Macromedia After Effects - CC User Manual

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Adobe® Aer Eects® CC

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June 2014

Legal notices

For legal notices, see http://help.adobe.com/en_US/legalnotices/index.html.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Chapter 1: What's new

New features summary

Chapter 2: Workspace and workflow

Planning and setup

Setup and installation

General user interface items

Workflows

Dynamic Link and After Effects

Working with After Effects and other applications

Keyboard shortcuts reference

Workspaces, panels, and viewers

Modify keyboard shortcuts

Preferences

Sync Settings

After Effects keyboard shortcuts

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Chapter 3: Projects and compositions

Projects

Precomposing, nesting, and pre-rendering

Composition basics

Timecode and time display units

Chapter 4: Importing footage

Importing and interpreting footage items

Importing and interpreting video and audio

Preparing and importing 3D imagefiles

Working with footage items

CINEMA 4D and Cineware

Importing from After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro

Preparing and importing still images

Chapter 5: Layers and properties

Creating layers

Selecting and arranging layers

Managing layers

Layer properties

Blending modes and layer styles

3D layers

Cameras, lights, and points of interest

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Last updated 6/14/2014

AFTER EFFECTS

Content s

Chapter 6: Views and previews

Previewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Modifying and using views

Video preview with Mercury Transmit

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Chapter 7: Animation and Keyframes

Animation basics

Setting, selecting, and deleting keyframes

Editing, moving, and copying keyframes

Assorted animation tools

Tracking and stabilizing motion

Speed

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Keyframe interpolation

Time-stretching and time-remapping

Animating with Puppet tools

Tracking 3D camera movement

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Chapter 8: Color

Color basics

Color management

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Chapter 9: Drawing, painting, and paths

Paint tools: Brush, Clone Stamp, and Eraser

Overview of shape layers, pat

Creating shapes and masks

hs, and vector graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

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Managing and animating shape paths and masks

Shape attributes, paint operations, and path op

Mask Tracking

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Compositing Options and Mask Reference

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erations for shape layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

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Chapter 10: Text

Li ve Te xt Tem plates

Creating and editing text layers

Formatting characters and the Character panel

Examples and resources for text animation

Animating text

Extruding text and shape layers

Formatting paragraphs and the Paragraph panel

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Chapter 11: Transparency and compositing

Roto Brush, Refine Edge, and Refine Matte effects | CC

Alpha channels, masks, and mattes

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Compositing and transparency overview and resources

Keying

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Chapter 12: Effects and animation presets

Effects and animation presets overview

Detail-preserving Upscale effect

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AFTER EFFECTS

Content s

Effect list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Audio effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Blur and Sharpen effects

Channel effects

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Generate effects

Simulation effects

Tex t eff ects

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Perspective effects

3D Channel effects

Stylize effects

Distort effects

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Noise and Grain effects

Matte effects

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Color Correction effects

Obsolete effects

The Rolling Shutter Repair effect

Keying effects

Utility effects

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Transition effec ts

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Chapter 13: Markers

Layer markers and composition markers

XMP metadata

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Chapter 14: Memory, storage, performance

Improve performance

GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features

Memory and storage

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Chapter 15: Expressions and automation

Plug-ins

Automation

Expression basics

Expression language reference

Expression examples

Scripts

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688

Chapter 16: Rendering and Exporting

Basics of rendering an

Converting movies

d exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708

Export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project

Rendering and exporting still images and still-image sequences

Automated rendering and network rendering

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Rendering and exporting for Flash Professional and Flash Player

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Chapter 17: System Requirements

System requirements for After Effects

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Last updated 6/14/2014

Chapter 1: What's new

New features summary

This document describes the new and updated features in the June 2014 release of After Effects CC.

Key Cleaner effect and Advanced Spill Suppressor effect

The Key Cleaner effect recovers alpha-channel detail from a scene keyed by a typical keying effect, including recovering detail lost due to compression artifacts.

The Advanced Spill Suppressor effect removes color spill on a foreground subject from a colored background used for color ke

1 Standard - The Standard method is simpler, automatically detects the dominant key color, and requires less user

2 Ultra - The Ultra method is based on the spill suppression in the Ultra Key effect in Premiere Pro. See the Ultra Key

Starting with the 2014 version of After Effects, the Spill Sup category. Users are recommended to use the Advanced Spill Suppressor effect instead.

An easy way of applying these effects is by using the Keylight + Key Cleaner + Spill Suppressor animation preset. See the K

Note: U RG

ying. It has two methods for spill suppression:

input.

section in Premiere Pro for details about the Ultra Key.

pressor effect has been moved to the Obsolete effects

ey Cleaner and Advanced Spill Suppressor effectfor details on using these effects.

se the new Key Cleaner and Advanced Spill Suppressor effects with any keying effect that can provide the original

B data as input. The new effects are found under the Effects > Keying menu.

Last updated 6/14/2014

What's new

Compositing Options (including effect masks)

The Compositing Options property group for each effect includes a new Effect Opacity property, which provides similar functionality as the Blend With Original compositing to every effect. The Effect Opacity allows you to blend between the effect results and the image without applying the effect. You can precisely apply any effect to a particular area of an image by masking and matting the desired area.

You can also restrict the area of effects applied to a layer using a new mask. The Mask Reference option is found under th

e C

ompositing Options under each effect in the Timeline panel. Click the plus sign next to the Compositing Options

heading and choose a mask listed under the Mask Reference menu.

See the Compositing Options and Mask Referencearticle for detailed information.

Importing masks from Premiere Pro

When you import a clip from Premiere Pro that includes masks, the masks from Premiere Pro are preserved and converted to After Effects masks. This works for all methods of importing clips from Premiere Pro including:

• Using the Replace With After Effects Composition command in Premiere Pro

• Copying and pasting the sequence from Premiere Pro to After Effects

• Importing a Premiere Pro project into After Effects.

The mask shape, feather, opacity, expansion, and inversion properties are all preserved and the keyframes on those pro

perties are also included.

However some After Effects mask attributes, such as variable-width mask feathering, will not get imported into Prem

iere Pro.

Masks are either effect masks or layer masks and the mask mode is always set to Add when the mask is imported from Premiere Pro into After Effects.

Live text templates - Edit After Effects text templates in Premiere Pro

You can create text template compositions in After Effects wherein the source text can be edited in Premiere Pro. Any composition with text layers can be used as a text template, and any unlocked text layers in that composition can be edited in Premiere Pro.

See the Live Tex t Te mplates for more information.

Video preview on external monitor using Mercury Transmit

In the l ates t rel ease of A fter Effects, the vide o pre vie w system for ext ernal monitors ha s been repl aced w ith the Mercury Transmit-based system.

Last updated 6/14/2014

What's new

The Mercury Transmit system for video previews sends the contents of the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel to an external monitor. The external monitor can be one of the following:

• A video monitor connected through third-party video hardware such as AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox I/O devices

• A DV device connected over FireWire

• A computer monitor connected to your video display card via such as HDMI, DVI, VGA, or DisplayPort.

For detailed information, see the Vid e o p re view with Merc u r y Transmitarticle.

Add fonts from Typekit in After Effects

You can download and install hundreds of fonts from within After Effects through the integration of Typekit with After Effects. Click File > Add Fonts from Typekit.. to launch the Typekit website.

For more information about using Typekit with Creative Cloud, see the Typ ekit Help C e nter .

Integration of Kuler panel into After Effects

The Kuler panel integrated into After Effects is one of the first instances of an HTML5 CEP panel built for After Effects. Using the Kuler panel, you can :

• Browse color themes that other users have shared through Creative Cloud

• Load color themes from your own library on Creative Cloud

• Create color themes on your iPhone or in your browser using various color models. You can use the color swatches

wi thi n ea ch c olor t hem e as a so urc e from whi ch t o sa mple colors for any purpose within After Effects. (This replaces the old workflow of creating a document in Illustrator that held your color swatches and then importing that file into After Effects as a a source from which to sample when matching colors in a logo or other other branded item.)

See the Adobe Kuler site at https://kuler.adobe.com and www.adobe.com/in/products/kuler.html

HTML5 panels using CEP infrastructure

After Effects now includes the CEP (Common Extensibility Platform) infrastructure for loading and using HTML5 panels. These panels have access to the entire After Effects scripting object model in addition to being able to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Hence a very wide variety of extensions can be created using this system.

Last updated 6/14/2014

What's new

Improvements to Curves effect user interface

The primary user interface element in the Curves effect (the curves themselves) is now resizable using buttons immediately above the curves. The icon-based buttons for Open, Save, Smooth, and Reset have been replaced with word-based buttons that make their functionality more discoverable and the interface has been changed to increase the size of the default window.

The new improvements have the following advantages:

• Click one of the three sizing icons at the top of the effect to adjust screen sizes.

• Channels will show separately and concurrently in White, Red Green Blue, and Gray(alpha).

• Channel selection is automatic when a curve or vertex is clicked to add or move a point.

• The curves are drawn more smoothly.

Auto Adjustment in Curves effect

To adjust the curves in the Curves effect automatically, click the Auto button beneath the curves in the Effect Controls panel. This automatic adjustment is based on a database of curve adjustments performed by color and photography experts on a broad range of input images. This will enable users to get a good starting point for their color adjustments.

