) 35

Adjust effects 39

Audio effects 46

Blur & Sharpen effects 51

Channel effects 55

Distort effects 68

Expression Controls effects 89

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Image Control effects 90

Keying effects 101

Matte Tools effects (Pro only) 113

Noise effects 115

Paint effects (Pro only) 123

Perspective effects 138

Render effects 142

Simulation effects 168

Stylize effects 208

Text effects 219

Time effects 228

Transition effects 234

Video effects 241

Legal Notices 243

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Gal lery of effects

3D C hannel effects

“3D C hannel Extract (Pro only)” on page 35 Or iginal (left), with Texture UV selected, and then used

with the Set Matte effect as a Luminance matte (right)

“Depth Matte (Pro only)” on page 36 Original (left) and with two different depths selected (center

and right)

“Depth of Field (Pro only)” on page 36 Original (left) and with variations of Depth of Field applied

(center and right)

“Fog 3D (Pro only)” on page 37 Original (left), Gradient Layer (center), and with Fog 3D applied

(right)

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Adobe After Effects Help Gallery of effects

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“ID Matte (Pro only)” on page 38 Original (left), with ID Matte applied using the near alien as the

ID Selection (center), and composited over a new background (right)

Adjust effects

“Brightness & Contrast” on page 39 Original (left) and with variations of Brightness & Contrast

applied (center and right)

“Channel Mixer” on page 39 Original (left) and with variations of Channel Mixer applied (center

and right)

“Color Balance” on page 40 Original (left) and with variations of Color Balance applied (center and

right)

“Curves” on page 41 Original (left) and with variations of Curves applied (center and right)

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“Hue/Saturation” on page 42 Original (left) and with variations of Hue/Saturation applied (center

and right)

“Levels” on page 44 Original (left) and with variations of Levels applied (center and right)

“Levels (Individual Controls)” on page 45 Original (left) and with variations of Levels (Individual

Controls) applied (center and right)

“Posterize” on page 45 Original (left) and with variations of Posterize applied (center and right)

“Threshold” on page 45 Original (left) and with variations of Threshold applied (center and right)

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Blur and Sharpen effects

“Channel Blur” on page 51 Original (left) and with variations of Channel Blur applied (center and

right)

“Compound Blur” on page 51 Original (left), with Compound Blur applied (center), and with

Compound Blur applied and the cloud layer made invisible (right)

“Directional Blur” on page 52 Original (left) and with variations of Directional Blur applied (center

and right)

“Fast Blur” on page 52 Original (left) and with variations of Fast Blur applied (center and right)

“Gaussian Blur” on page 53 Original (left) and with variations of Gaussian Blur applied (center and

right)

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“Radial Blur” on page 53 Original (left) and with variations of Radial Blur applied (center and right)

“Sharpen” on page 53 Original (left) and with Sharpen applied (right)

“Unsharp Mask” on page 54 Original (left) and with Unsharp Mask applied (right)

Channel effects

“3D Glasses” on page 55 Two variations of 3D Glasses

“Alpha Levels (Pro only)” on page 57 Original (left) and with variations of Alpha Levels applied

(center and right)

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“Arithmetic” on page 58 Original (left) and with variations of Arithmetic applied (center and right)

“Blend” on page 58 Originals (left and center) and with Blend applied (right)

“Calculations” on page 59 Originals (left and center) and with Calculations applied (right)

“Channel Combiner” on page 60 Original (left) and with variations of Channel Combiner applied

(center and right)

“Compound Arithmetic” on page 62 Originals (left and center) and with Compound Arithmetic

applied (right)

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“Invert” on page 63 Original (left) and with variations of Invert applied (center and right)

“Minimax” on page 64 Original (left) and with variations of Minimax applied (center and right)

“Remove Color Matting” on page 64 Top: Remove Color Matting used to remove a halo (center)

from imported text (left) with the result (right) Bottom: Two source layers combined (left and center) and Remove Color Matting used to reﬁne the result (right)

“Set Channels” on page 65 Original (left) and with variations of Set Channels applied (center and

right)

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“Set Matte” on page 66 Original (left) and with variations of Set Matte applied (center and right)

“Shift Channels” on page 67 Original (left) and with variations of Shift Channels applied (center

and right)

“Solid Composite” on page 67 Original (left) and with variations of Solid Composite applied (center

and right)

Distort effects

“Bezier Warp (Pro only)” on page 68 Original (left), with Bezier Warp applied and Bezier curve

highlighted (center), and resulting layer (right)

“Bulge (Pro only)” on page 69 Original (left) and with variations of Bulge applied (center and right)

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“Corner Pin (Pro only)” on page 70 Original (left) and with variations of Corner Pin applied (center

and right)

“Displacement Map (Pro only)” on page 70 Original (left), displacement map (center), and with

Displacement Map applied (right)

“Liquify” on page 71 Original (left) and with variations of Liquify applied (center and right)

“Magnify” on page 73 Original (left) and with variations of Magnify applied (center and right)

“Mesh Warp (Pro only)” on page 74 Original (left), warp grid (center), and resulting layer (right)

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“Mirror” on page 75 Original (left) and with variations of Mirror applied (center and right)

“Offset” on page 75 Original (left) and with variations of Offset applied (center and right)

“Optics Compensation (Pro only)” on page 76 Original (left) with Optics Compensation applied to

correct the image (center), and exaggerates lens distortion (right)

“Polar Coordinates” on page 77 Original (left) and with variations of Polar Coordinates applied

(center and right)

“Reshape (Pro only)” on page 78 Original with masks selected (left) and with variations of Reshape

applied (center and right)

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“Ripple” on page 80 Rippling a layer

“Smear” on page 81 Original with masks selected (left) and with variations of Smear applied (center

and right)

“Spherize” on page 83 Original (left) and with variations of Spherize applied (center and right)

“Transform” on page 83 Original (left) and with variations of Transform applied (center and right)

“Turbulent Displace” on page 84 Original (left) and with variations of Turbulent Displace applied

(center and right)

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“Twirl” on page 86 Original (left) and with variations of Twirl applied (center and right)

“Warp” on page 87 Original (left) and with variations of Warp applied (center and right)

“Wave Warp” on page 87 Original (left) and with variations of Wave Warp applied (center and right)

Image Control effects

“Change Color” on page 90 Original (left) and with variations of Change Color applied (center and

right)

“Change to Color (formerly Change Color HLS)” on page 91 Original (left), with Correction Matte

(center), and with Change to Color applied (right)

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“Color Balance (HLS)” on page 92 Original (left) and with variations of Color Balance HLS applied

(center and right)

“Color Link” on page 92 Original (left) and with variations of Color Link applied (center and right)

“Colorama” on page 94 Original (left) and with variations of Colorama applied (center and right)

“Equalize” on page 98 Original (left) and with variations of Equalize applied (center and right)

“Gamma/Pedestal/Gain” on page 98 Original (left) and with variations of Gamma/Pedestal/Gain

applied (center and right)

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“Grow Bounds” on page 99 Original (left); the Wave Warp effect is constrained by the dimensions

of the layer (center); Grow Bounds ﬁxes this problem (right).

“PS Arbitrary Map” on page 99 Original (left), a map created in Photoshop (center), and with PS

Arbitrary Map applied (right)

“Tint” on page 100 Original (left) and with variations of Tint applied (center and right)

Keying effects

“Color Difference Key (Pro only)” on page 101 Original (left) and background layer (center) are

combined using Color Difference Key (right).

“Color Key” on page 103 A nonstandard key color (left) and the background (center) are combined

using Color Key (right).

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“Color Range” on page 104 A poorly lit green screen (left) and a background layer (center) are

combined using the Color Range Key (right).

“Difference Matte (Pro only)” on page 105 Original (left), Matte Only view of keyed-out subject

(center), and composite of subject with new background (right)

“Extract (Pro only)” on page 106 Original with glare (left) and background layer (center) are

combined using Extract (right).

“Inner/Outer Key (Pro only)” on page 107 The original masked layer (left) and the background

layer (center) are combined using Inner/Outer Key (right).

“Linear Color Key (Pro only)” on page 108 Features such as these eyes (left) that closely match the

background (center) can become transparent when using keys; Linear Color Key keeps them opaque with the Keep This Color control (right).

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“Luma Key” on page 110 A white background of the original (left and center) is removed using

Luma Key (right).

“Spill Suppressor (Pro only)” on page 111 The original green key (left) leaves a green glow when

keyed out (center). Spill Suppressor removes the glow (right).

Matte Tools effects

“Matte Choker (Pro only)” on page 113 Original (left) shows areas of unwanted transparency after

using Color Key (center) that are removed with Matte Choker (right).

“Simple Choker (Pro only)” on page 114 The original (left) contains unwanted edges after keying

(center) that are removed with Simple Choker (right).

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Noise effects

“Dust & Scratches” on page 115 Scratches (left), enlarged view of scratches (center), and scratches

removed with loss of clarity (right

“Fractal Noise (Pro only)” on page 115 Original (left) and with variations of Fractal Noise applied

(center and right)

“Median” on page 119 Original (left) and with variations of Median applied (center and right)

“Noise” on page 120 Original (left) and with variations of Noise applied (center and right)

“Noise Alpha” on page 120 Original (left) and with variations of Noise Alpha applied (center and

right)

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“Noise HLS, Noise HLS Auto” on page 121 Original Layer (left), Noise HLS (center), and two appli-

cations of Noise HLS with low Saturation values (right)

Paint

“Vector Paint (Pro only)” on page 123 Two strokes in different colors painted on the robot's

antenna, using three variations of Vector Paint

Perspective effects

“Basic 3D” on page 138 Original (left) and with variations of Basic 3D applied (center and right)

“Bevel Alpha” on page 139 Original (left) and with variations of Bevel Alpha applied (center and

right)

“Bevel Edges” on page 139 Original (left), background layer visible (center), and with the Bevel

Edges applied to the background layer (right)

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“Drop Shadow” on page 140 Original (left) and with variations of Drop Shadow applied (center and

right)

“Radial Shadow” on page 140 Original (left), with Radial Shadow applied once (center), and with

the effect applied twice (right)

Render effects

“4-Color Gradient” on page 142 Original (left) and with variations of 4-Color Gradient applied

(center and right)

“Advanced Lightning (Pro only)” on page 142 Multiple applications of the effect using the

Breaking lightning type (center) and the Bouncey lightning type (right)

“Audio Spectrum” on page 145 Original (left) and with variations of Audio Spectrum applied

(center and right)

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“Audio Waveform” on page 146 Original (left) and with variations of Audio Waveform applied

(center and right)

“Beam” on page 147 Original (left) and with Beam applied (right)

“Cell Pattern” on page 147 The crystal cell pattern creates a displacement map (center) that is used

with the Displacement Map effect (right).

“Checkerboard (formerly Checker)” on page 150 Original (left) and with variations of Checker-

board applied (center and right)

“Circle” on page 151 Original (left) and with variations of Circle applied (center and right)

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“Ellipse” on page 152 Original (left), with Ellipse applied once (center), and with Ellipse applied

multiple times (right)

“Eyedropper Fill (formerly Color Picker)” on page 152 Original (left) and with variations of

Eyedropper Fill applied (center and right)

“Fill” on page 153 A mask (left) is used with the Fill effect (center); a different mask is used (right).

“Fractal” on page 153 Original (left) and with variations of Fractal applied (center and right)

“Grid” on page 155 Original (left) and with variations of Grid applied (center and right)

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“Lens Flare (Pro only)” on page 156 Original (left) and with variations of Lens Flare applied (center

and right)

“Lightning” on page 156 Original (left) and with variations of Lightning applied (center and right)

“Paint Bucket (formerly Basic Fill)” on page 158 Original (left) and with variations of Paint Bucket

applied (center and right)

“Radio Waves” on page 160 Original (left) and with variations of Radio Waves applied (center and

right)

“Ramp” on page 163 Original (left) and with variations of Ramp applied (center and right)

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“Scribble” on page 163 Original with masks (left) and with variations of Scribble applied (center

and right)

“Stroke” on page 165 Original (left), with mask (center), and with Stroke applied (right)

“Vegas” on page 165 Original (left) and with variations of Vegas applied (center and right)

Simulation effects

“Card Dance” on page 168 Top: Original (left) and with Card Dance applied using different rotations

(center and right) Bottom: Original (left), gradient layer (center), and with Card Dance applied using the gradient layer (right)

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“Caustics” on page 172 Bottom layer (left), water layer (center), and with Caustic applied (right)

“Foam” on page 175 Original (left), with Foam applied (center), and with a robot layer used as the

Bubble Texture Layer (right)

“Particle Playground (Pro only)” on page 180 Effect with variations of Canon (left), Particle

Exploder (center), and Layer Exploder (right)

“Shatter” on page 197 Original (left) and with Shatter applied over time to reveal another layer

(center and right)

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“Wave World” on page 204 Top: Wireframe view (left), Height Map view (center), and the resulting

image used as the water surface of the Caustics effect (right) Bottom: Wireframe view (left), Height Map view (center), and the resulting image used with the Colorama effect (right)

Stylize effects

“Brush Strokes” on page 208 Original (left) and with variations of Brush Strokes applied (center

and right)

“Color Emboss” on page 209 Original (left) and with variations of Color Emboss applied (center and

right)

“Emboss” on page 209 Original (left) and with variations of Emboss applied (center and right)

“Find Edges” on page 209 Original (left) and with variations of Find Edges applied (center and

right)

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“Glow (Pro only)” on page 210 Original (left) and with variations of Glow applied (center and right)

“Leave Color” on page 212 Original (left) and with variations of Leave Color applied (center and

right)

“Mosaic” on page 212 Original (left) and with variations of Mosaic applied (center and right)

“Motion Tile” on page 213 Original (left) and with variations of Motion Tile applied (center and

right)

“Roughen Edges” on page 214 Original (left) and Edge Type set to Roughen (center) and Rusty

Color (right) with all controls set to maximum values

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“Scatter (Pro only)” on page 216 Original (left), after applying Scatter (center), and then applying

the Noise effect (right)

“Strobe Light” on page 216 This effect is difﬁcult to illustrate. See the online Effects Help for infor-

mation on using this effect.

“Texturize” on page 217 Original (left), a layer used to create texture (center), and the texture

applied to background layer (right)

“Write-on” on page 217 Three strokes are animated through time (left, center, and right).

Text effects

“Basic Text” on page 219 Original (left) and with variations of Basic Text applied (center and right)

“Numbers” on page 220 Original (left) and with variations of Numbers applied (center and right)

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“Path Text” on page 222 Original (left) and with variations of Path Text applied (center and right)

Time effects

“Echo” on page 228 Three subsequent frames showing echo effect

“Posterize Time” on page 229 This effect is difﬁcult to illustrate. See the online Effects Help for

information on using this effect.

“Time Difference” on page 230 This effect is difﬁcult to illustrate. See the online Effects Help for

information on using this effect.

“Time Displacement (Pro only)” on page 231 Original (left), a layer used to displace the image as

time progresses (center), and the result (right)

Transition effects

“Block Dissolve” on page 234 Original (left) and with variations of Block Dissolve applied (center

and right)

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“Card Wipe” on page 234 Original (left) and with variations of Card Wipe applied (center and right)

“Gradient Wipe” on page 238 Original (left) and with variations of Gradient Wipe applied (center

and right)

“Iris Wipe” on page 239 Original (left) and with variations of Iris Wipe applied (center and right)

“Linear Wipe” on page 239 Original (left) and with variations of Linear Wipe applied (center and

right)

“Radial Wipe” on page 239 Original (left) and with variations of Radial Wipe applied (center and

right)

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“Venetian Blinds” on page 240 Original (left) and with variations of Venetian Blinds applied (center

and right)

Video effects

“Broadcast Colors” on page 241 This effect is difﬁcult to illustrate. See the online Effects Help for

information on using this effect.

“Reduce Interlace Flicker” on page 242 This effect is difﬁcult to illustrate. See the online Effects

Help for information on using this effect.

“Timecode” on page 242 Original (left) and with variations of Timecode applied (center and right)

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Adobe After Effects Help Effects included with After Effects

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Effects included with After Effects

Standard effects

Adobe® After Effects includes an array of visual and audio effects. And, because of the After Effects plug-in technology, you can use additional effects from other Adobe plug-in– compatible applications, such as Adobe Photoshop. When you register your copy of After Effects, you can download the following effects from the After Effects product section on Adobe’s Web site: Card Dance, Card Wipe, Caustics, Foam, and Wave World.

To see which effects are included within each effect category, see the table of contents in the online Effects Help.

Note: If an effect is 16 bit, its icon in the Effects palette is denoted with a “16” . All other effects are denoted with the standard effects icon .