The adjustment made to an image is based on the adjustments made to reference input images with similar color di

ibutions.

str

Miscellaneous updates

• Use File > Save As > Save A Copy As CC (12) to save a project as a copy for the previous version. To open a project

created in the latest version of After Effects in After Effects CS6, you have to save back from After Effects CC (12). See Project links embedded in QuickTime, Video for Windows filesfor detailed information.

• You can now import raw files from Sony F5, F55, and F65 cameras into After Effects. As with ARRIRAW files, the

source settings are not carried over when transferring a clip from Premiere Pro to After Effects.

• After Effects CC now installs mocha-AE version 3.2.1. Previous versions of After Effects CC installed mocha-AE

v3.1.0. See the release notes (pdf) on the Imagineer Systems website for details of what's new in mocha-AE v3.2.

Last updated 6/14/2014

What's new

• You cannot export to the following formats in the 2014 version of After Effects CC:

• FLV/F4V

• MPEG-2

• H.264

• WMV

• SWF

Note: You can still import files in the above formats into After Effects.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Chapter 2: Workspace and workflow

Planning and setup

Planning your work

Correct project settings, preparation of footage, and initial composition settings can help you to avoid errors and unexpected results when rendering your final output movie. Before you begin, think about what kind of work you’ll be doing in After Effects and what kind of output you intend to create. After you have planned your project and made some basic decisions about project settings, you’ll be ready to start importing footage and assembling compositions from layers based on that footage.

The best way to ensure that your movie is suitable for a specific medium is to render a test movie and view it using the s difficult and time-consuming parts of your work, to uncover problems early.

e of equipment that your audience will use to view it. It’s best to do such tests before you have completed the

ame typ

Aharon Rabinowitz provides an article on the Creative COW website about planning your project with the final delivery specifications in mind.

For more information about encoding and compression options, see this FAQ entry: “FAQ: What is the best format for

rendering and exporting from After Effects?”

Storyboards and scripts (screenplays)

Before you begin shooting footage or creating animations, it is often best to start by planning your movie with storyboards and a script (screenplay).

You can use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create storyboards. You can use Adobe Story to collaboratively w

te and manage screenplays. Adobe Story also converts information from a screenplay into XMP metadata that can

automate the creation of shooting scripts, shot lists, and more.

Acquiring, choosing, and preparing footage

Before importing footage, first decide which media and formats you'll use for your finished movies, and then determine the best settings for your source material. Often, it’s best to prepare footage before importing it into After Effects.

For example, if you want an image to fill your composition frame, configure the image in Adobe Photoshop so that the ima

ge size and pixel aspect ratio match the composition size and pixel aspect ratio. If the image is too large when you import it into After Effects, you’ll increase the memory and processor requirements of the compositions that use it. If the image is too small, you’ll lose image quality when you scale it to the desired size. See Pixel aspect ratio and frame

aspect ratio.

If you can shoot footage with consistent lighting and colors—and otherwise prevent the need to do a lot of tedious u

ty work in post-production—then you’ll have more time for creative work.

tili

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Workspace and workflow

If possible, use uncompressed footage or footage encoded with lossless compression. Lossless compression means better results for many operations, such as keying and motion tracking. Certain kinds of compression—such as the compression used in DV encoding—are especially bad for color keying, because they discard the subtle differences in color that you depend on for good bluescreen or greenscreen keying. It’s often best to wait until the final rendering phase to use compression other than lossless compression. See Keying introduction and resources.

If possible, use footage with a frame rate that matches that of your output, so that After Effects doesn’t have to use frame b

nding or similar methods to fill in missing frames. See Frame rate.

The kind of work that you’ll be doing in After Effects and the kind of output movie that you want to create can even influence ho tracking, consider shooting your scene in a manner that optimizes for motion tracking—for example, using tracking markers. See Motion tracking workflow.

w you shoot and acquire your footage. For example, if you know that you want to animate using motion

Also consider shooting at a larger frame size than what you ne production, whether for fake pans and zooms, or for stabilization.

for final delivery if you want "head-room" for post-

Project settings

Project settings fall into three basic categories: how time is displayed in the project, how color data is treated in the project, and what sampling rate to use for audio. Of these settings, the color settings are the ones that you need to think about before you do much work in your project, because they determine how color data is interpreted as you import footage files, how color calculations are performed as you work, and how color data is converted for final output. See

Color managementand Timecode and time display units .

If you enable color management for your project, the colors t when they view the movie that you create.

Note: Click the color depth indicator at the bottom of the Project panel (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) to cycle through color bit depths: 8 bpc, 16 bpc, and 32 bpc. See Color depth and high

dynamic range color.

t you see are the same colors that your audience will see

to open the Project Settings dialog box. Alt-click

Composition settings

After you prepare and import footage items, you use these footage items to create layers in a composition, where you animate and apply effects. When you create a composition, specify composition settings such as resolution, frame size, and pixel aspect ratio for your final rendered output. Although you can change composition settings at any time, it’s best to set them correctly as you create each new composition to avoid unexpected results in your final rendered output. For example, the composition frame size should be the image size in the playback medium. See Composition settings.

If you’ll be rendering and exporting a composition to more than one media format, always match the pixel dimensions

for your composition to the largest pixel dimensions used fo Render Queue panel to encode and export a separate version of the composition for each format. See Output modules and

output module settings.

your output. Later, you can use output modules in the

Performance, memory, and storage considerations

If you work with large compositions, make sure that you configure After Effects and your computer to maximize performance. Complex compositions can require a large amount of memory to render, and the rendered movies can take a large amount of disk space to store. Before you attempt to render a three-hour movie, make sure that you have the disk space available to store it. See Storage requirements for output files .

If your source footage files are on a slow disk drive (or across a slow network connection), then performance will be p

r. When possible, keep the source footage files for your project on a fast local disk drive. Ideally, you’ll have three

drives: one for source footage files, one from which the application runs, and one for rendered output.

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Workspace and workflow

For more information, see Improve performanceand Memory & Multiprocessing preferences .

Planning for playback on computer monitors and mobile devices

When you create a movie for playback on a personal computer—whether downloaded from the Web or played from a CD-ROM—specify composition settings, render settings, and output module settings that keep file size low. Consider that a movie with a high data rate may not play well from an older CD-ROM drive that cannot read data from the disc fast enough. Similarly, a large movie may take a long time to download over a dial-up network connection.

When rendering your final movie, choose a file type and encoder appropriate for the final media. The corresponding de

coder m movie. Common codecs (encoders/decoders) include the codecs installed with media players such as Flash Player, Windows Media Player, and QuickTime Player.

Aharon Rabinowitz provides an article on the Creative COW website about planning your project with the final delivery specifications in mind.

Trish and Chris Meyer provide an article on the Artbeats website that describes some of the considerations for creating video for the Web.

For more information about encoding and compression options for After Effects, see this FAQ entry: “FAQ: What is

the best format for rendering and exporting from After Effects?”

ust be available on the system used by your intended audience; otherwise they will not be able to play the

Mobile devices

Many of the considerations for creating movies for playback on mobile devices, such as mobile phones and the Apple i

d, are similar to the considerations for creating movies for playback on personal computers—but the limitations are

Po even more extreme. Because the amount of storage (disk space) and processor power are less for mobile phones than for personal computers, file size and data rate for movies must be even more tightly controlled.

Screen dimensions, video frame rates, and color gamuts vary greatly from one mobile device to another.

Use these tips when shooting video for mobile devices:

•Tight shots are better. It’s hard to see a face on a tiny screen unless it’s shot in relative close-up.

• Light your subjects well, and keep them separated from the background; the colors and brightness values between

background and subject should not be too similar.

• Avoid excessive zooming and rolling, which hinder temporal compression schemes.

• Because stable (non-shaky) video is easier to compress, shoot video with a tripod to minimize the shaking of the

camera.

• Avoid using auto-focus and auto-exposure features. When these features engage, they change the appearance of all

of the pixels in an image from one frame to the next, making compression using interframe encoding schemes less efficient.

Use these tips when working in After Effects (for mobile devices):

•Use a lower frame rate (12-24 fps) for mobile devices.

• Use motion-stabilization tools and noise-reduction or blur effects before rendering to final output, to aid the

compressor in reducing file size.

• Match the color palette to the mobile devices that you are targeting. Mobile devices, in general, have a limited color

gamut.

• Consider using cuts and other fast transitions instead of zooming in and out or using fades and dissolves. Fast cuts

also make compression easier.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Cross-platform project considerations

After Effects project files are compatible with Mac OS and Windows operating systems, but some factors—mostly regarding the locations and naming of footage files and support files—can affect the ease of working with the same project across platforms.

Project file paths

When you move a project file to a different computer and open it, After Effects attempts to locate the project’s footage f original path or folder location; finally, it searches the root of the directory where the project is located.

If you are building cross-platform projects, it’s best if the full paths have the same names on Mac OS and Windows sys before opening the project and that network volume names are the same on both systems.

It’s best to store footage in the same folder as the project file or in another folder within that folder. Here’s a sample hi

/newproject/project_file.aep

ollows: After Effects first searches the folder in which the project file is located; second, it searches the file’s

iles as f

ms. If the footage and the project are on different volumes, make sure that the appropriate volume is mounted

chy:

erar

/newproject/source/footage1.psd

/newproject/source/footage2.avi

You can then copy the newproject folder in its entirety across platforms, and After Effects will properly locate all of the fo

age.

Use the Collect Files feature to gather copies of all the files in a project into a single folder. You can then move the folder containing the copied project to the other platform. See Collect files in one location.

File-naming conventions

Name your footage and project files with the appropriate filename extensions, such as .mov for QuickTime movies and .

for After Effects projects. If files will be used on the Web, be sure that filenames adhere to applicable conventions

aep for extensions and paths.

Note: F

or After Effects CS6 and earlier versions, do not use high-ASCII or other extended characters in filenames that will

sed cross-platform.

be u

Supported file types

Some file types are supported on one platform but not others. See Supported import formatsand Supported output

formats.

Resources

Ensure that all fonts, effects, codecs, and other resources are available on both systems. Such resources are often plugin

If y

ou use a native After Effects effect in a project on one operating system, the effect will still work on the other

ope

rating system to which you’ve transferred your project. However, some third-party effects and other third-party plug-ins may not continue to operate, even if you have versions of these plug-ins on the target system. In such cases, you may need to reapply some third-party effects.

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Workspace and workflow

More Help topics

Adobe Story workflow

Composition settings

Output modules and output module settings

Render settings

Plug-ins

Fonts

Setup and installation

To submit a feature request or bug report about After Effects, choose Help > Send Feedback.

Installing the software

Before installing Adobe After Effects software, review complete system requirements and recommendations in the Read Me file. The Read Me file is included in the Release Notes document available through the After Effects support

section of the Adobe website.

In addition to the full version of Adobe After Effects, you can also install additional copies on additional computers to us the full version of the application. You run the render engine using the Adobe After Effects Render Engine shortcut in the Adobe After Effects folder.

Limitations of the trial version

The trial version of After Effects includes all of the codecs that are included with the full version of After Effects. This m of Adobe After Effects software does not include some features that depend upon software licensed from parties other than Adobe. For example, Cycore (CC) effects, mocha-AE, mocha Shape, FreeForm, and Color Finesse are available only with the full version of Adobe After Effects software. (Keylight is included, however.) If your installation of After Effects is missing some third-party components, contact your system administrator to ensure that all licensed components have been installed correctly.

er Effects render engines to assist with network rendering. You install render engines in the same manner as

e as Aft

ns that you can import and export to all of the supported file formats using the trial version. The free trial version

Activate the software

Activation is a simple, anonymous process. After installation, your Adobe software attempts to contact Adobe to complete the license activation process. No personal data is transmitted.

A single-user retail license activation supports two computers. For example, you can install the software on a desktop comp

uter at work and on a laptop computer at home.

For more information on product licensing and activation, see the Read Me file or go to the Adobe website.

Note: B

efore transferring an activation to a different computer, deactivate the software by choosing Help > Deactivate or

p > Sign Out.

Hel

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

More Help topics

Network rendering with watch folders and render engines

Plug-ins

General user interface items

Activate a tool

The Tools panel can be displayed as a toolbar across the top of the application window or as a normal, dockable panel.

Note: Controls related to some tools appear only when the tool is selected in the Tools panel.

• Click the button for the tool. If the button has a small triangle at its lower-right corner, hold down the mouse button

to view the hidden tools. Then, click the tool you want to activate.

• Press the keyboard shortcut for the tool. (Placing the pointer over a tool button displays a tool tip with the name and

keyboard shortcut for the tool.)

• To cycle through hidden tools within a tool category, repeatedly press the keyboard shortcut for the tool category.

(For example, press the Q key repeatedly to cycle through the pen tools.)

• To momentarily activate a tool, hold down the key for the desired tool; release the key to return to the previously

active tool. (This technique does not work with all tools.)

• To momentarily activate the Hand tool, hold down the spacebar, the H key, or the middle mouse button. (The

middle mouse button does not activate the Hand tool under a few circumstances, including when the Unified Camera tool is active.)

To pan around in the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel, drag with the Hand tool. Hold Shift, too, to pan faster.

To show or hide panels most relevant to the active tool, click the panel button if available. For example, clicking this button when a paint tool is active opens or closes the Paint and Brushes panels. Select the Auto-Open Panels option in the T

ools panel to automatically open the relevant panels when certain tools are activated.

Open panel, viewer, and context menus

Panel menus provide commands relative to the active panel or frame. Viewer menus provide lists of compositions, layers, or footage items that can be shown in the viewer, as well as commands for closing items and locking the viewer. Context menus provide commands relative to the item that is context-clicked. Many items in the After Effects user interface have associated context menus. Using context menus can make your work faster and easier.

• To open a p a n e l me nu , c l i ck t h e button in the upper-right corner of the panel.

• To open a viewer menu, click the name of the active composition, layer, or footage item in the viewer tab.

• To open a context menu, right-click (Windows or Mac OS) or Control-click (Mac OS). This action is sometimes

referred to as context-clicking.

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Columns

The Project, Timeline, and Render Queue panels contain columns.

• To show or hide columns, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a column heading (or choose Columns

from the panel menu), and select the columns that you want to show or hide. A check mark indicates that the column is shown.

Note: In general, the search and filter functions in the Project and Timeline panels only operate on the content of columns that

are shown.

• To reorder columns, select a column name and drag it to a new location.

• To resize columns, drag the bar next to a column name. Some columns cannot be resized.

• To sort footage items in the Project panel, click the column heading. Click once more to sort them in reverse order.

Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels

The Project, Timeline, and Effects & Presets panels each contain search fields that you can use to filter items in the panel.

• To place the insertion point in a search field, click in the search field.

• To place the insertion point in the search field for the active panel, choose File > Find or press Ctrl+F (Windows) or

Command+F (Mac OS).

• To clear the search field, click the button that appears to the right of the text in the search field.

When you type in the search field, the list of items in the panel is filtered, showing some items and hiding others. Only ite

ms with entries that match the search query that you’ve typed are shown. The folders, layers, categories, or property

groups that contain the matched items are also shown, to provide context.

In general, only text in columns that are shown is searched f show the Comments column to search and filter by the contents of comments. (See Columns .)

If one or more layers are selected in a composition, the filtering operation in the Timeline panel only affects selected l

n this case, unselected layers are not filtered out (hidden) if they don’t match the search query. However, if no

ayers. I layers are selected in the composition, the filtering operation applies to all layers in the composition. This behavior matches that for showing and hiding of layer properties by pressing their property shortcut keys. (See Show or hide

properties in the Timeline panel.)

Clearing the search field and ending the search causes expanded folders and property groups to collapse (close). Therefore, it’s easier to work with the items that are found by the filter operation if you operate on them before you clear

search field and end the search.

If the text that you type in the search field in the Project or Timeline panel contains spaces, the spaces are treated as and-

based operators. For example, typing dark solid matches footage items or layers named Dark Red Solid and Dark Gray Solid. In the Effects & Presets panel, spaces are treated as space characters in the search field. For example, typing change color matches the Change Color effect, but not the Change To Color effect.

Project, Timeline, and Effects & Presets panels accept or-based searching. In an or-based search, a comma denotes an or,

with and-based operators taking precedence over or-based ones. For example, sometimes the name of the property that determines the amount for a blur effect is Amount, sometimes it is Blurriness, and sometimes it is Blur Radius. If you search for Amount, Blurriness, Radius, then you will see the equivalent values for all of your blur effects.

his filtering operation. For example, you may need to

or t

When you type in a search field, recent search strings that match your input appear.

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This search method also allows a way to save items you use often via a menu that opens when you click the search icon in th e search field. The search menu consist s of t wo lists, s eparated by a divider. The top list cont ains the six most rece nt searches, with the most recent one at the top. The bottom list contains saved search items. As you type, the top list filters to show matching terms.

• To save a search item, Shift-click it in the top list of the search menu. Up to ten items may be saved.

• To delete a saved search item from either list, hover the mouse over the the item to highlight it, and then press Delete

or Backspace.

See this video on the Video2Brain website to learn about the new features for searching and filtering in panels.

Examples of searches in the Project panel

• To show only footage items for which the name or comment contains a specific string, start typing the string.

• To show only footage items for which the source file is missing, type the entire word missing. (This search works

whether or not the File Path column is shown, which is an exception to the general rule that only shown columns are searched.)

• To show only unused footage items, type the entire word unused.

• To show only used footage items, type the entire word used.

• To show only Cineon footage items, type Cineon with the Type column shown.

Examples of searches in the Timeline panel

• To show only layers and properties for which the name or comment contains a specific string, type the string. For

example, type starch to show pins created by the Puppet Starch tool.

• To show only properties that have an expression that uses a specific method, type the method name.

• To show only layers with a specific label, type the label name. (See Color labels for layers, compositions, and footage

items.)

Click the swatch for a label to see the context menu that lists the l Label column heading to expand the column to read the label names.

abel names. Alternatively, drag the right edge of the

Scroll or zoom with the mouse wheel

You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in the Timeline, Composition, Layer, and Footage panels. You can use the mouse wheel to scroll in the Timeline, Project, Render Queue, Flowchart, Effect Controls, Metadata, and Effects & Presets panels.