What you get with the Professional edition

The Professional Edition of After Effects includes all of the effects available in the Standard Edition, as well as the following effects:

Adjust Color Stabilizer

3D Channel 3D Channel Extract, Depth Matte, Depth of Field, Fog 3D, and ID Matte

Audio Flange & Chorus, High-Low Pass, Modulator, Parametric EQ, Reverb, and Tone

Channel Alpha Levels

Distort Bezier Warp, Bulge, Corner Pin, Displacement Map, Mesh Warp, Optics Compen-

sation, and Reshape

Keying Color Difference Key, Difference Matte, Extract, Inner/Outer Key, Linear Color Key, and Spill Suppressor

Matte To ols Matte Choker and Simple Choker

Noise Fractal Noise

Paint Vector Paint

Render Advanced Lightning

Simulation Particle Playground

Stylize Glow and Scatter

Time Time Displacement

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Adobe After Effects Help 3D Channel effects (Pro only)

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3D Channel effects (Pro only)

Overview

The After Effects Professional Edition provides tools to integrate 3D scenes into 2D composites, and to make changes to those 3D scenes. You can import 3D channel image ﬁles saved in RLA, RPF, Softimage PIC/ZPIC, and Electric Image EI/EIZ formats. For PIC and EI ﬁles, the 3D channel information is in the ZPIC or EIZ ﬁles, respectively. You don’t actually import ZPIC and EIZ ﬁles, but as long as they’re stored in the same folder with the PIC and EI ﬁles, you have access to their 3D channels using the 3D Channel effects. The 3D Channel effects don’t affect other types of ﬁles.

3D Channel effects read and manipulate the additional channels of information, including z-depth, surface normals, object ID, texture coordinates, background color, unclamped RGB, and material ID. You can layer 3D elements along a 3D scene, blur areas in a 3D scene, isolate 3D elements, apply a foggy effect with depth, and extract 3D channel information for use as parameters in other effects.

z axis, insert other elements in a

Note: Apply 3D Channel effects to 2D layers that have the auxiliary information. If you convert a layer to 3D and view it from anywhere else but the front and center, it doesn’t appear as expected.

3D Channel Extract (Pro only)

The 3D Channel Extract effect makes auxiliary channels visible as either grayscale or multichannel color images. You can then use the resulting layer as parameters for other effects. For example, extract the an inﬂuence map in the Particle Playground effect, or extract values from the Unclamped RGB channel to produce a matte that generates glowing highlights.

Original (left), duplicate of original with 3D Channel Extract applied using Texture UV (center), and original combined with duplicate using the Luminosity blending mode (right)

Adjust the following controls for the 3D Channel Extract effect:

3D Channel Speciﬁes the channel that you want to extract from the 3D channel image ﬁle.

z-depth information in a 3D channel image ﬁle and then use it as

White Point, Black Point Specify the value that is mapped to white or black.

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Adobe After Effects Help 3D Channel effects (Pro only)

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Depth Matte (Pro only)

The Depth Matte effect reads the z-depth information in a 3D channel image ﬁle and can slice the image anywhere along that in front of or behind the value you specify. For example, remove a background in a 3D scene, or insert objects into a 3D scene. Simply create two layers with the 3D channel image ﬁle; then, in one layer, position everything behind a certain point. In the other layer, position everything in front of that same point, so that the two layers together make up the original image; then insert a layer between them with the object that you want to composite into the scene.

Original (left), with Depth Matte applied to two different depth speciﬁcations (center and right)

z axis. Use this effect to create a matte for everything

Adjust the following controls for the Depth Matte effect:

Depth Speciﬁes the depth of the z axis where you want to slice the image.

Feather Speciﬁes the amount of feather along the slice.

Invert Inverts the feather.

Depth of Field (Pro only)

The Depth of Field effect simulates a camera that’s focusing in on one area in a 3D scene (along the

Original (left), and with Depth of Field applied using different Focal Plane settings (center and right)

Adjust the following controls for the Depth of Field effect:

Focal Plane Speciﬁes the speciﬁc distance, or plane, along the z axis that you want to focus on in the 3D scene. Identify this distance by clicking different parts of the 3D scene in the Composition window, while keeping an eye on the Info palette. Note that you must select the effect in the Effect Controls window before you click.

z axis) while allowing other areas to blur.

z-axis values that appear in the

Maximum Radius Describes how much blur is applied to objects outside this plane.

Focal Plane Thickness Determines the depth of the region that’s in focus.

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Focal Bias Sets the speed with which the out-of-focus elements lose focus. This value

works like a gamma correction: the higher the value, the more quickly elements drop out of focus.

Fog 3D (Pro only)

The Fog 3D effect applies fog along the z axis, so the distant parts of a 3D scene look hazier or disappear behind the fog. Fog 3D simulates fog by behaving as though there is a scattering medium in the air that makes objects look more and more diffuse as they get more distant along the

Original (left), Gradient Layer (center), and with Fog 3D applied (right)

z axis.

Adjust the following controls for the Fog 3D effect:

Fog Color Speciﬁes the color of the fog.

Fog Start Depth Determines where along the z axis the diffuse scattering begins. To

specify this point, ﬁrst select different elements in the 3D scene, and note their the Info palette.

Fog End Depth Determines where the most diffuse area appears along the z axis.

Fog Opacity Determines the opacity of the fog.

Scattering Density Determines how quickly the scattering occurs. This value works like a

gamma correction: the higher the value, the more dense the fog appears from its starting point.

Foggy Background Creates a foggy background and is selected by default. Deselect this control to create transparency at the back of the 3D scene for compositing on top of another image or scene.

Gradient Layer Speciﬁes a grayscale layer to use as medium for increasing or decreasing the fog density. After Effects reads the luminance value in the grayscale image and applies it as the scattering medium. You could, for example, create a gradient layer from a swirling, drifting texture to create a more atmospheric fog effect. For best results, make sure that the dimensions of the gradient layer are the same as the footage, not the composition.

Layer Contribution Speciﬁes how much the gradient layer affects the resulting fog.

z depth in

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ID Matte (Pro only)

The ID Matte effect isolates elements in a 3D channel image ﬁle. Many 3D programs tag each element in a scene with a unique Object ID. After Effects uses this information to create a matte that excludes everything in the scene except the element you want. Identify each object’s Object ID by applying the ID Matte effect and then clicking different parts of the image in the Composition window as you watch the Info palette. (You can also identify Object IDs in the Layer window if you select the effect from the Layer window menu ﬁrst.) If you select Object ID for the Auxiliary Channel parameter in the Effect Controls window, the slider automatically reﬂects the Object ID for each object you select. In addition, you can isolate objects based on their Material ID as well.

Original (left), with ID Matte applied using the near alien as the ID Selection (center), and composited over a new background (right)

Adjust the following controls for the ID Matte effect:

Aux. Channel Speciﬁes whether you’re isolating elements based on their Object IDs or their Material IDs.

ID Selection Identiﬁes the unique ID value assigned to each element in a 3D scene.

Feather Speciﬁes the amount of feather along the matte’s edges.

Invert Inverts the feather.

Use Coverage Creates a cleaner matte by decontaminating the pixels along the edge of

the matte. It removes the colors stored behind the object from these pixels. This is appli cable only if your 3D channel image ﬁle contains a coverage channel that stores information about the colors behind objects.

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Adobe After Effects Help Adjust effects

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Adjust effects

Brightness & Contrast

The Brightness & Contrast effect adjusts the brightness and contrast of the entire layer (not individual channels). The center point of each slider is neutral and indicates no effect. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Brightness & Contrast. Using the Brightness & Contrast effect is the easiest way to make simple adjustments to the tonal range of the image. It adjusts all pixel values in the image at once—highlights, shadows, and midtones.

Original (left), with background layer’s Brightness decreased and Contrast increased (center), and with background layer’s Brightness & Contrast decreased (right)

Channel Mixer

The Channel Mixer effect modiﬁes a color channel using a mix of the current color channels. Use it to make creative color adjustments not easily done with the other color adjustment tools: Create high-quality grayscale images by choosing the percentage contribution from each color channel, create high-quality sepia-tone or other tinted images, and swap or duplicate channels. The Constant (-Const) controls specify the base amount of the input channel to be added to the output channel. Monochrome applies the same settings to all the output channels, creating a color image that contains only gray values. This is useful for images that you plan to convert to grayscale. If you select and then deselect Monochrome, you can modify the blend of each channel separately, creating a hand-tinted appearance.

Original (left), with background layer’s Green and Blue values decreased (center), and with background layer’s Red-Blue values increased and Blue-Red values decreased (right)

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Color Balance

The Color Balance effect changes the amount of red, green, and blue color in a layer. The center point of each slider is neutral and indicates no change. A setting of –100 removes all of the color; a setting of +100 intensiﬁes the color. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Color Balance.

The Shadow/Midtone/Hilight channel Balance controls specify the amount of a channel’s color in the darker, middle, and lighter color intensity ranges of a layer. Preserve Luminosity preserves the average brightness of the image while changing the color. This control maintains the tonal balance in the image.

Original (left), with Shadow Red values increased and Shadow Green values decreased (center), and with Shadow, Midtone, and Hilight values decreased for red and green (right)

Color Stabilizer (Pro only)

The Color Stabilizer effect samples the exposure of speciﬁed areas of a single reference, or pivot, frame; it then adjusts the total exposure of all the other frames to maintain the value of the selected point in the pivot frame. This is useful to remove ﬂicker from footage and to equalize the exposure of footage with color shifts caused by varying lighting situations.

Adjust the following controls for Color Stabilizer:

Set Frame Speciﬁes the pivot frame. Display the frame that has the area of brightness or color that you want to match, and click Set Frame.

Stabilize Speciﬁes the method by which the stabilization is performed. Choose one of the following options from the menu:

• Brightness speciﬁes that the brightness is to be stabilized throughout the footage. You

can sample one point in the pivot frame to specify this value.

• Levels speciﬁes that black-point and white-point values in the pivot frame are to be

stabilized throughout the footage.

• Curves speciﬁes that black-point, white-point, and midpoint values in the pivot frame

are to be stabilized throughout the footage.

The following controls indicate the particular point on the pivot frame that remains constant throughout the footage. Place the effect points to select an area for stabilization. If you select multiple points, consider that Color Stabilizer is most effective when those points vary widely in color and brightness.

Black Point Speciﬁes a single point that will remain constant, if you choose to stabilize brightness only. If you choose to stabilize levels or curves, this control speciﬁes a dark point that remains constant.

Mid Point Speciﬁes a point between two values of color or brightness that will remain constant. This control is available only if you choose to stabilize curves.

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White Point Speciﬁes a light point that will remain constant. This control is available only

if you choose to stabilize levels or curves.

Sample Size Speciﬁes the size, in radius of pixels, of the sampled area.

Curves

The Curves effect adjusts the tonal range of an image. You can also use Levels to do this, but Curves gives you more control. Instead of making the adjustments using just three controls (highlights, shadows, and midtones) as Levels does, Curves can adjust any point along the input scale while keeping up to 15 other values constant.

Original (left); with background layer’s shadows and midtones decreased, adding more contrast in highlights (center); and with background layer’s shadows and low midtones increased, highlights and mid-highlights decreased, reversing the normal tones (right)

When you apply the Curves effect, After Effects displays a graph in the Effect Controls window that you use to specify a curve.

The horizontal axis of the graph represents the original brightness values of the pixels (input levels); the vertical axis represents the new brightness values (output levels). In the default diagonal line, all pixels have identical input and output values. Curves displays brightness values from 0 to 255 (8 bit) or 32768 (16 bit), with shadows (0) on the left.

Use Arbitrary Map to draw a tonal curve by dragging. This control helps you create a variety of interesting tonal and color effects. In addition, you can import curves and arbitrary maps from Adobe Photoshop. Curves supports .amp ﬁles (Windows) and Photoshop lookup ﬁles (Mac OS) created by using the pencil tool, and .acv ﬁles (Windows) and Photoshop spline ﬁles (Mac OS) created by using the graph tool. The Curves effect does not support Adobe Photoshop color tables (.act).

Adjust the curve in the graph, and adjust the following control for the Curves effect:

Channel Speciﬁes the color channel or alpha channel to be modiﬁed.

Using the Curves effect

The following procedures provide a basic overview of how to use this effect.

To use the Curves effect:

1 Choose Effect > Adjust > Curves.

2 If the image has more than one color channel, choose the channel you want to adjust

from the Channel menu. RGB alters all channels using a single curve.

3 Select Bezier .

4 Click the part of the curve you want to adjust.

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5 Click any points on the curve that you want to remain ﬁxed. For example, if you want to

adjust the midtones while minimizing the effect on the highlights and shadows, click the quarter and three-quarter points on the curve. You can add up to 14 points to the curve, locking those values.

6 To remove a ﬁxed point, drag it off the graph.

7 Adjust the curve by dragging it.

To use Arbitrary Map in the Curves effect:

1 Click the Folder icon to locate and open an existing map, or click the pencil tool to edit

the default curve.

2 Draw or edit the curve in the Curves graph.

3 If desired, click Smooth to smooth the curve or click Line to reset the curve.

Hue/Saturation

The Hue/Saturation effect adjusts the hue, saturation, and lightness of individual color components in an image. This effect is based on the color wheel. Adjusting the hue, or color, represents a move around the color wheel. Adjusting the saturation, or purity of the color, represents a move across its radius. Use the Colorize control to add color to a grayscale image converted to RGB, or to add color to an RGB image.

Original (left); with background layer’s Master Hue adjusted, Master Saturation increased, and Master Lightness decreased (center); and with background layer’s Colorize selected, Hue adjusted, Master Saturation at 100, and Master Lightness decreased (right)

Hue/Saturation controls

Adjust the following controls for the Hue/Saturation effect:

Channel Control Speciﬁes the color channel you want to adjust. Choose Master to adjust all colors at once.

Channel Range Speciﬁes the deﬁnition of the color channel chosen in the Channel Control menu. Two color bars represent the colors in their order on the color wheel. The upper color bar shows the color before the adjustment; the lower bar shows how the adjustment affects all of the hues at full saturation. Use the adjustment slider to edit any range of hues.

Master Hue Speciﬁes the overall hue of the channel chosen in the Channel Control menu. Use the dial, which represents the color wheel, to change the overall hue. The underlined value displayed above the dial reﬂects the number of degrees of rotation around the wheel from the pixel’s original color. A positive value indicates clockwise rotation; a negative value indicates counterclockwise rotation. Values range from –180 to +180.

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Master Saturation, Master Lightness Specify the overall saturation and lightness of the

channel chosen in the Channel Control menu. Values range from –100 to +100.

Colorize Adds color to a grayscale image converted to RGB, or adds color to an RGB image—for example, to make it look like a duotone image by reducing its color values to one hue.

Colorize Hue, Colorize Saturation, Colorize Lightness Specify the hue, saturation, and lightness of the color range you chose in the Channel Control menu. After Effects displays only the sliders for the Channel Control menu choice.

Using the Hue/Saturation effect

The following procedures provide basic overviews of how to use this effect.

To adjust an image using Hue/Saturation:

1 Choose Effect > Adjust > Hue/Saturation.

2 From the Channel Control menu, choose which colors to adjust:

• Choose Master to adjust all colors at once.

• Choose a preset color range for the color you want to adjust, and then use the sliders for

that color range.

3 For Hue, type a value or drag the dial.

4 For Saturation, type a value or drag the slider. The color shifts away from or toward the

center of the color wheel, relative to the beginning color values of the selected pixels.

5 For Lightness, type a value or drag the slider.

To colorize an image or create a monotone effect:

1 Choose Effect > Adjust > Hue/Saturation.

2 Select Colorize. The image is converted to the hue of the current foreground color. The

lightness value of each pixel does not change.

3 Drag the Colorize Hue dial to select a new color if desired.

4 Drag the Colorize Saturation and Colorize Lightness sliders.

To modify the range of an adjustment slider:

1 From the Channel Control menu, choose an individual color. (By default, the range of

color selected when you choose a color component is 30° wide, with 30° of fall-off on either side. Setting the fall-off too low can produce dithering in the image.)

2 Do any of the following:

• Drag one or both of the white triangles to adjust the amount of feather without

affecting the range.

• Drag one or both of the vertical white bars to adjust the range. Increasing the range

decreases the fall-off, and vice versa.

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Levels

The Levels effect remaps the range of input color levels onto a new range of output color levels, and changes the gamma correction curve at the same time. The Levels effect is useful for basic image quality adjustment. This effect functions the same as the Levels adjustment in Photoshop and appears in the same way if monitor calibration is off. (See

“Levels (Individual Controls)” on page 45.)

Original (left); with background layer’s Input Black increased, Output White decreased, and Gamma decreased (center); and with an additional Levels effect applied on top of the ﬁrst, using default values (right)

The gamma of any curve is its slope, expressed as the ratio of the logs of the output to input values. For example, a gamma value of 1.0 equals an output-to-input ratio of 1:1. Moving the midpoint of the curve up (in an RGB readout) lowers the gamma value; moving the midpoint down raises the gamma value. Gamma speciﬁes contrast that affects the midtones in a range.

You can adjust the brightness, contrast, and gamma in an image. Use Levels to adjust the gamma to change the brightness values of the middle range of gray tones without dramatically altering the shadows and highlights.

Levels controls

Adjust the following controls for the Levels effect:

Channel Speciﬁes the color channel to be modiﬁed.