• To zoom into the center of the panel, or into the feature region when tracking, roll the mouse wheel forward.

• To zoom out of the center of the panel, or out of the feature region when tracking, roll the mouse wheel backward.

• To zoo m int o the area und er the pointe r, hold d own A lt (Wind ows) or Option (Mac O S) as you roll th e mouse w heel

forward. In the Timeline, Footage, and Layer panels, this action zooms in time when the pointer is over the time navigator or time ruler.

• To zoom out of the area under the pointer, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you roll the mouse

wheel backward. In the Timeline, Footage, and Layer panels, this action zooms in time when the pointer is over the time navigator or time ruler.

• To scroll vertically, roll the mouse wheel forward or backward.

• To scroll horizontally, hold down Shift as you roll the mouse wheel backward or forward. In the Timeline, Footage,

and Layer panels, Shift-rolling backward moves forward in time and vice versa when the pointer is over the time navigator or time ruler.

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You can scroll or zoom with the mouse wheel in a panel even if it is not currently active, as long as the pointer is over it.

Undo changes

You can undo only those actions that alter the project data. For example, you can undo a change to a property value, but you cannot undo the scrolling of a panel or the activation of a tool.

You can sequentially undo as many as 99 of the most recent changes made to the project.

To avoid wasting time undoing accidental modifi cation s, lock a laye r when you want t o see it but do not want to modify it.

• To undo the most recent change, choose Edit > Undo [action] or Ctrl-Z

• To undo a change and all changes after it, choose Edit > History, and select the first change that you want to undo.

• To revert to the last saved version of the project, choose File > Revert. All changes made and footage items imported

since you last saved are lost. You cannot undo this action.

After Effects user interface tips

• Use ClearType text anti-aliasing on Windows. ClearType makes the outlines of system text, such as menus and

dialog boxes, easier to read. See Windows Help for information on how to enable ClearType text anti-aliasing.

• To show tool tips, select the Show Tool Tips preference (Edit > > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences

> General (Mac OS)).

• Use a workspace that contains the Info panel, and leave that panel in front of other panels in its panel group

whenever possible. The Info panel shows messages about what After Effects is doing, information about items under the pointer, and much more.

• In Windows, disable the Aero compositing mode. Hardware acceleration of panels and OpenGL features perform

better in After Effects when Windows is operating in Basic mode. For information, see the Microsoft website.

• Use context menus.

• Use keyboard shortcuts.

More Help topics

Activating tools (keyboard shortcuts)

Effects and Presets panel

Organize, view, manage, and trim footage items

Select layers

Zoom an image for preview

Zoom in or out in time for a composition

Move or adjust a camera or working 3D view with the Camera tools

Lock or unlock a layer

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Workflows

General workflow in After Effects

Overview of general workflow in After Effects

Whether you use Adobe After Effects to animate a simple title, create complex motion graphics, or composite realistic visual effects, you generally follow the same basic workflow, though you may repeat or skip some steps. For example, you may repeat the cycle of modifying layer properties, animating, and previewing until everything looks right. You may skip the step of importing footage if you intend to create graphical elements entirely in After Effects.

1. Import and organize footage

After you create a project, import your footage into the project in the Project panel. After Effects automatically i

nte

rprets many common media formats, but you can also specify how you want After Effects to interpret attributes such as frame rate and pixel aspect ratio. You can view each item in a Footage panel and set its start and end times to fit your composition. For more information, see Importing and interpreting footage items .

2. Create, arrange, and composite layers in a composition

Create one or more compositions. Any footage item can be the source for one or more layers in a composition. You can a

ange the layers spatially in the Composition panel or arrange them in time using the Timeline panel. You can stack

rr layers in two dimensions or arrange them in three dimensions. You can use masks, blending modes, and keying tools to composite (combine), the images of multiple layers. You can even use shape layers, text layers, and paint tools to create your own visual elements. For more information, see Composition basics, Creating layers, Compositing and

transparency overview and resources, Overview of shape layers, paths, and vector graphics , and Creating and editing text layers .

3. Modify and animate layer properties

You can modify any property of a layer, such as size, position, and opacity. You can make any combination of layer p

perties change over time, using keyframes and expressions. Use motion tracking to stabilize motion or to animate one layer so that it follows the motion in another layer. For more information, see Animation basics, Expression basics, and Tracking and stabilizing motion (CS5) .

4. Add effects and modify effect properties

You can add any combination of effects to alter the appearance or sound of a layer, and even generate visual elements f

m scratch. You can apply any of the hundreds of effects, animation presets, and layer styles. You can even create and save your own animation presets. You can animate effect properties, too, which are simply layer properties within an effect property group. For more information, see Effects and animation presets overview .

5. Preview

Previewing compositions on your computer monitor or an external video monitor is fast and convenient, even for co

lex projects. You can change the speed and quality of previews by specifying their resolution and frame rate, and

mp by limiting the area and duration of the composition that you preview. You can use color management features to preview how your movie will look on another output device. For more information, see Previewingand Color

management.

6. Render and export

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Add one or more compositions to the render queue to render them at the quality settings you choose and to create movies in the formats that you specify. You can use File > Export or Composition > Add to Render Queue.

For more information, see Basics of rendering and exporting and the encoding quick start section in Adobe Media Encoder.

Online resources for general workflow in After Effects

Read a basic step-by-step introduction to the general workflow in an excerpt from After Effects Classroom in a Book.

Read Trish and Chris Meyer’s step-by-step introduction to creating a basic animation in a PDF excerpt from their book,

The After Effects Apprentice.

For an overview of After Effects project navigtion, see the video tutorial, “Walking Through A Mini Project,” by Jeff Sengstack and Infinite Skills.

Basic workflow tutorial: Create a simple movie

This tutorial assumes that you have already started After Effects and have not modified the empty default project. This example skips the step of importing footage and shows you instead how to create your own synthetic visual elements. After you have rendered a final movie, you can import it into After Effects to view it and use it as you would any other footage item.

Some people prefer to use the mouse and menus to interact with After Effects, whereas others prefer to use keyboard sh

tcuts for common tasks. For several steps in this example, two alternative commands are shown that produce the same result—the first demonstrating the discoverability of menu commands and the second demonstrating the speed and convenience of keyboard shortcuts. You’ll likely find that you use some combination of keyboard shortcuts and menu commands in your work.

1 Create a new composition:

• Choose Composition > New Composition.

• Press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Mac OS).

2 Change the Duration value in the Composition Settings dialog box by entering 5.00 (5 seconds), choose Web Video

from the Preset menu, and click OK.

3 Create a new text layer:

• Choose Layer > New > Text.

• Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+T (Mac OS).

4 Type your name. Press Enter on the numeric keypad or press Ctrl+Enter (Windows) or Command+Return (Mac

OS) on the main keyboard to exit text-editing mode.

5 Set an initial keyframe for the Position property:

• Click the triangle to the left of the layer name in the Timeline panel, click the triangle to the left of the Transform

group name, and then click the stopwatch button to the left of the Position property name.

• Press Alt+Shift+P (Windows) or Option+Shift+P (Mac OS).

6 Activate the Selection tool:

• Click the Selection Tool button in the Tools panel.

• Press V.

7 Using the Selection tool, drag your text to the bottom-left corner of the frame in the Composition panel.

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8 Move the current-time indicator to the last frame of the composition:

• Drag the current-time indicator in the Timeline panel to the far right of the timeline.

• Press End.

9 Using the Selection tool, drag your text to the top-right corner of the frame in the Composition panel.

A new keyframe is created at this time for the Position property. Motion is interpolated between keyframe values.

10 Preview your animation using standard preview:

• Click the Play button in the Preview panel. Click Play again to stop the preview.

• Press the spacebar. Press the spacebar again to stop the preview.

11 Apply the Glow effect:

• Choose Effect > Stylize > Glow.

• Type glow in the search field at the top of the Effects & Presets panel to find the Glow effect. Double-click the

effect name.

12 In the Render Queue panel, click the underlined text to the right of Output To. In the Output Movie To dialog box,

choose a name and location for the output movie file, and then click Save. For the location, choose something easy to find, like your desktop.

13 Click the Render button to process all items in the render queue. The Render Queue panel shows the progress of the

rendering operation. A sound is generated when rendering is complete.

You’ve created, rendered, and exported a movie.

You can import the movie that you’ve created and preview it in After Effects, or you can navigate to the movie and play it usi

ng a movie player such as QuickTime Player or Windows Media Player.

More Help topics

Activating tools (keyboard shortcuts)

Import footage items

Dynamic Link and After Effects

Dynamic Link features work only between applications of the same major version, such as After Effects CC 2014 with Premiere Pro CC 2014. Dynamic Link features do not work between applications that are not of the same major version, such as After Effects CC and Premiere Pro CS6. For CS6 versions of the applications, Dynamic Link features are only available with the Creative Suite Production Premium and Creative Suite Master Collection editions; Dynamic Link features do not work between CS6 applications that have been installed and activated as separate applications.

About Dynamic Link

In the past, sharing media assets among post-production applications required you to render and export your work from one application before importing it into another. This workflow was inefficient and time-consuming. If you wanted to change the original asset, you rendered and exported the asset again. Multiple rendered and exported versions of an asset consume disk space, and they can lead to file-management challenges.

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Dynamic Link offers an alternative to this workflow. You can create dynamic links between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. Creating a dynamic link is as simple as importing any other type of asset. Dynamically linked assets appear with unique icons and label colors to help you identify them. Dynamic links are saved in projects generated by these applications.

Create and link to After Effects compositions with Dynamic Link

You can create new After Effects compositions, and dynamically link to them from Adobe Premiere Pro. You can also dynamically link to existing After Effects compositions from Adobe Premiere Pro.

Create a composition from clips in Adobe Premiere Pro

You can replace selected clips in Adobe Premiere Pro with a dynamically linked After Effects composition based on those clips. The new composition inherits the sequence settings from Adobe Premiere Pro.

1 Open Premiere Pro and select the clips you want to replace.

2 Right-click any of the selected clips.

3 Select Replace With After Effects Composition.

After Effects opens (if it is not already open) and a new linked composition is created.

Create a dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro

Creating a new dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro launches After Effects. After Effects then creates a project and composition with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If After Effects is already running, it creates a composition in the current project.) The new composition name is based on the Adobe Premiere Pro project name, followed by Linked Comp [x].

1 In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New After Effects Composition. In the 2014 version

of Premiere Pro, you can import compositions using Media Browser. See the following sections in Premiere Pro for more information:

• Import files with Media Browser

• Adobe Dynamic Link

2 If the After Effects Save As dialog box appears, enter a name and location for the After Effects project, and click Save.

When you create a dynamically linked After Effects composition, the composition duration is set to 30 seconds. To change the duration, select the composition in After Effects, choose Composition > Composition Settings. Click the

c tab, and specify a new value for Duration.

asi

Link to an existing composition

For best results, match composition settings (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to the settings in the Adobe Premiere Pro.

❖ Do one of the following:

• In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > ImportAfter Effects Composition. Choose an After

Effects project file (.aep), and then choose one or more compositions.

• In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose an After Effects project file and click Open. Then choose a composition in the

displayed dialog box and click OK.

• Drag one or more compositions from the After Effects Project panel to the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel.

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• Drag an After Effects project file into the Premiere Pro Project panel. If the After Effects project file contains

multiple compositions, the Import Composition dialog box opens.

Note: Y

ou can link to a single After Effects composition multiple times in a single Adobe Premiere Pro project.

Dynamically linked <span class="uicontrol">After Effects</span> compositions

Modify a dynamically linked composition in After Effects

Use the Edit Original command in Adobe Premiere Pro to modify a linked After Effects composition. Once the composition is open in After Effects, you can change the composition without having to use the Edit Original command again.

1 Select the Af ter Effec ts composition in Adobe Premiere Pro, or choose a lin ked clip in the Timeline, and choose Edit

> Edit Original.

2 Change the composition in After Effects. Then, switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro to view your changes.

The changes made in After Effects appear in Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro stops using any preview files rend

ered for the clip before the changes.

Note: You can change the name of the composition in After Effects after creating a dynamic link to it from Adobe Premiere Pro

. Adobe Premiere Pro does not update the linked composition name in the Project panel. Adobe Premiere Pro does retain

the dynamic link, however.

Delete a dynamically linked composition or clip

You can delete a linked composition from an Adobe Premiere Pro project at any time, even if the composition is used in a project.

You can delete linked clips from the timeline of an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence or timeline at any time.

❖ In Adobe Premiere Pro, select the linked composition or clip and press the Delete key.

Create a linked sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro with Dynamic Link

Link to a new sequence

Creating an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence from After Effects launches Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro then creates a project and sequence with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If Adobe Premiere Pro is already running, it creates a sequence in the current project.)

❖ In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New Premiere Pro Sequence.

Link to an existing sequence

For best results, match sequence settings and project settings in Adobe Premiere Pro (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to those settings in the After Effects project.

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Do one of the following:

• In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import Premiere Pro Sequence. Choose an Adobe Premiere

Proproject, and then choose one or more sequences.

• Drag one or more sequences from the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel to the After Effects Project panel.

Dynamic Link performance

A linked clip can refer to a complex source composition. Actions you perform on the complex source composition require additional processing time. After Effects takes time to apply the actions and make the final data available to Adobe Premiere Pro. In some cases, the additional processing time delays preview or playback.

To reduce playback delays, do one of the following:

• take the linked composition offline

• disable a linked clip to temporarily stop referencing a composition

• render the composition and replace the dynamically linked composition with the rendered file

If you commonly work with complex source compositions, try adding RAM or a faster processor.

Note: A linked After Effects composition will not support Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing. See

prove performance by optimizing memory, cache, and multiprocessing settings.

More Help topics

Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects

Importing from After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro

Working with After Effects and other applications

Working with Adobe Bridge and After Effects

Adobe Bridge is the control center for Adobe Creative Suite software. Use Adobe Bridge to browse for project templates and animation presets; run cross-product workflow automation scripts; view and manage files and folders; organize your files by assigning keywords, labels, and ratings to them; search for files and folders; and view, edit, and add metadata.

• To open Adobe Bridge from After Effects, choose File > Browse In Bridge.

• To reveal a file in Adobe Bridge, select a file in the Project panel and choose File > Reveal In Bridge.

• To use Adobe Bridge to browse for animation presets, choose Animation > Browse Presets.

Adobe Bridge is part of the Creative Cloud suite of applications and can be downloaded and installed through Creative Clo

ud. See the help documentation and the Adobe Bridge CC product page for more information.

See this video to get an overview of Adobe Bridge CC.

After Effects includes template projects that include entire DVD menus for you to use as a basis for your own DVD menus. To use Adobe Bridge to browse and import these template projects, choose File > Browse Template Projects. (See

Template projects and example projects.)

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Working with Photoshop and After Effects

If you use Photoshop to create still images, you can use After Effects to bring those still images together and make them move and change. In After Effects, you can animate an entire Photoshop image or any of its layers. You can even animate individual properties of Photoshop images, such as the properties of a layer style. If you use After Effects to create movies, you can use Photoshop to refine the individual frames of those movies.

Comparative advantages for specific tasks

The strengths of After Effects are in its animation and automation features. This means that After Effects excels at tasks that can be automated from one frame to another. For example, you can use the motion tracking features of After Effects to track the motion of a microphone boom, and then automatically apply that same motion to a stroke made with the Clone Stamp tool. In this manner, you can remove the microphone from every frame of a shot, without having to paint the microphone out by hand on each frame.

In contrast, Photoshop has excellent tools for painting and drawing.

Deciding which application to use for painting depends on the task. Paint strokes in Photoshop directly affect the pixels o

f t

he layer. Paint strokes in After Effects are elements of an effect, each of which can be turned on or off or modified at any time. If you want to have complete control of each paint stroke after you’ve applied it, or if you want to animate the paint strokes themselves, use the After Effects paint tools. If the purpose of applying a paint stroke is to permanently modify a still image, use the Photoshop paint tools. If you are applying several paint strokes by hand to get rid of dust, consider using the Photoshop paint tools.

The animation and video features in Photoshop Extended include simple keyframe-based animation. After Effects uses a si

milar i

nterface, though the breadth and flexibility of its animation features are far greater.

After Effects can also automatically create 3D layers to mimic the planes created by the Photoshop Vanishing Point feat

ure.

Exchanging still images

After Effects can import and export still images in many formats, but you will usually want to use the native Photoshop PSD format when transferring individual frames or still image sequences between After Effects and Photoshop.

When importing or exporting a PSD file, After Effects can preserve individual layers, masks, layer styles, and most othe

r attributes. When you import a PSD file into After Effects, you can choose whether to import it as a flattened image

or as a composition with its layers separate and intact.

It is often a good idea to prepare a still image in Photoshop before importing it into After Effects. Examples of such pre

tion include correcting color, scaling, and cropping. It is often better for you to do something once to the source

para image in Photoshop than to have After Effects perform the same operation many times per second as it renders each frame for previews or final output.

By creating your new PSD document from the Photoshop New File dialog box with a Film & Video preset, you can start w

h a document that is set up correctly for a specific video output type. If you are already working in After Effects, you can create a new PSD document that matches your composition and project settings by choosing File > New > Adobe Photoshop File.

Exchanging movies

You can also exchange video files, such as QuickTime movies, between Photoshop and After Effects. When you open a movie in Photoshop, a video layer is created that refers to the source footage file. Video layers allow you to paint nondestructively on the movie’s frames, much as After Effects works with layers with movies as their sources. When you save a PSD file with a video layer, you save the edits that you made to the video layer, not edits to the source footage itself.

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You can also render a movie directly from Photoshop. For example, you can create a QuickTime movie from Photoshop that can then be imported into After Effects.

Color

After Effects works internally with colors in an RGB (red, green, blue) color space. Though After Effects can convert CMYK images to RGB, you should do video and animation work in Photoshop in RGB.