Histogram Shows how the pixel values are distributed in an image. The horizontal axis of

the histogram represents the brightness value. The vertical axis represents the number of pixels at each brightness level. No pixels can be darker than the output black level, and no pixel can be brighter than the output white level.

Input Black Speciﬁes the threshold of the black value for the input image. Pixels below the input black level are mapped as black on the input image. The input black value is represented by the upper left triangle below the histogram.

Output Black Speciﬁes the limit of the black value for the output image. The output black value is represented by the lower left triangle below the histogram.

Gamma Speciﬁes the gamma value, which is represented by the middle triangle below the histogram.

Output White Speciﬁes the limit of the white value for the output image. The output white value is represented by the lower right triangle below the histogram.

Input White Speciﬁes the threshold of the white value for the input image. Pixels below the input white level are mapped as white on the input image. The input white value is represented by the upper right triangle below the histogram.

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Levels (Individual Controls)

The Levels (Individual Controls) effect functions like the Levels effect but allows you to adjust the individual color values for each channel. This allows you to add expressions to individual properties or keyframe one property independently of the others. To see each control individually, click the arrow next to the channel color to expand it. (See

page 44.)

Original (left), with background layer’s Blue Input Black increased (center), and with an additional Levels effect applied with the same values as the ﬁrst (right)

“Levels” on

Posterize

The Posterize effect lets you specify the number of tonal levels (or brightness values) for each channel in an image. Posterize then maps pixels to the closest matching level. For example, choosing two tonal levels in an RGB image gives you two tones for red, two tones for green, and two tones for blue. Values range from 2 to 255. Although the results of this effect are most evident when you reduce the number of gray levels in a grayscale image, Posterize also produces interesting effects in color images.

Use Level to adjust the number of tonal levels for each channel to which Posterize will map existing colors.

Original (left), with background layer’s Level set to 5 (center), and with background layer’s Level set to 2 (right)

Threshold

The Threshold effect lets you convert grayscale or color images to high-contrast, blackand-white images. Specify a certain level as a threshold; all pixels lighter than the threshold are converted to white and all pixels darker to black.

Original (left), with the Level for the cloud background set to 200 (center), and set to 111 (right)

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Adobe After Effects Help Audio effects

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Audio effects

About Audio Effects

Audio effects add ambiance to a layer, enhance or correct audio characteristics, and create effects. You can apply audio effects to existing audio footage or synthesize just about any sound by combining the Tone effect with other audio effects.

Backwards

The Backwards effect reverses an audio footage item by playing it from the last frame to the ﬁrst frame. The frames remain in their original order when viewed in the Timeline window.

Bass & Treble

The Bass & Treble effect lets you adjust the amount of boost or cut applied to the low frequencies (bass) or the high frequencies (treble) of the audio layer. If you need greater control in working with audio tone, use the Parametric Equalization effect in the After Effects Professional edition.

Delay

The Delay effect repeats the sounds in the audio layer after a speciﬁed amount of time. This simulates sound bouncing off a surface, such as a wall some distance away.

To simulate the acoustic ambience of a room, use the Reverb effect in the After Effects Professional edition.

Adjust the following controls for the Delay effect:

Delay Time Speciﬁes the interval of time between the original sound and its echo, in milliseconds. Drag the slider to the right to increase the time between the original sound and its echo.

Delay Amount Speciﬁes the level of the ﬁrst delayed audio. Drag the slider to the right to increase the amount of the original sound that is sent as echo.

Feedback Speciﬁes the amount of the echo that is fed back into the delay line to create subsequent echoes. Drag the slider to the right to increase the amount of echo signal fed back into the delay line.

Dry Out, Wet Out Specify the balance of the original (dry) sound to the delayed (wet) sound in the ﬁnal output. Values of 50% are commonly used.

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Flange & Chorus (Pro only)

The Flange & Chorus effect lets you adjust both the Flange and Chorus. Chorus is commonly used to add depth and character to audio footage that contains a single instrument or voice. Chorus makes one voice sound like many voices.

Flange applies a copy of the sound that is detuned, or played at a frequency slightly offset from the original. By experimenting with the voice separation time and the modulation depth, you can create a wavy, rushing sound. The default settings apply to Flange alone.

Adjust the following controls for the Flange & Chorus effect:

Voice Separation Time (ms) Speciﬁes the time in milliseconds that separates each voice. Each voice is a delayed version of the original sound. Low values are commonly used for ﬂange, and higher values for chorus.

Voices Speciﬁes the number of voices in the processed (wet) audio. Increasing this value applies more of a chorus effect.

Modulation Rate Speciﬁes the rate in Hz at which the frequency modulates.

Modulation Depth Speciﬁes the amount of frequency modulation.

Voice Phase Change Speciﬁes the modulation phase difference in degrees between

each subsequent voice. Invert Phase inverts the phase of the processed (wet) audio, which emphasizes more of the high frequencies; not inverting the phase emphasizes more of the low frequencies. Stereo Voices alternates each voice between two channels so that the ﬁrst voice appears in the left channel, the second in the right channel, the third in the left, and so on. To hear stereo voices, you must preview the audio in stereo or render the movie in stereo.

Dry Out, Wet Out Specify the mix of unprocessed (dry) audio to processed (wet) audio in the ﬁnal output. Values of 50% are commonly used.

To apply Chorus without Flange:

1 For Voice Separation Time (ms), specify a value of about 40. For a deeper chorus effect,

increase this value.

2 For Voices, specify 4.

3 For Modulation Rate, specify a value of about 0.1.

4 For Modulation Depth, specify 50%.

5 For Voice Phase Change, specify 90, and then select Stereo Voices. To quickly ﬁnd an

optimal phase change based on the number of voices you have speciﬁed, use the formula P=360/

6 For Dry Out and Wet Out, specify 50% each. To make voices appear from more than one direction and get louder over time, select Stereo Voices, drag the Dry Out slider to 0.0 so you hear just the effect, and then set keyframes so that the voices fade in over time.

x, where P is the phase change and x is the number of voices.

High-Low Pass (Pro only)

The High-Low Pass effect sets a limit above or below which frequencies can pass. The High Pass ﬁlter option allows frequencies above the limit and blocks frequencies below. Conversely, Low Pass allows frequencies below the limit and blocks frequencies above. Use High-Low Pass to do the following:

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• Enhance or attenuate (reduce) a sound. For example, using High Pass can reduce trafﬁc

noise, which often is concentrated at low frequencies, while minimally affecting a voice recording. Using Low Pass can remove high-frequency sounds, such as static and buzzing.

• Change the focus from one sound to another over time. For example, in audio that

contains both music and voice, you can fade out the music while gradually bringing in the voice.

• Protect equipment from potentially damaging frequencies.

• Direct certain frequencies to speciﬁc equipment. For example, using Low Pass can

isolate sounds intended for a subwoofer.

Adjust the following controls for the High-Low Pass effect:

Filter Options Speciﬁes whether to apply High Pass or Low Pass.

Cutoff Frequency For High Pass, speciﬁes the frequency below which the footage is not

audible. For Low Pass, speciﬁes the frequency above which the footage is not

audible.

Dry Out, Wet Out Specify the mix of unprocessed (dry) audio to processed (wet) audio in the ﬁnal output. Common values for removing frequencies are 0% for Dry Out and 100% for Wet

Out.

To remove frequencies using the High-Low Pass effect:

1 Determine if the unwanted sound has predominantly high- or low-frequency content.

2 For Filter Options, choose High Pass if the unwanted sound has low-frequency content;

otherwise, choose Low Pass.

3 Adjust the cutoff frequency to isolate the unwanted sound from the frequencies you want to

keep. To help isolate the unwanted sound, apply the Audio Spectrum effect to a

motion footage layer to see the magnitude of the frequencies in the range you deﬁne.

4 Choose 0% for Dry Out and 100% for Wet Out.

5 To verify that the frequencies you are cutting off are the ones you want to remove,

switch to the opposite ﬁlter and then preview the audio.

6 To identify which cutoff frequencies work best, do one of the following:

• Continue to adjust the cutoff frequency and preview the audio until you reduce or

remove the unwanted sound while minimally affecting the frequencies you want to keep.

• Set keyframes for different cutoff frequencies, and then preview the audio.

7 Make sure that you have selected the Audio Spectrum effect.

Modulator (Pro only)

The Modulator effect adds both vibrato and tremolo to audio by modulating (varying) the frequency and amplitude. Using Modulator, you can create a Doppler effect, such as when a train whistle gets higher in pitch as it approaches an observer, and then drops in pitch as it

passes.

Adjust the following controls for the Modulator effect:

Modulation Type Speciﬁes the type of waveform to use. Sine waves produce the purest sounds. Triangle waves produce more distorted sounds.

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Modulation Rate Speciﬁes the rate in Hz at which the frequency modulates.

Modulation Depth Speciﬁes the amount of frequency modulation.

Amplitude Modulation Speciﬁes the amount of amplitude modulation.

Parametric EQ (Pro only)

The Parametric EQ effect either emphasizes or attenuates speciﬁc frequency ranges. Parametric EQ is useful for enhancing music, such as boosting low frequencies to bring up bass. Using this effect, you can enhance up to three different bands of the audio footage. As you adjust controls, a Frequency Response graph indicates the combined equalization curve you create. On the Frequency Response graph, Band 1 is red, Band 2 is green, and Band 3 is blue. You may ﬁnd it easier to specify controls if you determine in advance the frequency-response curve you want.

Adjust the following controls for the Parametric EQ effect:

Band Enabled Activates an equalization band and its controls.

Frequency Speciﬁes which frequency to modify. This frequency acts as the peak of the

effect—the center of the bandwidth you specify.

Bandwidth Sets the range of frequencies to enhance above and below the frequency speciﬁed under Frequency.

Boost/Cut Speciﬁes the amount of boost or cut applied to the amplitude of the frequencies inside the speciﬁed bandwidth. Positive values boost; negative values cut.

If you have audio with an unwanted sound (such as a beep from a forklift in the background), you can isolate and cut the frequency range of the beep to attenuate the sound. You may need to experiment with several settings to isolate the frequency range. To do this, set keyframes for different Parametric EQ properties, and then preview the audio. You can also apply the Audio Spectrum effect to a motion footage layer to see the magnitude of the frequencies in the range you deﬁne.

Reverb (Pro only)

The Reverb effect simulates a spacious or acoustically live interior by simulating random reﬂections of a sound off a surface.

Adjust the following controls for the Reverb effect:

Reverb Time (ms) Speciﬁes the average time, in milliseconds, between the original audio and the reverberated audio.

Diffusion Speciﬁes how much the effect scatters the original audio. More diffusion can make the audio sound farther from the microphone.

Decay Speciﬁes the amount of time it takes for the effect to subside. A higher value simulates a larger space.

Brightness Speciﬁes the amount of detail preserved from the original audio. More brightness can simulate a room with live, or highly reﬂective, acoustics.

Dry Out, Wet Out Specify the mix of the unprocessed (dry) audio to the processed (wet) audio in the ﬁnal output.

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Stereo Mixer

The Stereo Mixer effect mixes the left and right channels of an audio layer and pans the entire signal from one channel to the other.

Adjust the following controls for the Stereo Mixer effect:

Left Level, Right Level Specify the level of the left or right audio channel of an audio layer. A value of 2.00 is full level.

Left Pan, Right Pan Shift the mixed stereo signal from one audio channel to the other. Values of –1.00 for Left pan and +1.00 for Right pan produce an even balance.

Invert Phase Inverts the phase of both channels of the stereo signal. Use this control to prevent two sounds at the same frequency from canceling each other out.

Tone (Pro only)

The Tone effect synthesizes simple audio tones to create effects such as the low rumble of a submarine, a telephone ringing in the background, sirens, or a laser blast. You can add up to ﬁve tones for each effect to create a chord, for example, in a composition. When you apply this effect to audio footage, the dry (unprocessed) audio is ignored, and only the tone plays.

You can also apply the Tone effect to a layer that has no audio, such as an Adobe Illustrator object, to synthesize audio. When you render the movie, make sure that you select an output format that supports audio, for example, QuickTime or Video for Windows.

Adjust the following controls for the Tone effect:

Waveform Options Speciﬁes the type of waveform to use. Sine waves produce the purest tones. Square waves produce the most distorted tones. Triangle waves have elements of both sine waves and square waves but are closer to sine waves. Saw waves have elements of both sine waves and square waves but are closer to square waves.

Frequency 1...5 Speciﬁes the frequency in Hz of the ﬁrst through the ﬁfth tones. To turn off a tone, set its frequency to 0.0.

Level Changes the amplitude of all tones. If you hear clicking when you preview or play the audio, you may have set the Level value too high. To produce a clean sound, use a percentage less than or equal to 100 divided by the number of frequencies you use. For example, if you use all ﬁve frequencies, choose 20%.

To avoid clicks at the end of a tone, set a keyframe for the desired amplitude level at the frame just before the end of the tone, and then set another keyframe for a level of 0.0 at the end of the tone. This technique works well for any music you end abruptly.

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Blur & Sharpen effects

Channel Blur

The Channel Blur effect blurs a layer’s red, green, blue, or alpha channels individually. You can specify that the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both. At Best quality, the blur is smooth. Use this effect for glow effects or if you want a blur that does not become transparent near the edges of the layer. Edge Behavior describes how to treat the edges of a blurred image. If you deselect it, pixels outside the image are transparent, which makes the edges of the blurred image semitransparent. Select Repeat Edge Pixels to repeat the pixels around the edges, preventing the edges from darkening and becoming more transparent.

Original (left), with Blue Blurriness and Alpha Blurriness values increased and Blur Dimensions set to Horizontal (center), and with Blue Blurriness, Green Blurriness, and Alpha Blurriness values increased and Blur Dimensions set to Horizontal and Vertical (right)

Compound Blur

The Compound Blur effect blurs pixels in the selected layer based on the luminance values of a blur layer, also known as a blurring map contains pixels of different luminance values, is essentially overlaid on top of the selected layer, and the pixels of both layers are matched, one to one. Where the blur layer is black, no blurring occurs in the same location in the selected layer. The blur layer is used only as a map; it is not visible in the composition.

Original (left), with the cloud layer set as the Blur Layer; then inverted (center) and cloud layer’s Video switch off (right)

. The blur layer, which can be any layer that

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Blur Layer speciﬁes the layer in the composition to use as the blurring map. Bright values in the blur layer correspond to more blurring of the affected layer, while dark values corre spond to less blurring. Maximum Blur speciﬁes the maximum amount, in pixels, that any part of the affected layer can be blurred. Stretch Map to Fit stretches the blur layer to the dimensions of the layer to which it is applied; otherwise, it is centered. Invert Blur inverts the values, so areas that were previously more blurred are less blurred, and vice versa.

This effect is useful for simulating smudges and ﬁngerprints, or changes in visibility caused by atmospheric conditions such as smoke or heat, especially with animated blurring layers. Compound Blur is especially effective in combination with other effects, such as Displacement Map. (See

“Displacement Map (Pro only)” on page 70.)

Directional Blur

The Directional Blur effect gives a layer the illusion of motion. In previous versions of After Effects, this effects was called Motion Blur. At Draft quality, the effect is a blur of the image in which each pixel is the unweighted average of its adjacent pixels. At Best quality, the effect uses Gaussian weighting, producing a smoother, more graduated blur. The Direction control speciﬁes the direction of the blur. The blur is applied equally around a pixel’s center; therefore, a setting of 180 degrees and a setting of 0 degrees look the same.

Original (left), with Direction set to 90 degrees and Blur Length set to 9 (center), and with Direction set to 315 degrees and Blur Length set to 20 (right)

Fast Blur

The Fast Blur effect blurs an image. Specify whether the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both. At Best quality, the Fast Blur effect is a close approximation of a Gaussian Blur, but it blurs large areas more quickly. Select Repeat Edge Pixels to blur the contents of the layer while keeping the edges of the layer sharp.

Original (left), with Blurriness set to 20 (center), and with Blurriness set to 33 and Blur Dimensions set to Vertical (right)

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Gaussian Blur

The Gaussian Blur effect blurs and softens the image and can reduce noise. Specify whether the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Gaussian Blur.

Original (left), with Blurriness set to 15 (center), and with Blurriness set to 49 and Blur Dimensions set to Horizontal (right)

Radial Blur

The Radial Blur effect creates blurs around a speciﬁc point in a layer, simulating the effects of a zooming or rotating camera. At Draft quality, the blur appears somewhat grainy. You may prefer the draft results for special effects, but the grain may ﬂicker on interlaced displays.

The Amount control speciﬁes the amount of blur, depending on the choice (Spin or Zoom) for Type. For a Spin blur, which applies blurs in circles around the center point, the Amount value indicates the degree of rotation. For a Zoom blur, which applies blur that radiates out from the center point, the Amount value speciﬁes the degree of radial blurring. You can specify the level of anti-aliasing applied at Best quality; no anti-aliasing is applied at Draft quality.

Original (left) and with medium amount of Spin blur centered on the alien (center) and with a medium amount of Zoom blur centered on the alien (right)

Sharpen

The Sharpen effect increases the contrast where color changes occur. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Sharpen.

Original (left) and with Sharpen Amount set to 100 for the cloud layer (right)

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Unsharp Mask

The Unsharp Mask effect increases the contrast between colors that deﬁne an edge. Use the Radius control to specify the depth of pixels that will be affected at an edge. If you specify a high value, more of the pixels surrounding the edge are adjusted for contrast. If you specify a low value, only pixels at the edge are adjusted. Use the Threshold control to specify a tolerance to deﬁne edges generate noise or cause unexpected results. Values deﬁne the range of contrast allowed between adjacent pixels before contrast is adjusted. A lower value produces a more pronounced effect.

Original (left) and with Amount set to 80, Radius set to 24, and Threshold set to 8 for the cloud layer (right)

and prevent overall contrast adjustment that might

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Channel effects

3D Glasses

The 3D Glasses effect creates a single 3D image by combining a left and right 3D view. You can use images from 3D programs or stereoscopic cameras as sources for each view. The method you use to create the combined images dictates how you view them. For example, you can use 3D Glasses to create an anaglyphic image, which is an image containing two slightly different perspectives of the same subject that are tinted contrasting colors and superimposed on each other. To create an anaglyphic image, ﬁrst combine views and tint each one a different color. Then, use 3D glasses that have either red and green lenses or red and blue lenses, to view the resulting image stereoscopically.

Balanced Color Red Blue selected (left) and Interlaced Upper L Lower R selected (right)

To avoid problems with ﬂipped views, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Use the same vertical dimensions for the composition and source images. One pixel

difference produces the same result as moving the position one pixel vertically.

• Make sure that the layer’s Position values are whole numbers (such as 240 instead of

239.7).

• If your left and right view images are interlaced, deinterlace them before using 3D

Glasses, to avoid ﬁeld mismatch.

• Because 3D Glasses creates interlaced frames, do not select an interlace option in the

Render Settings dialog box.

3D Glasses controls

Adjust the following controls for the 3D Glasses effect:

Left View, Right View Specify the layer to use as the left or right view. You only need to apply 3D Glasses to only one layer in a composition. If you use a second layer, make sure that the two layers are the same size. The second layer does not need to be visible in the composition.

Convergence Offset Speciﬁes the amount that the two views are offset. Use this control to realign uncalibrated camera views of rendered material. Photos or images rendered from 3D programs are generally misaligned and require a negative Convergence Offset value.If the original footage was shot with correct convergence, there is no need to change this value. Keyframing this value may result in erratic animation.

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Swap Left-Right Swaps the left and right views.

3D View Speciﬁes the rendering mode the effect uses to combine the views.

• Stereo Pair scales both layers to ﬁt side by side within the effect layer’s bounding box.

Select Swap Left-Right to create cross-eyed vision. Selecting Stereo Pair disables Convergence Offset.

• Interlace Upper L Lower R takes the upper (ﬁrst) ﬁeld from the Left View layer, and the

lower (second) ﬁeld from the Right View layer, and combines them into a single or a sequence of interlaced frames. Use this option if you want to view the results with polarized or LCD shutter glasses. Select Swap Left-Right to switch ﬁelds.

• Red Green LR tints the Right View layer red, and the Left View layer green using the

luminance values of each layer.

• Red Blue LR tints the Right View layer red and the Left View layer blue using the

luminance values of each layer.

• Balanced Red Green LR performs the same operation as Red Green LR but also balances

the colors to reduce shadows or ghosting effects caused by one view showing through the other. Setting a high value reduces the overall contrast.

• Balanced Red Blue LR performs the same operation as Red Blue LR but also balances the

colors in order to reduce shadows or ghosting effects.

• Balanced Colored Red Blue converts the layer into a 3D view using the original layer’s

RGB channels. This option maintains the layer’s original colors but may produce shadows and ghosting effects. To reduce these effects adjust the balance, or desaturate the image, and then apply 3D Glasses. If you are using CG images, raise the black level of both views before applying the effect.

Balance Speciﬁes the level of balance in a balanced 3D view option. Use this control to reduce shadows and ghost effects. The default balance that 3D Glasses sets when you select the Balanced Colored Red Blue option is the ideal value: If you set Balance to 0.0, 3D Glasses creates no 3D depth, and if you set Balance too high, 3D Glasses produces a highly saturated output.

For more information, see “Understanding red, blue, and green lenses” on page 56 and

“Understanding ghost effects” on page 56.

Understanding red, blue, and green lenses

When you work with red and blue images, the blue color in glasses with red and blue lenses is actually cyan, not blue. Red and cyan are complementary colors, producing the best separation because they ﬁlter each other out more efﬁciently. When you work with red and green images, it may appear that the green is not as bright as the red. However, viewing the images with red and green lenses produces an even result because green has a higher luminance value than red.

Understanding ghost effects

Ghost effects occur when the luminance values of one color exceed those of another color to such an extent that you can see the ﬁrst color through the wrong lens of anaglyph glasses. For example, an excessive red luminance value becomes visible through the blue lens. If you adjust the Balance value, test the results on the ﬁnal output media. If you set the Balance value too high, a reversed shadow may appear.

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Alpha Levels (Pro only)

The Alpha Levels effect increases or decreases the transparency of a matte. Use Alpha Levels to adjust pure black or pure white areas of a matte to be semitransparent, or to adjust grays (semitransparent areas) to be pure black and white. Alpha values are converted using Input limits, Output limits, and the Gamma value.

Original (left) and effect applied to arches layer with Input Black Level set to 144 and Output White Level set to 90 (center), and with Output Black Level set to about 120 and Output White Level set to 0 (right)

Adjust the following controls for the Alpha Levels effect:

Input limits, Output limits Specify where transparency begins and ends.

Gamma Affects the range of gray values that are converted. A Gamma value of 1

produces a gradual (linear) distribution of gray values. A Gamma value of less than 1 creates darker gray values and more transparency. A gamma value of greater than 1 creates lighter gray values and less transparency.

To convert grays in the matte to pure black or white:

1 Set the Input Black Level to a gray value. Alpha values at this level or lower become fully

transparent (black).

2 Set the Input White Level to a gray value. Alpha values at this level or higher become fully opaque (white).

3 Leave the Output Black Level set to 0 and the Output White Level set to 255.

4 If necessary, adjust the Gamma value to increase or decrease transparency.

To convert pure black and white in the matte into gray areas:

1 Leave the Input Black Level at 0 and the Input White Level at 255.

2 Set the Output Black Level slider to a gray value. Alpha values below this value rise to

this value.

3 Set the Output White Level to a gray value. Alpha values above this value are lowered to this value.

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Arithmetic

The Arithmetic effect performs various simple mathematical operations on an image’s red, green, and blue channels. Operator speciﬁes the mathematical operation to perform between the value you specify for each channel and the existing value of that channel for each pixel in the image: And, Or, and Xor apply bitwise logical combinations of the speciﬁed value; Add, Subtract, and Difference apply basic math functions using the speciﬁed value; Max and Min select each pixel in the color channel that is respectively less or greater than the speciﬁed value and set it at the speciﬁed value. Block Above and Block Below turn the channel off everywhere that it is respectively greater or less than the speciﬁed value; Slice turns the channel off where it is below the value speciﬁed and turns it on where it is above the speciﬁed value.

Clip Result Values prevents all functions from creating color values that exceed the valid range. If this option is not selected, some color values may wrap around from on to off, or vice versa.

Original (left), with Operator set to Multiply and Red Value set to 255 (center), and with Operator set to And and an increased Green Value (right)

Blend

The Blend effect blends two layers using one of ﬁve modes. A crossfade is a standard transition between two images: the original image fades out while the new image fades in.

Original (left), with layers blended using Darken Only Mode and Blend With Original set to 0% (center), and with Color Only Mode and Blend With Original set to 50% (right)

Note: You can create blends more easily and quickly using layer modes, but you can’t animate layer modes. The advantage of using the Blend effect is that you can animate it.

Blend controls

Adjust the following controls for the Blend effect:

Blend with Layer Speciﬁes the layer to be blended with the original layer.

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Mode Speciﬁes the Blend mode you want to use. Crossfade fades between the original

image and the secondary image. Color Only colorizes each pixel in the original image based on the color of each corresponding pixel in the secondary image. Tint Only is similar to Color Only but tints pixels in the original image only if they are already colored. Darken Only darkens each pixel in the original image that is lighter than the corresponding pixel in the secondary image. Lighten Only lightens each pixel in the original image that is darker than the corresponding pixel in the secondary image.

Blend with Original Speciﬁes the fading level between the blended image and the original image. A setting of 0% shows only the secondary layer (or just the layers speciﬁed with Blend if you are in Crossfade mode). At 100%, only the ﬁrst layer is visible. Changing this slider linearly over time gives you a standard crossfade. To try the other blending modes, set Blend with Original to 0% to see the full effect of each mode.

Note: You can create a crossfade without applying an effect by animating the Opacity property of one layer on top of another. However, this doesn’t work if the frontmost layer has any transparent portions (which allows the other layer to show through, even when at full opacity). The Crossfade mode creates a proper crossfade between two layers, even if both have transparent regions.

If Layer Sizes Differ Speciﬁes how to position the layers. The layer’s quality setting affects Blend only if Stretch to Fit is selected and if the layers are of different sizes. Stretching at Best quality is much smoother.

Using the Blend effect

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to use this effect.

To use the Blend effect:

1 Make sure that the two source items to blend have been added to your composition.

2 Apply the Blend effect to one layer (A), and choose the name of the other layer (B) in the

Blend with Layer pop-up menu.

3 Hide layer B by clicking the Video switch next to the layer in the Audio/Video Features column in the Timeline window.

Calculations

The Calculations effect combines the channels of one image with the channels of another. Use this effect to quickly and easily produce some of the same results as you get from the Shift Channels effect, the Compound Arithmetic effect, and precomposing.

Original layers (left and center) and with effect applied to arch layer with Input Channel set to Gray, Second Source set to cloud layer, and Invert Second Layer selected (right)

Adjust the following controls for the Calculations effect:

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Input Channel Speciﬁes the channel to extract and blend with the original layer. RGBA

displays all channels normally. Gray shows the luminance of the original RGBA image. Red, Green, Blue, or Alpha converts all channels to the value of the speciﬁed channel.

Invert Input Inverts the layer before the effect extracts the speciﬁed channel information.

Second Layer Speciﬁes the layer with which Calculations blends the original layer.

Second Layer Channel Speciﬁes the channel to be blended with the input channels.

Second Layer Opacity Speciﬁes the transparency of the second layer.

Invert Second Layer Inverts the second layer before the effect extracts the speciﬁed

channel information and calculates the blend.

Stretch Second Layer to Fit Stretches the second layer’s edges to the original layer’s edges before blending. If you don’t select this control, the Calculations effect centers the second source layer in the original layer and crops it to ﬁt the effect layer’s boundaries.

Blending Mode Speciﬁes the blend mode used for the blend of the original layer and second layer

Preserve Transparency Ensures that the effect layer’s alpha channel is not modiﬁed.

Channel Combiner

The Channel Combiner effect extracts, displays, and adjusts various channels in your image.

Original (left); with effect applied to cloud layer, Source Layer set to arch layer, From set to HLS to RGB, and To set to Lightness (center); and with From set to Red, and To set to Lightness (right)

Channel Combiner controls

Adjust the following controls for the Channel Combiner effect:

Use 2nd Layer Speciﬁes that the effect uses another layer to retrieve values from.

Source Layer Speciﬁes which layer you want to retrieve values from. This layer must be in

the current composition but does not need to be visible.

From Speciﬁes how you want to select values from the source layer. Most are self-explanatory; those that aren’t are as follows:

• RGB to YUV, YUV to RGB. YUV colorspace is used in component video. YUV represents

the Luminance in the Green values, the Luminance Difference between the Red and the Green values, and the difference between the Blue and Green values.

• Straight to Premultiplied converts the alpha channel from Straight to Premultiplied

alpha, adding the transparency information to each of the visible RGB channels.

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• Saturation Multiplied speciﬁes that the saturation value (including lightness) of an

image is the source. This option represents the most common view of a pixel’s saturation value. Saturation is multiplied by the minimum distance to black or white (lightness). For example, a dark or light blue pixel has less saturation than a bright or “pure” blue pixel.

• Min RGB and Max RGB specify that the lowest or highest value of the red, green, and

blue channels of an image is the source.

To Speciﬁes where the From values are applied. Some options, such as RGB to HLS, do not use a To selection. Use Red Only, Green Only, and Blue Only to view selected RGB, HLS, alpha, or luminance values in one channel without interference from the others. When you select Hue Only, Lightness Only, or Saturation Only, the applied hue value is combined with 50% lightness and 100% saturation; the applied lightness value is combined with 0% saturation, which then gives the hue no effect; and the applied saturation values are combined with 0% hue and 50% lightness.

Invert Inverts the values for the selected From and To options.

Solid Alpha Creates an opaque alpha channel throughout the layer, replacing the

original alpha channel.

Cineon Converter

The Cineon Converter effect provides a high degree of control over color conversions of Cineon frames. In After Effects, you can convert the color in a Cineon ﬁle using controls in the Interpret Footage dialog box or using the Cineon Converter effect. To use the Cineon Converter effect, import a Cineon ﬁle and leave it in its default state; After Effects either condenses the colors to 8 bit or expands them to 16 bit, depending on the mode you are working in. You can then apply the Cineon Converter effect to the ﬁle and precisely adjust the colors while interactively viewing the results in the Composition window. Set keyframes to adjust for changes in tone over time—use keyframe interpolation and ease handles to precisely match the most irregular lighting changes, or leave the ﬁle in its default state and use the converter.

The 10 bits of data available in each Cineon channel make it easier to enhance an important range of tones while preserving overall tonal balance. By carefully specifying the range, you can create a version of the image that faithfully resembles the original.

Cineon Converter controls

Adjust the following controls for the Cineon Converter effect:

Conversion Type Speciﬁes how the Cineon ﬁle is converted. Log to Linear converts an 8bit logarithmic non-Cineon layer that you plan to render as a Cineon sequence. Linear to Log converts a layer containing an 8-bit linear proxy of a Cineon ﬁle into an 8-bit logarithmic ﬁle so that its display characteristics are consistent with the original Cineon ﬁle. Log to Log detects an 8- or 10-bit logarithmic Cineon ﬁle when you plan to render it as an 8-bit logarithmic proxy.

Note: Obsolete versions of each option are available for compatibility with projects converted from earlier versions of After Effects.

10 Bit Black Point Speciﬁes the black point (minimum density) for converting a 10-bit logarithmic Cineon layer.

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Internal Black Point Speciﬁes the black point used for the layer in After Effects.

10 Bit White Point Speciﬁes the white point (maximum density) for converting a 10-bit

logarithmic Cineon layer.

Internal White Point Speciﬁes the white point used for the layer in After Effects.

Gamma Speciﬁes the value of midtones.

Highlight Rolloff Speciﬁes the rolloff value used to correct bright highlights.

Controlling the tonal balance of a Cineon ﬁle

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to control the tonal balance of a Cineon ﬁle.

To control the tonal balance of a Cineon ﬁle:

1 Import the Cineon ﬁle into After Effects, and add it to a composition.

2 Select the Cineon ﬁle layer in the Composition or Timeline window, and choose Effect >

Cineon Tools > Cineon Converter.

3 Choose an option from the Conversion Type menu.

4 Adjust the black point by dragging the 10 Bit Black Point slider right or left.

5 Adjust the white point by dragging the 10 Bit White Point slider left or right. (If

adjusting the brightest areas makes the rest of the image appear too dark, use the Highlight Rolloff slider to adjust these bright highlights.)

6 Adjust midtones by dragging the Gamma slider to the left to darken midtones, or to the right to lighten midtones.

7 If highlights appear as white blotches, drag the Highlight Rolloff slider to the right until details are visible. An image with high contrast may require a high rolloff value.

Note: Each computer monitor has unique display characteristics that affect your perception of color on-screen. For best results when evaluating tonal balance, use the Info palette in After Effects to see the true color values of pixels as you move the pointer over them.

Compound Arithmetic

The Compound Arithmetic effect mathematically combines the layer to which it is applied with another layer. The Compound Arithmetic effect is intended only to provide compati bility with projects created in earlier versions of After Effects that use the Compound Arithmetic effect. Using layer modes is usually more effective than using the Compound Arithmetic effect.

Original (left); with effect applied to arch layer, Operator set to Difference, Operate on Channels set to RGB, and Blend with Original set to 8% (center); and with Second Source set to cloud layer, Operator set to And, Operate on Channels set to RGB, and Blend with Original set to 50% (right).

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Adjust the following controls for the Compound Arithmetic effect:

Second Source Layer Speciﬁes the layer to use with the current layer in the given operation.

Operator Speciﬁes the operation to perform between the two layers.

Operate on Channels Speciﬁes the channels to which the effect is applied.

Overﬂow Behavior Speciﬁes how pixel values that exceed the allowed range are treated.