If relevant for your final output, it is better to ensure that the colors in your image are broadcast-safe in Photoshop b

e you import the image into After Effects. A good way to do this is to assign the appropriate destination color

efor space—for example, SDTV (Rec. 601)—to the document in Photoshop. After Effects performs color management according to color profiles embedded in documents, including imported PSD files.

Working with Flash and After Effects

If you use Adobe® Flash® to create video or animation, you can use After Effects to edit and refine the video. For example, from Flash you can export animations and applications as QuickTime movies or Flash Video (FLV) files. You can then use After Effects to edit and refine the video.

If you use After Effects to edit and composite video, you can then use Flash to publish that video.

Flash and After Effects use separate terms for some concepts that they share in common. The following table lists the dif

ences between the terms used in the two applications:

fer

After Effects Flash Professional

Composition Movie Clip

Composition frame (Composition panel) Stage

Project panel Library panel

Project files FLA files

Render and export a movie Publish SWF file

Additional resources

The following articles provide additional information about using Flash and After Effects together:

• Richard Harrington and Marcus Geduld provide an excerpt, "Flash Essentials for After Effects Users", of their book

After Effects for Flash | Flash for After Effects on the Peachpit website. In this chapter, Richard and Marcus explain Flash in terms that an After Effects user can understand. http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1350895

• Richard Harrington and Marcus Geduld also provide "After Effects Essentials for Flash Users", another excerpt from

their book After Effects for Flash | Flash for After Effects. In this chapter, Richard and Marcus explain After Effects in terms that a Flash user can understand. http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1350894

• Robert Powers provides a video tutorial on the Slippery Rock NYC website that shows the basics of using After

Effects from the perspective of someone who is familiar with Flash Professional.

Exporting QuickTime video from Flash

If you create animations or applications with Flash, you can export them as QuickTime movies using the File > Export > Ex

port Movie command in Flash. For a Flash animation, you can optimize the video output for animation. For a Flash application, Flash renders video of the application as it runs, allowing the user to manipulate it. This lets you capture the branches or states of your application that you want to include in the video file.

Importing and publishing video in Flash

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When you import a movie file into Flash, you can use various techniques, such as scripting or Flash components, to control the visual interface that surrounds your video. For example, you might include playback controls or other graphics. You can also add graphic layers on top of the movie for composite results.

Composite graphics, animation, and video

Flash and After Effects each include many capabilities that allow you to perform complex compositing of video and g

phics. Which application you choose to use will depend on your personal preferences and the type of final output

you want to create.

Flash is the more web-oriented of the two applications, with its small final file size. Flash also allows for run-time c

tr ol of a nim ation . Af ter Ef fect s is or ien ted to ward v ide o an d fi lm p roduc tion, provi des a wide r ange o f vi sua l ef fec ts,

and is generally used to create video files as final output.

Both applications can be used to create original graphics and animation. Both use a timeline and offer scripting c

abilities for controlling animation programmatically. After Effects includes a larger set of effects.

Both applications allow you to place graphics on separate layers for compositing. These layers can be turned on and off as needed. Bo

In Flash, composites do not affect the video content directly; they affect only the appearance of the video during p

yback in Flash Player. In contrast, when you composite with imported video in After Effects, the video file you

export actually incorporates the composited graphics and effects.

th also allow you to apply effects to the contents of individual layers.

Because all drawing and painting in After Effects is done on layers separate from any imported video, it is always nond

ructive. Flash has both destructive and nondestructive drawing modes.

est

Importing Flash SWF files into After Effects

Flash has a unique set of vector art tools that make it useful for a variety of drawing tasks not possible in After Effects or A

dobe® Illustrator®. You can import SWF files into After Effects to composite them with other video or render them as video with additional creative effects. Interactive content and scripted animation are not retained. Animation defined by keyframes is retained.

Each SWF file imported into After Effects is flattened into a single continuously rasterized layer, with its alpha channel p

res

erved. Continuous rasterization means that graphics stay sharp as they are scaled up. This import method allows you to use the root layer or object of your SWF files as a smoothly rendered element in After Effects, allowing the best capabilities of each tool to work together.

Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects

Ad obe Pre mier e Pro is d esig ned t o captu re, imp or t, a nd e dit m ovi es. A fter Ef fec ts is desi gned to cr eat e mo tion graphi cs, apply visual effects, composite visual elements, perform color correction, and perform other post-production tasks for movies.

You can easily exchange projects, compositions, sequences, tracks, and layers between After Effects and Adobe

iere Pro:

Prem

• You can import an Adobe Premiere Pro project into After Effects. (See Import an Adobe Premiere Pro project.)

• You can export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project. (See Export an After Effects project as an

Adobe Premiere Pro project .)

• You can copy and paste layers and tracks between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. (See Copy between After

Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro.)

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

If you have Adobe Premiere Pro, you can do the following:

• Use Adobe Dynamic Link to work with After Effects compositions in Adobe Premiere Pro. A dynamically linked

composition appears as a clip in Adobe Premiere Pro.

• Use Adobe Dynamic Link to work with Adobe Premiere Pro sequences in After Effects. A dynamically linked

sequence appears as a footage item in After Effects.

• Start After Effects from within Premiere Pro and create a new composition with settings that match the settings of

your Premiere Pro project.

• Select a set of clips in Adobe Premiere Pro and convert them to a composition in After Effects.

For information on using Dynamic Link with After Effects and Premiere Pro, see Dynamic Link and After Effects and the relevant sections of Adobe Premiere Pro Help.

Working with Adobe Media Encoder and After Effects

You can use Adobe Media Encoder to export video from After Effects. Use Adobe Media Encoder to encode formats like H.264, MPEG-2, and WMV. Formats such as these are encoded at a higher quality than the Render Queue. Other formats, are available in Adobe Media Encoder, but not in After Effects. For example, the DNxHD format is available in Adobe Media Encoder CC, but not in After Effects CC.

For details about using Adobe Media Encoder with After Effects, see Adobe Media Encoder.

See this tutorial to learn how to export After Effects compositions using Adobe Media Encoder.

Edit in Adobe Audition

While working in After Effects, you can use the more comprehensive audio-editing capabilities of Adobe Audition to fine-tune your audio. You can use the Edit in Adobe Audition command to start Adobe Audition from within After Effects.

If you edit an audio-only file (for example, a WAV file) in Adobe Audition, you change the original file. If you edit a l

that contains both audio and video (for example, an AVI file), you edit a copy of the source audio file.

ayer

1 Select the layer that contains the audio that you want to edit. The item must be of a type that is editable in Adobe

Audition.

2 Choose Edit > Edit In Adobe Audition to open the clip in Edit view in Adobe Audition.

3 Edit the file, and then do one of the following:

• If you’re editing an audio-only layer, choose File > Save to apply your edits to the original audio file. You can also

choose File > Save As to apply your edits to a copy of the audio file. If you choose File > Save As, import the copy of the file into After Effects.

• If you’re editing a layer that contains both audio and video, choose File > Save As. After you save the file, import

it into After Effects. Then, add it to the composition, and mute the original audio in the audio-video clip by deselecting the Audio switch in the Timeline panel.

Note: Any effects applied to audio in After Effects aren’t incl

Tutorials and resources about using Adobe Audition to modify audio from After Effects can be found on this post from

the After Effects Region of Interest blog.

uded in the copy that is sent to Adobe Audition.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

More Help topics

Adobe Bridge

Template projects and example projects

Animation presets overview and resources

Preparing and importing Photoshop files

3D object layers from Photoshop

Video and animation overview

Vanishing Point

Web links, chapter links, cue points, and markers

Importing from Adobe After Effects

Keyboard shortcuts reference

General (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Select all Ctrl+A Command+A

Deselect all F2 or Ctrl+Shift+A F2 or Command+Shift+A

Rename selected layer, composition, folder, effect, group, or mask

Open selected layer, composition, or footage item

Move selected layers, masks, effects, or render items down (back) or up (forward) in stacking order

Move selected layers, masks, effects, or render items t

o bottom (back) or top (front) of

stacking order

Extend selection to next item in Projec t panel, Render Queue

Extend selection to previous item in Project panel, Render Queue panel, or Effect Controls panel

Duplicate selected layers, masks, effects, text selectors, animators, puppet meshes, shapes, render items, output modules, or compositions

panel, or Effect Controls panel

Enter on main keyboard Return

Enter on numeric keypad Enter on numeric keypad

Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow or Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow Command+Option+Down Arrow or

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Down Arrow or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Up Arrow

Shift+Down Arrow Shift+Down Arrow

Shift+Up Arrow Shift+Up Arrow

Ctrl+D Command+D

Command+Option+Up Arrow

Command+Option+Shift+Down Arrow or Command+Option+Shift+Up Arrow

Quit Ctrl+Q Command+Q

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Undo Ctrl+Z Command+Z

Redo Ctrl+Shift+Z Command+Shift+Z

Purge All Memory Ctrl+Alt+/ (on numeric keypad) Command+Option+/ (on numeric keypad)

Interrupt running a script Esc Esc

Projects (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

New project Ctrl+Alt+N Command+Option+N

Open project Ctrl+O Command+O

Open most recent project Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P Command+Option+Shift+P

New folder in Project panel Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N Command+Option+Shift+N

Open Project Settings dialog box Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K Command+Option+Shift+K

Find in Project panel Ctrl+F Command+F

Cycle through color bit depths for project Alt-click bit-depth button at

panel

Open Project Settings dialog box Click bit-depth button at bottom of Project

panel

bottom of Project

Option-click bit-depth button at bottom of Project panel

Click bit-depth button at bottom of Project panel

Preferences (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Open Preferences dialog box Ctrl+Alt+; (semicolon) Command+Option+; (semicolon)

Restore default preferences settings Hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift while starting After

Panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows (k

Effe

cts

eyboard shortcuts)

Note: (Mac OS) Shortcuts involving function keys F9-F12 may conflict with shortcuts used by the operating system. See Mac OS Help for instructions to reassign Dashboard & Expose shortcuts.

Result Windows Mac OS

Open or close Project panel Ctrl+0 Command+0

Open or close Render Queue panel Ctrl+Alt+0 Command+Option+0

Open or close Tools panel Ctrl+1 Command+1

Hold down Command+Option+Shift while starting After Effects

Open or close Info panel Ctrl+2 Command+2

Open or close Preview panel Ctrl+3 Command+3

Open or close Audio panel Ctrl+4 Command+4

Open or close Effects & Presets panel Ctrl+5 Command+5

Open or close Character panel Ctrl+6 Command+6

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Open or close Paragraph panel Ctrl+7 Command+7

Open or close Paint panel Ctrl+8 Command+8

Open or close Brushes panel Ctrl+9 Command+9

Open or close Effect Controls panel for selected layer

Open Flowchart panel for project flowchart Ctrl+F11 Command+F11

Switch to workspace Shift+F10, Shift+F11, or Shift+F12 Shift+F10, Shift+F11, or Shift+F12

Close active viewer or panel (closes content

)

first

Close active panel or all viewers of type of act

ive viewer (closes content first). For example, if a Timeline panel is active, this command closes all Timeline panels.

Split the frame containing the active viewer and create a new viewer with opposite locked/unlocked state

Maximize or restore panel under pointer ` (accent grave) ` (accent grave)

Resize application window or floating window to fit screen. (Press again to resize window so that contents fill the screen.)

Move application window or floating window to main monitor; resize window to fit screen. (Press again to resize window so that contents fill the screen.)

Toggle activation between Composition panel a

nd Timeline panel for current

composition

F3 or Ctrl+Shift+T F3 or Command+Shift+T

Ctrl+W Command+W

Ctrl+Shift+W Command+Shift+W

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N Command+Option+Shift+N

Ctrl+\ (backslash) Command+\ (backslash)

Ctrl+Alt+\ (backslash) Command+Option+\ (backslash)

\ (backslash) \ (backslash)

Cycle to previous or next item in active viewer

ample, cycle through open

(for ex compositions)

Cycle to previous or next panel in active frame (for ex

ample, cycle through open Timeline

panels)

Activate a view in a multi-view layout in the Composition panel without affecting layer selection

Shift+, (comma) or Shift+. (period) Shift+, (comma) or Shift+. (period)

Alt+Shift+, (comma) or Alt+Shift+. (period) Option+Shift+, (comma) or Option+Shift+.

(period)

click with middle mouse button click with middle mouse button

Activating tools (keyboard shortcuts)

Note: You can activate some tools only under certain circumstances. For example, you can activate a camera tool only when the active composition contains a camera layer.

To momentarily activate a tool with a single-letter keyboard shortcut, hold down the key; release the key to return to the previously active tool. To activate a tool and keep it active, press the key and immediately release it.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Cycle through tools Alt-click tool button in Tools panel Option-click tool button in Tools panel

Activate Selection tool V V

Activate Hand tool H H

Temporarily activate Hand tool Hold down spacebar or the middle mouse

Activate Zoom In tool Z Z

Activate Zoom Out tool Alt (when Zoom In tool is active) Option (when Zoom In tool is active)

Activate Rotation tool W W

Activate Roto Brush tool Alt+W Option+W

Activate and cycle through Camera tools (Un

ified Camera, Orbit Camera, Track XY

Camera, and Track Z Camera)

Activate Pan Behind tool Y Y

Activate and cycle through mask and shape

s (Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse,

tool Polygon, Star)

Activate and cycle through Type tools (Horizontal and Vertical)

Activate and cycle between the Pen and Mask Feather tools. Note - You can turn off this setting in the Preferences dialog box.

Temporarily activate Selection tool when a pen t

ool is selected

Temporarily activate pen tool when the Selection tool is selected and pointer is over a path (Add Vertex tool when pointer is over a segment; Convert Vertex tool when pointer is over a vertex)

button.

C C

Q Q

Ctrl+T Command+T

G G

Ctrl Command

Ctrl+Alt Command+Option

ld down spacebar or the middle mouse

button.

Activate and cycle through Brush, Clone

and Eraser tools

Stamp,

Activate and cycle through Puppet tools Ctrl+P Command+P

Temporarily convert Selection tool to Shape

lication tool

Dup

Temporarily convert Selection tool to Direct Selection tool

Ctrl+B Command+B

Alt (in shape layer) Option (in shape layer)

Ctrl (in shape layer) Command (in shape layer)

Compositions and the work area (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

New composition Ctrl+N Command+N

Open Composition Settings dialog box for selec

ted composition

Ctrl+K Command+K

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Set beginning or end of work area to current time

Set work area to duration of selected layers or, if no layers are selected, set work area to composition duration

Open Composition Mini-Flowchart for active

ion

composit

note: If you tap Shift several times without any interv

ening keystrokes, you may invoke a feature of your operating system’s StickyKeys or Sticky Keys accessibility software. See your operating system’s documentation for disabling this feature.

Activate the most recently active composition that

is in the same composition hierarchy (network of nested compositions) as the currently active composition

B or N B or N

Ctrl+Alt+B Command+Option+B

Tab Tab

Shift+Esc Shift+Esc

Time navigation (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Go to specific time Alt+Shift+J Option+Shift+J

Go to beginning or end of work area Shift+Home or Shift+End Shift+Home or Shift+End

Go to previous or next visible item in time ruler (keyframe, layer marker, work area beginning or end)

note: Also goes to beginning, end, or base frame of Roto Brush span if viewing Roto Brush in Layer panel.

Go to beginning of compositio footage item

Go to end of composition, layer, or footage item

Go forward 1 frame Page Down or Ctrl+Right Arrow Page Down or Command+Right Arrow

Go forward 10 frames Shift+Page Down or Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow Shift+Page Down or Command+Shift+Right

Go backward 1 frame Page Up or Ctrl+Left Arrow Page Up or Command+Left Arrow

Go backward 10 frames Shift+Page Up or Ctrl+Shift+Left Arrow Shift+Page Up or Command+Shift+Left Arrow

Go to layer In point I I

Go to layer Out point O O

Go to previous In point or Out point Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left Arrow Command+Option+Shift+Left Arrow

Go to next In point or Out point Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right Arrow Command+Option+Shift+Right Arrow

Scroll to current time in Timeline panel D D

n, layer, or

J or K J or K

Home or Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow Home or Command+Option+Left Arrow

End or Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow End or Command+Option+Right Arrow

Arro

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Previews (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Start or stop standard preview spacebar spacebar

RAM preview 0 on numeric keypad* 0 on numeric keypad* or Control+0 (zero) on

RAM

preview with alternate settings Shift+0 on numeric keypad* Shift+0 on numeric keypad* or

Save RAM preview Ctrl-click RAM Preview button or press Ctrl+0

Save RAM preview with alternate settings Ctrl+Shift-click RAM Preview button or press

Preview only audio, from current time . (decimal point) on numeric keypad* . (decimal point) on numeric keypad* or

Preview only audio, in work area Alt+. (decimal point) on numeric keypad* Option+. (decimal point) on numeric keypad*

Manually preview (scrub) video Drag or Alt-drag current-time indicator,

Manually preview (scrub) audio Ctrl-drag current-time indicator Command-drag current-time indicator

RAM preview number of frames specified by

ernate RAM Preview preference (defaults to

Alt

Toggle Mercury Transmit video preview / (on numeric keypad) / (on numeric keypad), Control+/ on main

Take snapshot Shift+F5, Shift+F6, Shift+F7, or Shift+F8 Shift+F5, Shift+F6, Shift+F7, or Shift+F8

on numeric keypad*

Ctrl+Shift+0 on numeric keypad*

ing on Live Update setting

depend

Alt+0 on numeric keypad* Option+0 on numeric keypad* or

main keyboard

Shift+Control+0 (zero) on main keyboard

Command-click RAM Preview button or press Command+0 on numeric keypad*

Command+Shift-click RAM Preview button or press Command+Shift+0 on numeric keypad*