Clip indicates that the values are limited to the allowed range. Wrap indicates that values exceeding the allowed range wrap around from full on to full off, and vice versa. Scale indicates that the maximum and minimum values are calculated and the results are stretched down from that full range to the range of allowable values.

Stretch Second Source to Fit Scales the second layer to match the size (width and height) of the current layer. If this option is deselected, the second layer is placed at its source’s current size, aligned with the upper left corner of the source layer.

Blend with Original Adjusts the opacity of the second source layer so it blends with the original layer.

Invert

The Invert effect inverts the color information of an image.

Original (left) and with effect applied to cloud layer with Channel set to Luminance (center) and Blue (right)

Adjust the following controls for the Invert effect:

Channel Speciﬁes which channel or channels to invert. Each group of items operates in a particular color space, inverting either the entire image in that color space or just a single channel. RGB consists of three additive color channels: red, green, and blue. HLS consists of three calculated color channels: hue, lightness, and saturation. YIQ is the NTSC luminance and chrominance color space, where Y is the luminance signal, and I and Q are the inphase and quadrature chrominance signals. Alpha (not a color space) provides a way to invert the alpha channel of the image.

Blend with Original Combines the inverted image with the original. You can apply a fade to the inverted image.

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Minimax

The Minimax effect enlarges or reduces a matte for a speciﬁc channel or all channels. It assigns each pixel the minimum or maximum pixel value found within a speciﬁed radius. For example, a white solid layer with a square mask shrinks one pixel on each side using Minimum and a radius of 1. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Minimax.

Original (left); with Operation set to Maximum, Channel set to Green, and Direction set to Vertical (center); Operation set to Maximum Then Minimum, Radius set to a low value, and Channel set to Color (right)

Adjust the following controls for the Minimax effect:

Operation Speciﬁes how the effect processes the matte. Minimum replaces a pixel with the smallest pixel value within the radius speciﬁed, and Maximum replaces a pixel with the largest pixel value within the radius speciﬁed. Minimum Then Maximum performs the Minimum operation on the layer followed by the Maximum operation using the Radius setting, and Maximum Then Minimum does the opposite.

Radius Speciﬁes how many pixels to examine for the Minimum or Maximum operation.

Channel Speciﬁes the channel. Color affects the color channels only. Alpha and Color

affects all channels. Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha affect only the respective channels.

Direction Speciﬁes the direction of scanning for values. Horizontal & Vertical scans all directions for the minimum or maximum pixel. Just Horizontal and Just Vertical scan only left and right or up and down, respectively.

Remove Color Matting

The Remove Color Matting effect removes color fringes from layers that are premultiplied with a color. It is useful when merging alpha and ﬁll from separate ﬁles. If you import footage with a premultiplied alpha channel or if you create alpha channels with After Effects, you may need to remove halos from an image. Halos are caused by a large contrast between the image’s color and the background, or matte, color. Removing or changing the color of the matte can remove the halos. (Halos can also be caused by a misinterpre tation of an alpha channel’s premultiplied color.)

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Use Background Color to specify the new background color when you want to change the color of a matte.

Original premultiplied with black (left), the black halo (center), and after applying the Remove Color Matting effect to remove the halo (right)

Use this effect in conjunction with other effects that let you create alpha channels, to achieve more control over the appearance of the alpha channel.

Original (left); with Channel Shift effect applied to create alpha channel from the red channel (center); and with Remove Color Matting applied twice: once with cyan selected, once with yellow selected (right)

Set Channels

The Set Channels effect copies channels from other layers to the red, green, blue, and alpha channels of the current layer. For example, you can take the luminance of one layer and put it into the color channel of the selected layer. All source layers are centered in the current layer. With Best quality selected, any stretched layers are anti-aliased.

Use Stretch Layers to Fit to resize all other layers to the size of the layer to which Set Channels is being applied.

Original (left); with effect applied to arches layer with Source Layer 1 set to cloud layer and Set Red To Source 1’s Red (center); and with Set Red To Source 1’s Green, Set Green To Source 1’s Blue, and Set Blue To Source 1’s Red. (right)

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Set Matte

The Set Matte effect replaces the alpha channel (matte) of a layer with a channel from another layer above it for the creation of traveling matte effects.The Set Matte effect is intended only to provide compatibility with projects created in earlier versions of After Effects that use the Set Matte effect.

Original (left) and with saucer used as a matte on the cloud layer (center) and the luminance of the saucer layer used as a matte (right)

To create a traveling matte using the Set Matte effect, set up the motion of the matte layer and precompose that layer with all properties. Use the resulting composition as the layer from which to take the matte. Although you can use Set Matte for a traveling matte, it is easier and faster to create traveling mattes by using a track matte.

Adjust the following controls for the Set Matte effect:

Take Matte From Layer Speciﬁes the layer to use as the replacement matte. You can specify any layer in the composition.

Use for Matte Speciﬁes the channel of the speciﬁed layer to use for the matte.

Invert Matte Inverts the transparency values of the matte.

Stretch Matte to Fit Scales the selected layer to match the size of the current layer. If

Stretch Matte to Fit is deselected, the layer designated as the matte is centered in the ﬁrst layer.

Composite Matte with Original Composites the new matte with the current layer, rather than replacing it. The resulting matte allows the image to show through only where the current matte and the new matte both have some opacity.

Premultiply Matte Layer Premultiplies the new matte layer with the current layer.

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Shift Channels

The Shift Channels effect replaces red, green, blue, and alpha channels in the image with other channels. In Take

Note: You can use this effect to display the alpha channel for a layer if you set the RGB channels to Alpha and set the alpha channel to Full.

Original (left); with Take Alpha From set to Blue and Take Red, Green, and Blue set to Alpha (center); and with Take Alpha From set to Alpha, Take Red From set to Green, Take Green From set to Lightness, and Take Blue From set to Full Off (right)

channel From, specify which channel to use as a source.

Solid Composite

The Solid Composite effect offers a quick way to create a composite of a new color solid behind the original source layer. You can control the opacity of the source layer, control the opacity of the solid, and apply blend modes all within the effect’s controls.

Original (left); with Source Opacity and Opacity set to 50% and Blending Mode set to Difference (center); and Source Opacity and Opacity set to 100%, Color sampled from cloud layer, and Blending Mode set to Normal (right)

Adjust the following controls for the Solid Composite effect:

Source Opacity Speciﬁes the transparency of the source layer.

Color Speciﬁes the color of the new solid.

Opacity Speciﬁes the transparency of the solid.

Blending Mode Speciﬁes the blend mode the effect uses to combine the original layer

and the new solid. These blend modes behave exactly like those in the Timeline window.

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Distort effects

Bezier Warp (Pro only)

The Bezier Warp effect shapes an image using a closed Bezier curve along the boundary of a layer. The curve consists of four segments. Each segment has four control points (two vertices and two tangents). The vertices control the position of the segments, and the tangents control the curvature of the segments.

Original (left) and with variations of Bezier Warp applied (center and right)

The positions of vertices and tangents determine the size and shape of a curved segment. Dragging these points reshapes the curves that form the edge, thus distorting the image. For example, you can use Bezier Warp to reshape one image to ﬁt another, as in wrapping a label around a jar. Bezier Warp is also useful for correcting lens aberrations, such as the ﬁsh-eye effect (barrel distortion) that can occur when using a wide-angle lens. Using Bezier Warp, you can bend the image back to achieve an undistorted look. By animating the effect and choosing a high quality setting, you can create ﬂuid visual effects, such as a jiggling gelatin dessert or a ﬂuttering ﬂag.

Bezier Warp controls

Adjust the following controls for the Bezier Warp effect:

Top Left Vertex Speciﬁes the starting vertex for the top segment or the ending vertex for the left segment.

Top Left Tangent, Top Right Tangent Specify the starting and ending tangents for the top segment.

Right Top Vertex Speciﬁes the ending vertex for the top segment or the starting vertex for the right segment.

Right Top Tangent, Right Bottom Tangent Specify the starting and ending tangents for the right segment.

Bottom Right Vertex Speciﬁes the ending vertex for the right segment or the starting vertex for the bottom segment.

Bottom Right Tangent, Bottom Left Tangent Specify the ending and starting tangents for the bottom segment.

Left Bottom Vertex Speciﬁes the ending vertex for the bottom segment or the starting vertex for the left segment.

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Left Bottom Tangent, Left Top Tangent Specify the ending and starting tangents for

the left segment.

Quality Speciﬁes how closely the image follows the shape deﬁned by the curve. The higher the quality value, the more closely the image follows the shape. Higher quality settings require more rendering time.

Bulge (Pro only)

The Bulge effect distorts an image around a speciﬁed point, making the image appear to bulge toward or away from the viewer, depending on the options you select.

Original (left) and with variations of Bulge applied (center and right)

Adjust the following controls for the Bulge effect:

Horizontal Radius Sets the width of the bulge, measured in pixels. You can also set the radius values by dragging the selection handles in the layer.

Vertical Radius Sets the length of the bulge, measured in pixels. You can also set the radius values by dragging the selection handles in the layer.

Bulge Center Sets the center point from which the bulge is created.

Bulge Height Sets the depth of the bulge. Positive values push the bulge toward the

viewer. Negative values pull the bulge away from the viewer. A bulge height of 0 produces no bulge, which can be useful for setting keyframes so the bulge fades in over time.

Taper Radius Sets the steepness of the sides of the bulge. A taper radius of 0 produces a steep, pronounced bulge. Increasing the taper radius produces a more gradual bulge.

Antialiasing Sets the amount of edge smoothing (blending of colors) at the boundaries of the bulge. Anti-aliasing is applied only when Best quality is selected for the layer. For many layers, Low produces satisfactory results. High produces more smoothing but can signiﬁcantly increase rendering time.

Pin All Edges Prevents the edges of the layer from bulging.

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Corner Pin (Pro only)

The Corner Pin effect distorts an image by repositioning each of its four corners. Use it to stretch, shrink, skew, or twist an image or to simulate perspective or movement that pivots from the edge of a layer, such as a door opening. You can also use it to attach a layer to a moving rectangular region tracked by the Motion Tracker. You can move the corner pins in the Composition window or the Effect Controls window.

Original (left) and with two variations of Corner Pin applied (center and right)

Displacement Map (Pro only)

The Displacement Map effect distorts a layer by displacing pixels horizontally and vertically based on the color values of pixels in a second layer, called the displacement map. The type of distortion created by the Displacement Map effect can vary greatly, depending on the displacement map and options you select.

Original (left), Displacement map (center) and displaced image (right)

The displacement is determined from the color values of the displacement map. The color values range from 0 to 255. Each value is converted into a scale ranging from -1 to 1. The displacement amount is calculated by multiplying the converted value by the maximum displacement amount you specify. A color value of 0 produces maximum negative displacement (–1 maximum displacement). A color value of 255 produces maximum positive displacement. A color value of 128 produces no displacement. For other values, you can calculate the displacement amount, in pixels, using the following equation: Displacement amount = maximum_displacement * (2 * (color value – 128)/256)

To displace an image:

1 Select the layer, and choose Effect > Distort > Displacement Map.

2 In the Effect Controls window, choose the layer to use as the displacement map from

the Displacement Map Layer pop-up menu. After Effects uses the layer in its original form, without any masking, effects, or transformations you may have applied. If you want to include those alterations, precompose that layer using the Move All Attributes Into the New Composition option.

3 Choose the channel to use for horizontal displacement and vertical displacement, and enter a maximum displacement value for each in the Effect Controls window.

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4 Choose a behavior from the Displacement Map Behavior pop-up menu:

• Center Map overlays the displacement map over the layer.

• Stretch Map to Fit resizes the displacement map to the layer’s size.

• Tile Map ﬁlls the layer with as many copies of the map as can ﬁt.

5 In Edge Behavior deselect Wrap Pixels Around to halt the displacement at the edge of the image.

Liquify

The Liquify effect lets you push, pull, rotate, enlarge and shrink areas in a layer. Several Liquify tools distort the brush area when you hold down the mouse button or drag. The distortion is concentrated at the center of the brush area, and the effect intensiﬁes as you hold down the mouse button or repeatedly drag over an area.

You can limit the area of a layer you distort using Freeze Area Mask. Use the Reconstruction mode to lessen or undo distortions you’ve created.

Original (left) and with variations of Liquify applied (center and right)

Setting Mask Properties

The Liquify effect uses the mask properties to determine how to affect the image. Use Freeze Area Mask, Mask Opacity, and Mask Feather settings to control the Liquify effect:

Freeze Area Mask determines the area of the image in which the distortion is affected by mask opacity and feather settings. Areas outside the mask are distorted; areas within the mask are distorted according to the mask opacity and feather settings.

Mask Opacity determines how the area within the mask is affected by the distortion. When Mask Opacity is set to 100%, the area within the mask is not affected by the distortion; when it’s set to 50%, the area within the mask is somewhat affected. If you set the opacity to 100%, make sure to feather the mask to prevent jagged edges on the mask.

Mask Feather determines the pixels at the borders of the mask used to blend the masked area into the non-masked areas. You can begin with a feather value of 10 pixels and then adjust it as appropriate.

Using the Liquify tools

The Liquify tools offer several ways to distort the image:

Warp pushes pixels forward as you drag.

Turbulence smoothly scrambles pixels. It is useful for creating ﬁre, clouds, waves, and

similar effects.

Twirl clockwise rotates pixels clockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

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Twirl counterclockwise rotates pixels counterclockwise as you hold down the mouse

button or drag.

Pucker moves pixels toward the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

Bloat moves pixels away from the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

Shift pixels moves pixels perpendicular to the stroke direction.

Reﬂection copies pixels to the brush area.

Clone copies the distortions from around a source location to the current mouse

location. Select the source location by Alt-clicking (Windows) or Option-clicking (Mac OS) the source point.

Reconstruction reverses distortions or applies them in different ways.

Distorting an image

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to use the Liquify effect.

To distort an image:

1 Select the layer, and choose Effect > Distort > Liquify.

2 In the Layer window, create a mask to freeze areas of the image and then set mask

properties. See

3 In the Effect Controls window do the following:

• Choose the mask you created from the Freeze Area Mask pop-up menu.

• Specify a brush size and brush pressure. A low brush pressure makes changes occur

more slowly, so it’s easier to stop them at exactly the right moment.

“Setting Mask Properties” on page 71

• Specify a turbulent jitter to control how tightly the turbulence tool scrambles pixels.

• Select View Mesh under the View Options control.

• Set a distortion mesh offset if desired.

• Drag the Distortion Percentage slider to specify the amount of distortion.

4 Use the tools to distort the preview of the image. (See “Using the Liquify tools” on

page 71.)

5 Use the reconstruct tool to fully or partially reverse the distortions or to change the image in new ways. (See “Reconstructing distortions” on page 72.)

Reconstructing distortions

Use the reconstruction tool and its modes to reverse distortions or redo them in new ways.

To restore a preview image to a previous state:

1 Select the reconstruction tool, and then choose a mode from the Reconstruction Mode

pop-up menu:

• Revert changes unfrozen areas back to their predistorted state.

• Displace reconstructs unfrozen areas to match the displacement at the starting point

for the reconstruction. You can use Displace to move all or part of the preview image to a different location.

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• Amplitwist reconstructs unfrozen areas to match the displacement, rotation, and

overall scaling that exist at the starting point.

• Afﬁne reconstructs unfrozen areas to match all local distortions that exist at the starting

point, including displacement, rotation, horizontal and vertical scaling, and skew.

2 Drag the area to restore. The restoration occurs more quickly at the brush center.

Magnify

The Magnify effect enlarges a selected area of a layer. This effect can act like a magnifying glass placed over an area of the image, or you can use it to scale the entire image far beyond 100% while maintaining resolution.

Original (left) and with variations of Magnify applied (center and right)

Magnify controls

Adjust the following controls for the Magnify effect:

Shape Speciﬁes the shape of the magniﬁed area.

Center Speciﬁes the center point of the magniﬁed area.

Magniﬁcation Speciﬁes the percentage of magniﬁcation (or scale) of the area you select.

The values represent the percentage of the scale.

Link Speciﬁes how the effect links the Size, Magniﬁcation, and Feather amounts so that they increase or decrease proportionally. None speciﬁes that the Size, Magniﬁcation, and Feather controls operate separately. Size To Magniﬁcation speciﬁes that the size of the magniﬁed area increases or decreases proportionally in relation to the magniﬁcation adjustment. Size & Feather To Magniﬁcation speciﬁes that the size and edge feather of the magniﬁed area increase or decrease proportionally in relation to the magniﬁcation adjustment. (Setting the Link control to any setting except None disables the Resize Layer control.)

Size Speciﬁes the size of the magniﬁed area, in pixels. (Setting the size larger than your original source layer may expand the magniﬁed area outside the composition frame, depending upon the location of your center point. However, the effect still retains the image resolution.)

Feather Speciﬁes the amount of feather, in pixels, that the effect applies to the edge of the magniﬁed area. Higher values soften the edge of the magniﬁed area, and blends the edge with the layer behind it. Lower values sharpen the edge of the magniﬁed area.

Opacity Speciﬁes the transparency of the magniﬁed area. The Opacity value for the effect layer in the Timeline window represents the 100% setting of this control.

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Scaling Speciﬁes the type of scaling the effect uses to magnify a layer. Standard uses

standard scaling. This method maintains sharpness in the image but produces pixelated edges at higher values. Soft uses spline algorithms. If you scale the image beyond 100%, Soft reduces edge pixelation and maintains image quality. Soft works well at large magni ﬁcation amounts. Scatter creates scatter or noise in the image as the image enlarges.

Blending Mode Speciﬁes the blend mode that the effect uses to combine the magniﬁed area with the original layer. Except for None, all of these blend modes behave identically to the Timeline window blend modes. The None option displays transparent pixels around the magniﬁed area.

Resize Layer If Resize Layer is selected, the effect uses only the composition boundaries as the edge of the layer when the magniﬁed area extends beyond the original layer’s boundaries. If Resize Layer is deselected, any area of the image outside the original layer’s bounding box is cropped by the layer’s boundaries.

Mesh Warp (Pro only)

The Mesh Warp effect applies a grid of Bezier patches (squares in the grid) over a layer, which you can manipulate to distort areas of an image. Each corner of a patch includes a vertex and two to four makes up the edge of the patch). The number of tangents depends on whether the vertex is in a corner, on an edge, or inside the grid. By moving the vertices and tangents, you can manipulate the shape of the curved line segment. The ﬁner the grid, the tighter the adjust ments you can make to the area of the image inside the patch.

You can also use Mesh Warp to create smooth transitions between multiple images and layers. Using keyframes for effects and opacity, you can animate the transition between layers, revealing and distorting layers over time.

tangents (points that control the curvature of the line segment that

Original (left), with distortion mesh (center) and with Mesh Warp applied (right)

To select multiple verticies, Shift-click the verticies.

Adjust the following controls for the Mesh Warp effect:

Rows, Columns Specify up to 127 patches vertically (Rows) or horizontally (Columns). For broader distortion, use fewer patches. For ﬁner control, use more. Drag the vertices and tangents to change the grid shape. The image follows the grid shape according to the elasticity setting and the boundary created by the adjacent patch.

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Distortion Mesh Click the stopwatch to animate the distortion over time.

Note: Each patch becomes a boundary for the distortion. For example, when you stretch a patch, the area of the image in the patch stretches, squishing the area of the image in the adjacent patch. The boundary of the adjacent patch protects the image inside it from being squished to zero. In other words, you can’t push an image out of its patch.

Mirror

The Mirror effect splits the image along a line and reﬂects one side onto the other. Reﬂection Center speciﬁes the position of the line.Reﬂection Angle determines which side is reﬂected and where the reﬂection appears. An angle of 0 degrees reﬂects the left side onto the right. An angle of 180 degrees reﬂects the right side onto the left. An angle of 90 degrees reﬂects the top onto the bottom. An angle of 270 degrees reﬂects the bottom onto the top. The layer’s quality setting inﬂuences the Mirror effect. At Best quality, the reﬂected image is smoother and more accurate.

Original (left) and with variations of Mirror applied (center and right)

Offset

The Offset effect pans the image within a layer. Visual information pushed off one side of

the image appears on the opposite side. At Best quality, the offset is performed with

subpixel

Shift Center To speciﬁes the new position of the original image’s center point. Blend with Original speciﬁes the amount by which the offset image is blended with the original image.

Original (left) and with variations of Offset applied (center and right)

precision.

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Optics Compensation (Pro only)

Use the Optics Compensation effect to add or remove camera lens distortion. Elements composited with mismatched lens distortion cause anomalies in the animation. For example, tracked objects in a distorted scene don’t match the scene area because linear objects don’t follow the distortion of the scene.

Original (left) and with variations of Optics Compensation applied (center and right)

Optics Compensation controls

Adjust the following controls for the Optics Compensation effect:

Field of View (FOV) Speciﬁes the ﬁeld of view of the distorted footage. The FOV is relative to the size of the source layer and the selected FOV Orientation. The distortion amount is relative to FOV. There is no general rule as to what FOV value applies to different lenses. Zooming in reduces the FOV, and zooming out increases it. Consequently, if footage includes different zoom values you’ll need to keyframe the FOV value.

Reverse Lens Distortion Reverses the lens distortion. For example, to remove wideangle lens distortion, set Field of View to 40.0 and select Reverse Lens Distortion. Selecting Reverse Lens Distortion enables the Resize control.

FOV Orientation Speciﬁes the axis on which the Field of View value is based. This is useful when matching computer-generated elements to the rendered view angle.

View Center Speciﬁes an alternate center point of view. This is useful when using custom lenses that are not centered. However, in most cases, this control should be left untouched.

Optimal Pixels Maintains as much pixel information as possible through the distortion. When selected, FOV values are no longer reversible.

Resize Resizes the layer when the applied distortion stretches the layer beyond its boundaries. To use this control, ﬁrst select Reverse Lens Distortion, and then choose an option. Off does not resize the layer. Max 2X resizes the layer to a maximum of twice the original width and height. Max 4X resizes the layer to a maximum of four times the original width and height. Unlimited resizes as far as the layer is stretched. This option may require a large amount of memory.

Applying other effects while adjusting FOV

To match FOV values, layers must be the same size. However, if you select Resize, you can apply Optics Compensation again and reverse the distortion using the same value (reversed). You can then apply another effect between the two instances of Optics Compensation.

If you resize a layer using Optics Compensation and then precompose it into a larger composition, you cannot reverse the distortion using the same value until you enlarge the precomposed layer to accommodate the expanded layer.

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Matching FOV with computer graphics

To determine the correct FOV, ﬁnd an edge or line in the footage that is distorted. Adjust the FOV until the edge is straight, and then apply the reverse of that value to computergenerated material. This process composites the computer-generated element with the footage using a matching lens distortion.

To match computer graphics with a lens distortion:

1 Select the footage layer with the distortion, and choose Effect > Distort > Optics

Compensation.

2 In the Effect Controls window, adjust the FOV until a distorted edge or line appears straight. Note the FOV value.

3 Select the computer graphic layer you want to distort, and apply Optics Compensation to it using the FOV value from step 2.

4 Select Reverse Lens Distortion.

5 Remove Optics Compensation from the footage layer.

Polar Coordinates

The Polar Coordinates effect distorts a layer by transposing each pixel in the layer’s x,y coordinate system to the corresponding position in the polar coordinate system, or the reverse. This effect produces unusual and surprising distortions that can vary greatly depending on the image and the controls you select. The standard coordinate system speciﬁes points by measuring the horizontal distance ( axis) from the origin. Each point is speciﬁed as (x,y). The polar coordinate system speciﬁes points by measuring the length of a radius from the origin ( (

θ). Each point is speciﬁed as (r, θ).

Original (left) and with variations of Polar Coordinates applied (center and right)

Adjust the following controls for the Polar Coordinates effect:

Interpolation Speciﬁes the amount of distortion. At 0% there is no distortion.

Type of Conversion Speciﬁes the conversion process to use. Choose one of the following

options:

x axis) and the vertical distance (y

r) and its angle from the x axis

• Rect to Polar moves pixels by using x,y coordinates from each pixel as r, θ coordinates.

For example, an a degree of 3. Horizontal lines distort into circles, and vertical lines into radial lines.

• Polar to Rect moves pixels by using the r, θ coordinates from each pixel as the x,y coordi-

nates. For example, a polar coordinate of radius 10 and 45 degrees becomes an x,y coordinate of 10,45.

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x,y coordinate of 2,3 becomes a polar coordinate with a radius of 2 and

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Reshape (Pro only)

The Reshape effect transforms one shape into another shape on the same layer, dragging the underlying image with it. The image is distorted to ﬁt the shape of the new area. You create or import up to three masks to deﬁne the area you want to distort: the source mask, the destination mask, and the boundary mask (optional).

Original including three masks (left) and with variations of Reshape applied (center and right)

After Effects assigns the masks a function (source, destination, or boundary) based on the order you create or import them. You can also specify different masks. You can create masks in the Layer window in After Effects, or use masks created in Adobe Illustrator. Use a closed path for each mask. All three masks must be on the same layer as the footage to which you will apply the Reshape effect, although you can copy masks from another layer.

As with the Mesh Warp effect, you can use Reshape to create unusual transitions between multiple images and layers. Using keyframes for effects and opacity, you can animate the transition between layers, revealing and distorting layers over time.

Reshape controls

Adjust the following controls for the Reshape effect:

Source Mask Speciﬁes the mask that contains the image area you want to reshape. If not speciﬁed, After Effects uses the second mask created as the Source mask. In the Compo sition and Layer windows, a red outline deﬁnes the source mask.

Destination Mask Speciﬁes the mask that determines the shape of the ﬁnal image. If not speciﬁed, After Effects uses the third mask created as the Destination mask. In the Compo sition and Layer windows, a yellow outline deﬁnes the destination mask.

Boundary Mask Speciﬁes what part of the image is reshaped. Anything outside the boundary is not altered. If not speciﬁed, After Effects uses the ﬁrst mask created as the Boundary mask. In the Composition and Layer windows, a blue outline deﬁnes the boundary mask.

Percent Speciﬁes the percent of the reshape. This value is useful for creating partial distortions that grow over time.

Elasticity Speciﬁes how closely the image follows the shape deﬁned by the curve. Stiff acts like cold rubber, allowing the image to distort the least amount. Super Fluid acts like hot rubber, allowing the image to distort in a ﬂuid fashion. The other settings fall between. The more ﬂuid elasticity settings require more rendering time. If the ﬁnal image doesn’t follow the curve as expected, use the following elasticity guidelines:

• In general, use the stiffest setting possible that doesn’t create a polygonal image. Use a

higher elasticity setting if the ﬁnal image looks polygonal but the curves are smooth.

• Use Stiff, Less Stiff, or Below Normal if the source and destination masks are similar in

shape and have low curvature (few curved segments that change direction radically).

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• Use Normal, Absolutely Normal, or Above Average if the source and destination masks

are dissimilar and have mild curvature.

• Use Loose, Liquid, or Super Fluid if the masks are very dissimilar and have extreme

curvature.

Correspondence Points Speciﬁes the number of points on the source mask that are associated with, or mapped to, points on the destination mask. These points appear in the Composition window and control the interpolation of the distortion through space. To control the precision of the effect, you can add, delete, or move the points on either mask. A mask can have an unlimited number of points, but the more points it has, the longer the effect takes to render. If the distortion appears twisted, try adding more correspondence points at distinguishing points along the masks. (If the arc lengths of the curves between correspondence points are too different, twisting may result.)

Interpolation Method Speciﬁes how After Effects determines the distortion of each video or animation frame in the interval between keyframes or when no keyframes exist.

• Discrete requires no keyframes because it calculates the distortion at each frame.

Discrete produces the most accurate results but requires more rendering time.

• Linear (the default) requires two or more keyframes and performs a straight-line inter-

polation between the keyframes. Linear produces steady changes between keyframes and sharp changes at keyframes.

• Smooth requires three or more keyframes and approximates the distortion using cubic

curves, producing distortions with graceful motion.

Using the Reshape effect

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to use this effect.

To apply the Reshape effect:

1 Open the layer in a Layer window.

2 Create or import the source, destination, and boundary masks into the layer.

Name each mask so that you can easily recognize it in the Mask menu in the Effect Controls window.

3 In the Timeline window, choose None from the Mode pop-up menu for each mask.

4 Position the boundary mask to specify the area of the image that will remain unaltered.

(Areas within the boundary mask will be distorted; areas outside the mask will remain unaltered. Keep nation masks to avoid foldovers.)

5 Scale and position the source mask over the image.

6 Scale and position the destination mask to indicate the ﬁnal shape. (Distortions work

best if the source and destination masks are roughly in the same location.)

7 Make the Composition or Timeline window active, select the layer, and then choose Effect > Distort > Reshape.

the boundary mask as far away as possible from the source and desti-

8 From the Mask menus, choose the source, destination, and boundary masks.

9 Adjust the Percent control, and choose an option for Elasticity.

10 In the Composition window, add, delete, or move correspondence points on the

masks to control the distortion:

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• To add a point, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the mask.

• To delete a point, Alt-click or Option-click the point.

• To move a point, drag it to a new location.

• To change the interpolation of a pair of points, Shift-click a point. Smooth interpolation

works best with round masks, while linear interpolation works best with angular masks. You can combine smooth and linear interpolation in the same composition.

11 Choose an interpolation method, and preview the distortion. If Linear or Smooth produces undesired results, add more keyframes. If Discrete produces undesired results, choose another method.

Ripple

The Ripple effect creates the appearance of ripples in a speciﬁed layer, moving away from a center point in concentric circles. The effect is similar to dropping a stone in a pond. You can also specify that ripples move toward the center point.

Animate ripples at a constant speed using the Wave Speed control. This control does not require keyframes for animation. Animate ripples at varying speeds by creating keyframes for the Ripple Phase control.

Animated Ripple effect

Ripple controls

Adjust the following controls for the Ripple effect:

Radius Controls the distance the ripples travel from the center point. The Radius value is a percentage of the image size. If the center of the ripple is the center of the layer and the radius is set to 100, the ripples travel to the edge of the image. A value of 0 produces no ripples. Like ripples in water, ripples in the layer become smaller as they travel farther from the center.

To create a single-wave ripple, set Radius to 100, Wave Width between 90 and 100, and Wave Height as desired.

Center or Ripple Speciﬁes the center of the effect.

Type of Conversion Speciﬁes how the ripples are created. Asymmetric produces more

realistic-looking ripples; asymmetric ripples include lateral motion and produce more distortion. Symmetric produces motion that travels only outward from the center point; symmetric ripples produce less distortion.

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Wave Speed Sets the speed at which the ripples travel outward from the center point.

When you specify a wave speed, the ripples are automatically animated at a constant speed (without keyframes) across the time range. A negative value makes the ripples move toward the center, and a value of 0 produces no movement. To vary wave speed over time, set this control to 0, and then create a keyframe for the Ripple Phase property of the layer.

Wave Width Speciﬁes the distance, in pixels, between wave peaks. Higher values produce long, undulating ripples, and low values produce many small ripples.

Wave Height Speciﬁes the height of the ripple wave. Taller waves produce greater distortion.

Ripple Phase Speciﬁes the point along the waveform at which a wave cycle begins. The default value of 0 degrees starts the wave at the midpoint of its downward slope; 90 degrees starts it at the lowest point in the trough; 180 degrees starts it at the midpoint of the upward slope, and so on.

Smear

Using the Smear effect, you deﬁne an area within an image and then move that area to a new location, stretching, or to deﬁne the area you want to distort.

To use Smear, ﬁrst create or import two masks: the source mask and the boundary mask. You can create masks on the layer in After Effects or use masks created in Adobe Illustrator. To use a mask created in Illustrator, copy the mask and paste it into a layer in After Effects. Masks must be closed to work with Smear; if a mask is an open trace, After Effects closes it when you select it. Both masks must be on the same layer as the footage to which you will apply the Smear effect, although you can copy masks from another layer.

Original (left) and with variations of Smear applied (center and right)

When you move the source mask within the image, Smear stretches the portion of the image inside the boundary mask to follow the edges of the source mask. The boundary mask tries to protect the image outside it from being stretched. Both the original position of the source mask (set in the Layer window) and the offset position of the source mask are displayed in the Composition window. The ﬁrst position of the source mask is indicated by a light red outline, and the new position is indicated by a dark outline.

smearing, the surrounding part of the image with it. Use masks

Using keyframes, you can animate the position, size, and rotation of the source mask as it moves to its offset position. You can also animate the original position of the source mask in the Layer window using keyframes.

Processing can take up to several minutes with certain settings. Computation time increases as the source mask gets closer to the boundary mask. Processing is interrupted when you click a control.

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Smear controls

Adjust the following controls for the Smear effect:

Source Mask Speciﬁes a mask as the source mask. By default, After Effects selects the second mask you create or import for the layer as the source mask.

Note: You must specify both a boundary mask and a source mask to create a distortion.

Boundary Mask Speciﬁes a mask as the boundary mask. By default, After Effects selects the ﬁrst mask you create or import as the boundary mask.

Mask Offset Speciﬁes a destination position for the source mask. The offset is a position speciﬁed by offset location, click the Offset button, and then click the image in the desired location. To set the offset position numerically, type a new value for each axis. When you don’t need the precision provided by Mask Offset, you can simply drag the source mask offset in the Composition window.

Note: Unwanted undulations may occur if the source mask is close to the boundary mask during animation.

Mask Rotation Rotates the source mask around its center point, between 0 and 360 degrees.

x and y coordinates, which appear to the right of the Offset button. To set an

Mask Scale Scales the source mask (at its offset position) larger or smaller, in relation to its original position.

Percent Speciﬁes what percent of the smear is actually performed. For example, when Percent is set to 50%, Smear performs half of the smear you have speciﬁed by moving, scaling, and rotating the source mask. This value doesn’t affect the location of the original and offset positions of the source mask; it affects only the percent of the effect that is performed.

Elasticity Speciﬁes how closely the image follows the shape deﬁned by the curve. Stiff distorts the least, while Super Fluid distorts the most. In general, use the stiffest setting possible that doesn’t create polygonal images.

Interpolation Method Speciﬁes a method for the interpolation that Smear performs between keyframes. Linear requires two or more keyframes and performs a straight-line interpolation between the keyframes. Linear produces robot-like animations in which the distortions change at keyframes. Smooth requires three or more keyframes and approxi mates the distortion using cubic curves, producing distortions with graceful motion. If you need further accuracy in the animation between keyframes, add more keyframes. For example, a distortion representing a 90-degree rotation between two keyframes appears as a folding of the image. To make this distortion more ﬂuid, add a keyframe for every 10 degrees.

Using the Smear effect

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to use this effect.

To use Smear:

1 Open the layer in a Layer window.

2 Create or paste the masks you will use as the boundary mask and the source mask.

3 Position the boundary mask to specify the area of the layer you do not want Smear to

affect.

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4 Scale and position the source mask over the area you want to move.

5 Make the Composition window active, and choose Effects > Distort > Smear.

6 Enter a Percent value to specify the amount of smear applied.

7 In the Composition window, move the source mask to its destination position by

dragging it or by using the Mask Offset value.

8 Use the Mask Rotation control to rotate the source mask, and use the Mask Scale control to scale it.

9 Drag the Percent slider as needed, and choose a setting for Elasticity.

Spherize

The Spherize effect distorts a layer by wrapping a region of the image onto a spherical shape of variable size. The layer’s quality setting inﬂuences the Spherize effect. Best quality samples the displaced pixels to subpixel accuracy; Draft quality samples to the nearest whole pixel.

The Radius option speciﬁes the radius of the sphere in pixels. You can exceed the highest slider value by clicking the Radius value and typing a higher number in the dialog box. Center of Sphere speciﬁes the position of the sphere’s center on the layer.

Original (left) and with variations of Spherize applied (center and right)

Transform

The Transform effect applies 2D geometric transformations to the source layer. This effect supplements the transform properties available for each layer in the Timeline window. Using the Transform effect, you can skew a layer along any axis. Also, if motion blur is enabled in the Switches column, you can specify motion blur independently of the composition’s shutter angle. Anchor Point, Position, Rotation, and Opacity function the same as the layer transform properties in the Timeline window.

Note: This effect is relative to the input layer. Therefore, to make a layer rotate around the upper left corner, open the Layer window, choose Transform from the Layer window menu, and then move the anchor point and the position to the upper left corner.

Original (left) and with variations of Transform applied (center and right)

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Adjust the following controls for the Transform effect:

Scale Height Scales height up or down as a percent of the current layer height.

Scale Width Scales width up or down as a percent of the current layer width.

Skew Speciﬁes skew amount.

Skew Axis Speciﬁes the axis on which the skew is based. Changing the skew axis has no

effect if Skew is 0.

Use Composition’s Shutter Angle Speciﬁes that the Transform effect uses the shutter angle of the composition when performing motion blur. If this control is not selected, the Transform effect uses the option for the Shutter Angle control.

Shutter Angle Determines the amount of motion blur to apply to the layer. (Motion Blur must be enabled for the layer.)

Uniform Scale Scales both the width and the height of an image.

Turbulent Displace

The Turbulent Displace effect uses fractal noise to create turbulent distortions in an image. This effect is useful for adding distorted movement to a layer. For example, use it to create ﬂowing water, funhouse mirrors, and waving ﬂags.

Original (left) and with variations of Turbulent Displace applied (center and right)

Turbulent Displace controls

Adjust the following controls for Turbulent Displace:

Displacement Speciﬁes the type of turbulence used. Turbulent, Bulge, and Twist warp the image in slightly different directions. Turbulent Smoother, Bulge Smoother, and Twist Smoother each perform the same operation as Turbulent, Bulge, and Twist, except that they create smoother warps and may take longer to render. Vertical Displacement warps the image vertically only. Horizontal Displacement warps the image horizontally only. Cross Displacement warps the image both vertically and horizontally.

Amount Speciﬁes the amount of displacement in the layer. Higher values result in more distortion in the

Size Speciﬁes the size or radius of the displaced or distorted areas in the layer. Higher values result in larger areas of distortion.

Offset Speciﬁes the portion of the fractal shape that is present in the Composition window, altering the shape of the distortion on your layer. Because the fractal shapes used are inﬁnite in all directions, what appears in the Composition window is only a small portion of the entire fractal. The Composition window behaves like a ﬁxed viewing area, and the Offset control repositions the fractal within that view, which then brings a different portion of the fractal into view. This alters the shape of the distortion.

layer.

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Complexity Speciﬁes the level of detail in the turbulence. Increasing the Complexity

value increases the detailed deﬁnition in the displacement pattern. Lower values result in smoother distortions.

Evolution Speciﬁes the changes of the turbulence over time.Evolution values are progressive, not looping. The image continues to change with each added revolution. The appearance of the image when this option is set to 0 is different from that at 1 revolution, which, in turn, is different from that at 2 revolutions, and so on. The evolution state progresses inﬁnitely at each new value. To force the Evolution setting to return to its original state (necessary to create a seamless loop) set the Evolution Options control to Cycle Evolution.

Set keyframes for Evolution to determine how much the turbulence evolves over the period of time allowed between keyframes. The more revolutions that are made between keyframes the more rapidly the turbulence changes. Higher values may result in ﬂashing rather than smooth changes.

Evolution Options Speciﬁes how you render the effect’s evolution values. This control is useful to create one short seamless evolution cycle (where the last frame matches up to the ﬁrst) to be prerendered and looped as a new source layer in a composition, rather than setting Evolution to animate over a greater number of frames. Options include the following:

• Cycle Evolution creates a cycle of evolution that loops over a set amount of time. Cycle

Evolution returns the evolution state to its starting point to create a smooth, progressive, looping animation. Copied and pasted evolution keyframes start and end with the same value, and the resulting animation repeats, rather than producing a smoothly transitioning cycle.

• Cycle speciﬁes the number of revolutions of the Evolution setting that the fractal noise

cycles through before it repeats. The amount of time allowed between evolution keyframes determines the timing or speed of these evolution cycles. Higher values create longer render times. Cycle affects only the state of the fractal, not geometrics or other controls. For example, two identical states of the fractal don’t appear the same if viewed with different Size or Offset settings.

• Random Seed speciﬁes a unique random value from which to generate the turbulence.

Animating the random seed value results in ﬂashing from one set of fractal shapes to another (within that fractal type). For smooth transition of the turbulence, use the Evolution control.

Pinning Speciﬁes how the effect pins the edges of an image so that it remains in its initial position. The None option pins no layer edges. Pin All, Pin Horizontal, and Pin Vertical minimize the effect of the turbulence on the corresponding layer edges. All Locked Options locks the layer edge so that turbulence doesn’t affect it.

Resize Layer Enables the distorted image to expand past the layer’s bounding box.

Antialiasing for Best Quality Speciﬁes the level of anti-aliasing of the displacement

pattern. This control works best if the layer is set to Best quality in the Timeline window.

Creating a seamless loop

The following procedure provides a basic overview of how to create a seamless loop of turbulence.

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To create a seamless loop using Turbulent Displace:

1 Set two keyframes for the Evolution control, using full revolutions only.

2 Adjust the time allowed between keyframes, and the number of Evolution revolutions

until you are satisﬁed with the appearance of the displacement.

3 Under Evolutions Options, select Cycle Evolution.

4 Under Evolutions Options, drag the Cycle slider to set a value for Cycle that either

matches or is evenly divisible by the number of revolutions you set for Evolution.

5 Move the current-time indicator to the point on the Timeline window where the Cycle completes. For example, if the Cycle value is 2, ﬁnd the frame on the Timeline window where the Evolution value is 2 revolutions.

6 Move the current-time indicator back one frame. (Because the cycle begins again at the last frame, moving the current-time indicator back prevents a duplicate frame in the seamless loop.)

7 Trim the layer’s out point.

8 Prerender this layer, and import it into your project.

9 Set this prerendered footage item to loop. For information on looping footage, see the

After Effects 6.0 User Guide.

Note: If you set keyframes for any of the other controls, you must return them to their initial settings at the point on the Timeline window where the cycle begins to repeat. Otherwise, these properties don’t loop.

Twirl

The Twirl effect twirls the pixels of an image around a speciﬁed point at a speciﬁed amount. Pixels nearer the center point are twirled faster than pixels in outer regions, resulting in a whirlpool appearance. Because distortion in this effect is signiﬁcant, After Effects uses special anti-aliasing techniques to produce the highest-quality image. As a result, the Twirl effect can be particularly slow to render.

Twirling a layer

Adjust the following controls for the Twirl effect:

Angle Speciﬁes how far and in which direction to twirl the image around the twirl center. Positive angles twirl the image clockwise; negative angles twirl it counterclockwise. To animate the twirl as a whirlpool, set keyframes for the angle.

Twirl Radius Speciﬁes how far the twirl extends from the twirl center. This value is based on a percentage of the maximum horizontal or vertical distance of the layer, whichever is greater. A value of 50, for example, produces a twirl that extends to the edge of the

layer.

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Warp

Use Warp to distort or deform After Effects layers. The 15 warp styles work much like the Warp effects in Adobe Illustrator and Warp Text in Adobe Photoshop.

Warping a layer

To apply Warp:

1 Select an object or group of objects.

2 Choose Effect > Distort > Warp.

3 In the Effect Controls window choose a warp style.

4 Choose Horizontal or Vertical from the Warp Axis menu to specify which axis the warp

affects.

5 Drag the Bend slider to specify the amount of bending.

6 Drag the appropriate sliders to specify the amount of horizontal and vertical distortion.

Wave Warp

The Wave Warp effect produces the appearance of a wave traveling across an image. You can produce a variety of different wave shapes, including square, circular, and sine waves. The Wave Warp effect is automatically animated at a constant speed across the time range (without keyframes). To vary speeds, you need to set keyframes.

Original (left) and with variations of Wave Warp applied (center and right)

First example: Sine wave, small width and height second example: Semicircle wave, medium width and height

Wave Warp controls

Adjust the following controls for the Wave Warp effect:

Wave Type Speciﬁes the shape of the wave.

Wave Height Speciﬁes the height of the wave. Taller waves generally produce greater

distortion.

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Wave Width Speciﬁes the distance, in pixels, between wave peaks. Smaller values

produce more

waves.

Direction Speciﬁes the direction the wave travels across the image. For example, a value of 90 degrees makes waves travel from left to right. A value of 180 degrees makes waves travel from top to bottom, and a value of 225 degrees makes the waves travel diagonally from upper right to lower left.

Wave Speed Sets the speed (cycles per second) at which the waves travel. When you specify a wave speed, the ripples are automatically animated at a constant speed across the time range (without keyframes). Click the wave speed value to specify negative values or values greater than 5. A negative value reverses the wave direction, and a value of 0 produces no movement. To vary wave speed over time, set this control to 0, and then set keyframes for the Phase property of the layer.

Pinning Speciﬁes areas of the image to be excluded from the wave. For example, if All Edges is selected, the wave does not travel across the edges of the image.

Phase Speciﬁes the point along the waveform at which a wave cycle begins. The default value of 0 degrees starts the wave at the midpoint of its downward slope; 90 degrees starts it at the lowest point in the trough; 180 degrees starts it at the midpoint of the upward slope, and so on.

Antialiasing Sets the amount of anti-aliasing, or edge smoothing, to perform on the image. Anti-aliasing is applied only when the layer is set to Best quality. In many cases, lower settings produce satisfactory results; a high setting can signiﬁcantly increase rendering time.

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Expression Controls effects

About Expression Controls effects

You can use Expression Controls effects to manipulate property values in your expressions. By referring to these controls in an expression, you can more easily adjust parameters such as layer, color, and angle. For more information about Expression Controls effects, see the “Using Expressions” chapter in the online Help or printed guide.

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Image Control effects

Change Color

The Change Color effect adjusts the hue, saturation, and lightness of a range of colors. Choose the range by specifying a base color and similarity values. The similarity can be an RGB similarity, a hue similarity, or a chroma similarity.

Colors in the original image (left) are replaced with green (center) and yellow (right).

Controls for the Change Color effect

Adjust the following controls for the Change Color effect:

View Speciﬁes what to view in the composition. Corrected Layer shows the results of the Change Color effect. Color Correction Mask shows the areas of the layer that will be changed. White areas in the color correction mask are transformed the most, and dark areas are transformed the least.

Hue Transform Speciﬁes the amount, in degrees, to adjust the hue of the selected colors.

Lightness Transform Speciﬁes the amount to increase or decrease the lightness of the

selected colors. Positive values brighten the selected regions; negative values darken them.

Saturation Transform Speciﬁes the amount to increase or decrease the saturation of the selected colors. Positive values saturate the selected regions (moving toward pure color); negative values desaturate the selected regions (moving toward gray).

Color to Change Speciﬁes the color to be changed. Matching Tolerance and Matching Softness both use this color as a target for building the color correction mask.

Matching Tolerance Speciﬁes the degree of color matching before the color is affected by the color correction. With low tolerances, only colors very similar to the change color are added to the color correction mask. Larger tolerances add more of the image to the color correction mask.

Matching Softness Speciﬁes the softness of the color correction. This control does not always soften the color correction mask geometrically, but it affects the severity of the color correction for regions similar to the base color.

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Match Colors Speciﬁes the criterion for determining the similarity of two colors. RGB uses

the red, green, and blue components. Hue matches colors based on hue. For example, bright red, light pink, and burgundy have similar hue values (a hue of red, but differing values of saturation and lightness). Chroma uses the two chromatic components to determine similarity, ignoring brightness. Chroma matching is therefore sensitive to saturation and hue differences, but not to lightness differences.

Invert Color Correction Mask Inverts the mask that determines which colors to affect. If selected, all colors will be color-corrected, except those selected by using Color to Change and matching controls.

Change to Color (formerly Change Color HLS)

The Change to Color effect changes a color you select in an image to another color using hue, lightness, and saturation (HLS) values. Perform color changes either by transforming or interpolating into the new color. This ﬁlter is useful for quickly changing one selected color to another, while leaving other colors in the image unaffected.

Change to Color offers ﬂexibility and options unavailable in the Change Color effect. These options include tolerance sliders for hue, lightness, and saturation for exact color matching, and the ability to select the exact RGB values of the target color that you wish to change to.

Original (left), with saturation removed in the planet (center), and with light green changed to yellow in the planet (right)

Controls for the Change to Color effect

Adjust the following controls for the Change to Color effect:

From Speciﬁes the color that you wish to change. This selection determines which pixels will be affected by the color

To Speciﬁes the color that you wish to change to. This control determines the target color for selected pixels.

Change Speciﬁes the HLS channels that are affected. Hue affects hue only, leaving the original lightness and saturation untouched. Hue and Lightness affects hue and lightness only, leaving the original saturation untouched. Hue and Saturation affects hue and saturation only, leaving the original lightness untouched. Hue, Lightness, and Saturation affects all the channels.

Change by Speciﬁes the color change operation the effect performs. Setting to Color performs a direct change of affected pixels to the target color. Transforming to Color trans forms affected pixel values towards the target color, using HLS interpolation. The amount of transformation depends on how close the selected To pixel color lies to the From color and also on the Tolerance value.

change.

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Tolerance Speciﬁes the range of pixels that Change to Color affects. Expand this control

to reveal separate sliders for Hue, Lightness, and Saturation values. Higher Tolerance values expand the range of similar values. Lower Tolerance values reduce the range of similar values.

Note: Use the View Correction Matte option to better identify which pixels are affected.

Softness Speciﬁes the edge smoothness of the selected change areas. Higher values create smoother and more seamless transitions between areas affected by the color change and those left unaffected.

View Correction Matte Speciﬁes whether or not you are viewing a grayscale mask of the color values. White areas indicate pixels that are affected by the color change. Black areas are left unchanged. Gray areas are only slightly affected by the color change.

To animate a color change, ﬁrst select the initial color you wish to change; then set subsequent keyframes only for the To color.

Color Balance (HLS)

The Color Balance (HLS) effect alters an image’s levels of hue, lightness, and saturation. It is intended only to provide compatibility with projects created in earlier versions of After Effects that use the Color Balance (HLS) effect. For new projects, use the Hue/Saturation effect, which operates the same as the Hue/Saturation command in Adobe Photoshop. You can convert a movie to grayscale by setting the Saturation to –100.

Original image (left), with increased hue and saturation (center), and increased saturation only (right)

Color Link

The Color Link effect colorizes one layer with the average pixel values of another selected layer. This effect is useful for quickly ﬁnding a color that matches the color of a background layer.

Original (left), with background color linked to the planet (center), and with background color linked to the saucer (right)

Controls for the Color Link effect

Adjust the following controls for Color Link:

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Source Layer Select the layer from which you wish to sample colors. Color Link chooses

your original layer if None is selected.

Note: If you choose None, Color Link samples from the original layer, taking into account any masking or other effects that you have applied. If you choose the original layer’s name from the menu, Color Link samples from the source layer before masking or effects are applied.

Sample Speciﬁes which values the effect samples from the source layer and subsequently applies to the effect layer.

• Average averages all RGB values from all opaque pixels in the source layer. This is useful

if you are selecting a speciﬁc region of pixels deﬁned with a mask. Median samples the pixel value that falls in the middle of all RGB values.

• Brightest samples the brightest RGB value, using lightness, and Darkest samples the

darkest RGB value, also using lightness.

• Max RGB samples the highest value of the individual RGB channels. Min RGB samples

the lowest value of the individual RGB channels.

• Average Alpha samples only the average alpha channel value. Median Alpha samples

the value that falls in the middle of all alpha channel values. Max Alpha samples the highest value of the alpha channel. Min Alpha samples the lowest value of the alpha channel.

Clip Speciﬁes the percentage of the highest or lowest sampled target values that the effect disregards. This is useful for reducing the inﬂuence of noisy pixels in an image.

Stencil Original Alpha If this box is checked, the effect places a stencil of the effect layer’s original alpha channel over the new value. If this box is unchecked, the effect disre gards the original alpha channel and ﬁlls the entire effect layer with the average value of the source layer.

Opacity Speciﬁes the transparency of the effect layer.

Blending Mode Speciﬁes the blending mode that the effect uses to combine the new

colorized layer with the original layer. These blending modes behave exactly like those in the Timeline. (Blending modes are not available when averaging alpha channel values in the layer.)

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Colorama

The Colorama effect assigns a custom palette to an element in a layer and then cycles the palette. First you colorize an image with a speciﬁed palette, and then you cycle the colors in that palette—that is, change them smoothly around the Output Cycle palette or color wheel. Color cycling is a quick way to animate pulsing colors that follow a gradient path, colors that zoom out of a radial gradient, and many other effects.

Original (left), with background cycling through colors (center), and with an inverted alpha mask (right)

Colorama works by ﬁrst converting a speciﬁed property to grayscale and then remapping the grayscale values to the speciﬁed color palette. The current color palette appears on the Output Cycle color wheel.

The grayscale is then “wrapped around” the color wheel. Black pixels are mapped to the color at the top of the cycle, while increasingly lighter grays are mapped to successive colors going clockwise around the cycle, until this process wraps around to the start again at full white. For example, with the default “Hue cycle” palette, pixels corresponding to black become red, while pixels that have been converted to 50% gray become cyan. You can animate the cycle so that in one revolution, each pixel of the layer travels through the complete color cycle.

Customizing a palette with the Colorama effect

You can customize any palette by altering the colors and locations of the triangles around the Output Cycle control of the Colorama effect, using any of the following procedures.

To add a triangle:

Click in or near the color wheel, and select a color from the color picker.

To duplicate a triangle:

Press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS), and drag the triangle to the new position.

To change the color of a triangle:

Do any of the following:

• Double-click a triangle, and select a color from the color picker.

• To make a triangle ignore its original color and instead “sample” the color of its new

location on the color wheel, click the triangle and then press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS). To avoid deleting the original color, you may want to duplicate the triangle ﬁrst.

• To change the opacity, select a triangle on the color wheel and then drag the attached

triangle above the opacity slider. Make sure that Modify Alpha is selected if you want the opacity information to affect your output.

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To change where the color of a speciﬁc triangle appears on the color wheel:

Do any of the following:

• Drag a triangle.

• Press Shift as you drag to snap the triangles to the 45-degree increments around the

wheel.

Note: To snap a triangle to the start or end point of the color wheel, press Shift and move the pointer slightly to the right (start point) or left (end point) of the top of the wheel.

To delete a triangle:

Drag it away from the color wheel.

Adjusting lightness or hue levels using the Colorama effect

The following procedures provide two methods of adjusting the levels of an image:

To adjust hue levels:

1 Expand the Input Phase control, and choose Hue from the Get Phase From menu.

2 Expand the Output Cycle control, and choose Hue Cycle from the Use Preset Palette

menu.

3 Expand the Modify control, and choose Hue from the Modify menu.

4 (optional) Animate the Phase Shift control to cycle the hues in the image.

5 (optional) Choose an animated gradient layer from the Add Phase menu to modulate

the hue.

To adjust lightness levels:

1 Expand the Input Phase control, and choose Lightness from the Get Phase From menu.

2 Expand the Output Cycle control, and choose Ramp Grey from the Use Preset Palette

menu.

3 Choose Lightness from the Modify menu.

4 Add a triangle to the Output Cycle at 3 o’clock and another at 9 o’clock, and then drag

them toward 6 o’clock. This setting expands shadows and highlights while compressing the midtones of an image.

Input Phase controls for the Colorama effect

Specify which layer and property are colorized by the Colorama effect:

Get Phase From Speciﬁes the property to which the Output Cycle is applied. Select Zero if you want to use a property from another layer.

Add Phase Speciﬁes the layer containing the property that you want to apply to the Output Cycle. To use this layer instead of the ﬁrst layer, select Zero for Get Phase From; otherwise, this layer becomes a secondary property to the ﬁrst property. Add Phase From speciﬁes the property to use from the Add Phase layer.

Add Mode Speciﬁes how Colorama combines properties from two layers.

• Wrap adds the values of the two properties for each pixel. A pixel cannot be whiter than

100%, so sum values above 100% are wrapped around the cycle again. For example, a sum of 150% wraps back to 50%.

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• Clamp adds the values up to 100%. The sum of any two pixels that is greater than 100%

is rounded back down to 100%.

• Average adds two pixels together and then divides by two. Average values never wrap

or clamp, making this option the safest choice for predictable output.

• Screen screens the second layer over the original layer; the brighter areas in the second

layer brighten the ﬁrst layer, and the darker areas in the second layer are discarded. Screen mode is especially useful for compositing ﬁre, lens ﬂares, and other lighting effects.

Phase Shift Shifts the colors around the color wheel. If you animate Phase Shift, the modiﬁed pixels cycling among the colors deﬁned in the Output Cycle palette. A positive value moves the pixels in a clockwise direction; a negative value moves them counter

clockwise.

Animate Phase Shift to cycle the colors around the color wheel. Phase Shift is the parameter that is most commonly animated.

Output Cycle controls for the Colorama effect

Specify the colors used to colorize the image:

Use Preset Palette Speciﬁes the palette for the color cycle. The top palettes are designed for quick color-management tasks. The bottom choices offer a variety of built-in color effects.

Output Cycle Speciﬁes the color palette you are currently working with. The triangles specify the location on the color wheel where a speciﬁc color occurs. The color between triangles is smoothly interpolated, unless Interpolate Palette is off. You can add up to a total of 64 triangles per Output Cycle. (See

“Customizing a palette with the Colorama

effect” on page 94.)

Note: When you keyframe the Output Cycle, a triangle’s position and color are interpolated between keyframes. For best results, make sure that all keyframes have the same number of Output Cycle triangles.

Cycle Repetitions Controls how the Output Cycle pixels are applied to the Input Phase. The default value of 1 maps the Output Cycle once from Input Phase black to Input Phase white. A value of 2 maps the Output Cycle twice, once from 1% to 50%, and again from 51% to 100%. Use this option to create a simple palette and repeat it many times throughout a gradient. For example, you can create running lights, in which one cycle repeated 20 times generates 20 lights.

Interpolate Speciﬁes whether or not colors between triangles are interpolated smoothly. When it is not selected, the output is posterized. For example, with Interpolate Palette not selected, the default Hue Cycle palette becomes a useful tool for preparing custom shatter maps for use with the Shatter effect.

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Modify controls for the Colorama effect

Modify controls specify which properties are modiﬁed by the Colorama effect. Once the Input Phase pixels are mapped to a color on the Output Cycle, the results are applied to the property selected here. You can get a great deal of selective control by choosing the same property for the Input Phase and the Modify property, along with an appropriate Output Cycle.

Note: Because the input layer is represented as a grayscale ﬁle, the Ramp Grey preset palette works well and is most predictable with any Modify setting other than All.

Modify Speciﬁes the speciﬁc property to be modiﬁed.

Modify Alpha Speciﬁes whether the opacity information in your Output Cycle is applied

to the output. Selecting Modify Alpha changes the alpha information along with the other channels selected from the Modify menu. Modify Alpha works in conjunction with the Change Empty Pixels option in determining the ﬁnal change in opacity.

Note: If you apply Colorama to a layer with an alpha channel, and the Output Cycle does not contain alpha information, the anti-aliased edges of the layer may appear pixelated. To smooth the edges, deselect Modify Alpha. If Modify Alpha is selected and the Output Cycle contains alpha information, the output is affected even if you’ve selected None from the Modify menu. This is how you can adjust the levels of just the alpha channel without also changing the RGB information.

Change Empty Pixel Speciﬁes whether you want Colorama’s effects to extend into the transparent areas of your layer as well. ( This works only when Modify Alpha is selected.)

Pixel Selection, Masking, and other controls for the Colorama effect

Adjust the controls to choose which colors in your image you want to affect.

Pixel Selection For the Matching controls for Pixel Selection to work, Matching Mode must be set to anything other than Off.

• Matching Color speciﬁes the speciﬁc pixel color to which you want to apply Colorama.

To select a speciﬁc color in the image using the eyedropper tool, turn off the Colorama effect temporarily.

• Matching Tolerance speciﬁes how close a color has to be to the Matching Color option

before it is affected by Colorama. When Matching Tolerance is 0, only the exact color selected for Matching Color is affected by Colorama. When Matching Tolerance is 1, Colorama is tolerant of all colors; this value in effect turns the Matching Mode off.

• Matching Softness speciﬁes the softness between the selected and nonselected areas.

This doesn’t blur the image, but controls how smoothly the Colorama effect blends into the rest of the image. For example, if you have an image of a man wearing a red shirt and blue jeans, and you want to change the color of the shirt from red to blue, subtly adjust Matching Softness to spread the selection from the red in the shirt into the shadows of the shirt’s folds. If you adjust it too high, the selection spreads to the healthy pink of the man’s skin; if you adjust it even higher, the selection spreads to his blue jeans.

• Matching Mode speciﬁes whether a pixel is close to the Matching Color. Use Matching

Mode if Matching Tolerance doesn’t increase the selection in the desired areas. In general, use RGB for high-contrast graphics and Chroma for photographic images.

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Masking Speciﬁes the pixels you want to change using the luminance or alpha channel

of another layer. Mask Layer speciﬁes the layer you want to use for your mask. Masking Mode speciﬁes the Mask Layer property to use.

Composite Over Speciﬁes whether you want to see only the selected pixels or the selected pixels on top of the original layer (the default).

Blend with Original Speciﬁes the relative percentages of the original layer and the affected layer that you see. Use this control to fade out the Colorama effect.

Equalize

The Equalize effect alters an image’s pixel values to produce a more consistent brightness or color component distribution. The effect works similarly to the Equalize command in Adobe Photoshop. Equalization can be performed using either RGB values or the brightness component. Pixels with 0 alpha (completely transparent) values are not considered, so masked layers are equalized based on the mask area. Layer quality settings do not affect Equalize.

Original (left), and with Equalize applied to the background using brightness in varying amounts (center and right)

Equalize Speciﬁes which equalization method to use. RGB equalizes the image based on red, green, and blue components. Brightness equalizes the image based on the brightness of each pixel. Photoshop Style equalizes by redistributing the brightness values of the pixels in an image so that they more evenly represent the entire range of brightness levels.

Amount to Equalize Speciﬁes how much to redistribute the brightness values. At 100%, the pixel values are spread as evenly as possible, while lower percentages redistribute fewer pixel values.

Gamma/Pedestal/Gain

The Gamma/Pedestal/Gain effect adjusts the response curve independently for each channel. For pedestal and gain, a value of 0.0 is completely off, and a value of 1.0 is completely on.

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The Black Stretch control remaps the low pixel values of all channels. Large Black Stretch values brighten dark areas. The effect is the same in all quality settings. Gamma speciﬁes an exponent describing the shape of the intermediate curve. The Pedestal and Gain controls specify the lowest and highest attainable output value for a channel.

Original (left) and with varying amounts of Gamma/Pedestal/Gain applied (center and right)

Grow Bounds

The Grow Bounds effect increases the layer size for the effect that directly follows this effect. It is most useful with layers with Collapse Transformations/Continuously Rasterize enabled, because they render using a buffer that is the size of the composition. For example, if you apply Drop Shadow to a Text layer that is partially off the composition, the shadow will be clipped because only the portion of the text that is in the composition will cast a shadow. Applying the Grow Bounds effect before the Drop Shadow effect prevents the shadow from being cut off. The number of pixels you specify increases the height and width of the layer’s buffer.

The Wave Warp effect is constrained by the dimensions of the layer (center); grow bounds ﬁxes this problem (right).

PS Arbitrary Map

The PS Arbitrary Map effect applies a Photoshop arbitrary map ﬁle to a layer. An arbitrary map adjusts the brightness levels of an image, remapping a speciﬁed brightness range to darker or brighter tones. In the Curves window in Photoshop, you can create an arbitrary map ﬁle for the entire image or for individual channels. The PS Arbitrary Map effect is intended only to provide compatibility with projects created in earlier versions of After Effects that use the Arbitrary Map effect. For new work, use the Curves effect.

An arbitrary map is applied to the background layer (right).

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When loaded into After Effects, the speciﬁed arbitrary map is applied to the layer or to one or more channels of the layer, depending on how it was created. If you do not select an arbitrary map, After Effects applies the default map (linear distribution of brightness) to the layer. For more information on arbitrary maps, see the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 online Help topic “Using the Curves dialog box.”

PS Arbitrary Map controls

Adjust the following controls for the PS Arbitrary Map effect:

Phase Cycles through the arbitrary map. Increasing the phase shifts the arbitrary map to the right (as viewed in the Curves dialog box); decreasing the phase shifts the map to the left.

Apply Phase Map to Alpha Applies the speciﬁed map and phase to the layer’s alpha channel. If the speciﬁed map does not include an alpha channel, After Effects uses the default map (linear distribution of brightness) for the alpha channel.

Using the PS Arbitrary Map effect

The following procedures provide a basic overview of how to use this effect.

To apply a Photoshop arbitrary map:

In the Effect Controls window, click Options and then select an arbitrary map ﬁle.

Although you can’t import .avc ﬁles or Photoshop spline ﬁles into the After Effects PS Arbitrary Map effect, you can convert these ﬁles in Photoshop to create ﬁles that are compatible with the After Effects Curves effect.

To convert .avc and Photoshop spline ﬁles:

1 In the Curves dialog box in Photoshop, load the .acv ﬁle (Windows) or the Photoshop

spline ﬁle (Mac OS).

2 Click the pencil tool and then save the ﬁle as an .amp ﬁle (Windows) or a Photoshop lookup ﬁle.

Tint

The Tint effect alters an image’s color information. For each pixel, the luminance value speciﬁes a blend between two colors. Map Black To and Map White To specify the colors to which dark and bright pixels are mapped. Intermediate pixels are assigned intermediate values. Amount to Tint speciﬁes the intensity of the effect. The layer’s quality setting does not affect Tint. For more complex tinting, use the Colorama effect.

Original (left), with white mapped to green for the background (center), and with black mapped to dark blue and white mapped to light blue for the foreground (right)

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Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 6.0 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

U sing Help

C on t en ts

Gal lery of effects

3D C hannel effects

Adjust effects

Blur and Sharpen effects

Channel effects

Distort effects

Image Control effects

Keying effects

Matte Tools effects

Noise effects

Paint

Perspective effects

Render effects

Simulation effects

Stylize effects

Text effects

Time effects

Transition effects

Video effects

Effects included with After Effects

Standard effects

What you get with the Professional edition

3D Channel effects (Pro only)

Overview

3D Channel Extract (Pro only)

Depth Matte (Pro only)

Depth of Field (Pro only)

Fog 3D (Pro only)

ID Matte (Pro only)

Adjust effects

Brightness & Contrast

Channel Mixer

Color Balance

Color Stabilizer (Pro only)

Curves

Using the Curves effect

Hue/Saturation

Hue/Saturation controls

Using the Hue/Saturation effect

Levels

Levels controls

Levels (Individual Controls)

Posterize

Threshold

Audio effects

About Audio Effects

Backwards

Bass & Treble

Delay

Flange & Chorus (Pro only)

High-Low Pass (Pro only)

Modulator (Pro only)

Parametric EQ (Pro only)

Reverb (Pro only)

Stereo Mixer

Tone (Pro only)

Blur & Sharpen effects

Channel Blur

Compound Blur

Directional Blur

Fast Blur

Gaussian Blur

Radial Blur

Sharpen

Unsharp Mask

Channel effects

3D Glasses

3D Glasses controls

Understanding red, blue, and green lenses

Understanding ghost effects

Alpha Levels (Pro only)

Arithmetic

Blend

Blend controls