Control+. (period) on main keyboard

or Control+Option+. (period) on main keyboard

Drag or Option-drag current-time indicator, depending on Live Update setting

Control+Option+0 (zero) on main keyboard

keyboard

Display snapshot in active viewer F5, F6, F7, or F8 F5, F6, F7, or F8

Purge snapshot Ctrl+Shift+F5, Ctrl+Shift+F6, Ctrl+Shift +F7, or

Fast Previews > Off Ctrl+Alt+1 Command+Option+1

Fast Previews > Adaptive Resolution Ctrl+Alt+2 Command+Option+2

Fast Previews > Draft Ctrl+Alt+3 Command+Option+3

Fast Previews > Fast Draft Ctrl+Alt+4 Command+Option+4

Fast Previews > Wireframe Ctrl+Alt+5 Command+Option+5

Ctrl+Sh

ift+F8

Command+Shift+F5, Command+Shift+F6, Command+Shift+F7, or Command+Shift+F8

Note: Some shortcuts are marked with an asterisk (*) to remind you to make sure that Num Lock is on when you use the numeric keypad.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Views (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Turn display color management on or off for active

view

Show red, green, blue, or alpha channel as grayscale

Show colorized red, green, or blue channel Alt+Shift+1, Alt+Shift+2, Alt+Shift+3 Option+Shift+1, Option+Shift+2,

Toggle showing straight RGB color Alt+Shift+4 Option+Shift+4

Show alpha boundary (outline between transpar

ent and opaque regions) in Layer

panel

Show alpha overlay (colored overlay on

ent regions) in Layer panel

transpar

Show Refine Edge X-ray (After Effects CC 12.0 and later)

Reset view in the Composition panel to 100% and center composition in the panel

Zoom in in Composition, Layer, or Footage panel

Zoom out in Composition, Layer, or Footage panel

Zoom to 100% in Composition, Layer, or Footage panel

Shift+/ (on numeric keypad) Shift+/ (on numeric keypad)

Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3, Alt+4 Option+1, Option+2, Option+3, Option+4

Option+Shift+3

Alt+5 Option+5

Alt+6 Option+6

Alt+X Option+X

Double-click Hand tool Double-click Hand tool

. (period) on main keyboard . (period) on main keyboard

, (comma) , (comma)

/ (on main keyboard) / (on main keyboard)

Zoom to fit in Composition, Layer, or Footage panel

Zoom up to 100% to fit in Composition, Layer,

age panel

or Foot

Set resolution to Full, Half, or Custom in Composition panel

Open View Options dialog box for active Composition panel

Zoom in time = (equal sign) on main keyboard = (equal sign) on main keyboard

Zoom out time - (hyphen) on main keyboard - (hyphen) on main keyboard

Zoom in Timeline panel to single-frame units (Pre

ss again to zoom out to show entire composition duration.)

Zoom out in Timeline panel to show the entire

ion duration (Press again to zoom

composit back in to the duration specified by the Time Navigator.)

Prevent images from being ren previews in viewer panels

Show or hide safe zones ' (apostrophe) ' (apostrophe)

Show or hide grid Ctrl+' (apostrophe) Command+' (apostrophe)

dered for

Shift+/ (on main keyboard) Shift+/ (on main keyboard)

Alt+/ (on main keyboard) Option+/ (on main keyboard)

Ctrl+J, Ctrl+Shift+J, Ctrl+Alt+J Command+J, Command+Shift+J,

Command+Option+J

Ctrl+Alt+U Command+Option+U

; (semicolon) ; (semicolon)

Shift+; (semicolon) Shift+; (semicolon)

Caps Lock Caps Lock

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Show or hide proportional grid Alt+' (apostrophe) Option+' (apostrophe)

Show or hide rulers Ctrl+R Command+R

Show or hide guides Ctrl+; (semicolon) Command+; (semicolon)

Turn snapping to grid on or off Ctrl+Shift+' (apostrophe) Command+Shift+' (apostrophe)

Turn snapping to guides on or off Ctrl+Shift+; (semicolon) Command+Shift+; (semicolon)

Lock or unlock guides Ctrl+Alt+Shift+; (semicolon) Command+Option+Shift+; (semicolon)

Show or hide layer controls (masks, motion paths, light and camera wireframes, effect control points, and layer handles)

Ctrl+Shift+H Command+Shift+H

Footage (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Import one file or image sequence Ctrl+I Command+I

Import multiple files or image sequences Ctrl+Alt+I Command+Option+I

Open movie in an After Effects Footage panel Alt-double-click Option-double-click

Add selected items to most recently activated composit

ion

Replace selected source footage for selected layers with footage item selected in Project panel

Replace source for a selected layer Alt-drag footage item from Project panel onto

Delete a footage item without a warning Ctrl+Backspace Command+Delete

Open Interpret Footage dialog box for

ted footage item

selec

Remember footage interpretation Ctrl+Alt+C Command+Option+C

Ctrl+/ (on main keyboard) Command+/ (on main keyboard)

Ctrl+Alt+/ (on main keyboard) Command+Option+/ (on main keyboard)

selected layer

Ctrl+Alt+G Command+Option+G

Option-drag footage item from Project panel onto selected layer

Edit selected footage item in application with which i

t’s associated (Edit Original)

Replace selected footage item Ctrl+H Command+H

Reload selected footage items Ctrl+Alt+L Command+Option+L

Set proxy for selected footage item Ctrl+Alt+P Command+Option+P

Ctrl+E Command+E

Effects and animation presets (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Delete all effects from selected layers Ctrl+Shift+E Command+Shift+E

Apply most recently applied effec t to selected layers

Apply most recently applied animation preset to selected layers

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E Command+Option+Shift+E

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F Command+Option+Shift+F

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Layers (keyboard shortcuts)

Note: Some operations do not affect shy layers.

Result Windows Mac OS

New solid layer Ctrl+Y Command+Y

New null layer Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Y Command+Option+Shift+Y

New adjustment layer Ctrl+Alt+Y Command+Option+Y

Select layer (1-999) by its number (enter digits

for two-digit and three-digit numbers)

rapidly

Toggle selection of layer (1-999) by its number (enter digits rapidly for two-digit and threedigit numbers)

Select next layer in stacking order Ctrl+Down Arrow Command+Down Arrow

Select previous layer in stacking order Ctrl+Up Arrow Command+Up Arrow

Extend selection to next layer in stacking order

Extend selection to previous layer in stacking order

Deselect all layers Ctrl+Shift+A Command+Shift+A

Scroll topmost selected layer to top of

panel

Timeline

Show or hide Parent column Shift+F4 Shift+F4

Show or hide Layer Switches and Modes colum

Setting the sampling method for selected layers (Best/Bilinear)

Setting the sampling method for selected

rs (Best/Bicubic)

laye

0-9 on numeric keypad* 0-9 on numeric keypad*

Shift+0-9 on numeric keypad* Shift+0-9 on numeric keypad*

rl+Shift+Down Arrow Command+Shift+Down Arrow

Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow Command+Shift+Up Arrow

X X

F4 F4

Alt+B Option+B

Alt+Shift+B Option+Shift+B

Turn off all other solo switches Alt-click solo switch Option-click solo switch

Turn Video (eyeball) switch on or off for

ted layers

selec

Turn off Video switch for all video layers other than selected layers

Open settings dialog box for selected solid, light, camera, null, or adjustment layer

Paste layers at current time Ctrl+Alt+V Command+Option+V

Split selected layers (If no layers are selected, split

all layers.)

Precompose selected layers Ctrl+Shift+C Command+Shift+C

Open Effect Controls panel for selected layers Ctrl+Shift+T Command+Shift+T

Open layer in Layer panel (opens source composition for precomposition layer in Composition panel)

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V Command+Option+Shift+V

Ctrl+Shift+V Command+Shift+V

Ctrl+Shift+Y Command+Shift+Y

Ctrl+Shift+D Command+Shift+D

Double-click a layer Double-click a layer

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Open source of a layer in Footage panel (opens precomposition layer in Layer panel)

Reverse selected layers in time Ctrl+Alt+R Command+Option+R

Enable time remapping for selected layers Ctrl+Alt+T Command+Option+T

Move selected layers so that their In point or

point is at the current time

Out

Trim In point or Out point of selected layers to current time

Add or remove expression for a property Alt-click stopwatch Option-click stopwatch

Add an effect (or multiple selected effects) to

ted layers

selec

Set In point or Out point by time-stretching Ctrl+Shift+, (comma) or Ctrl+Alt+, (comma) Command+Shift+, (comma) or

Move selected layers so that their In Point is at beginning of composition

Move selected layers so that t heir Out point is at end of composition

Lock selected layers Ctrl+L Command+L

Unlock all layers Ctrl+Shift+L Command+Shift+L

Set Quality to Best, Draft, or Wireframe for selec

ted layers

Alt-double-click a layer Option-double-click a layer

[ (left bracket) or ] (right bracket) [ (left bracket) or ] (right bracket)

Alt+[ (left bracket) or Alt+] (right bracket) Option+[ (left bracket) or Option+] (right

Double-click effect selection in Effects & Presets panel

Alt+Home Option+Home

Alt+End Option+End

Ctrl+U, Ctrl+Shift+U, or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U Command+U, Command+Shift+U,

bracket)

Double-click effect selection in Effects & Presets panel

Comman

d+Option+, (comma)

Command+Option+Shift+U

Cycle forward or backward through blending modes for selected layers

Find in Timeline panel Ctrl+F Command+F

Shift+ - (hyphen) or Shift+= (equal sign) on the main keyboard

Note: Some shortcuts are marked with an asterisk (*) to remind you to make sure that Num Lock is on when you use the numeric keypad.

Showing properties and groups in the Timeline panel (keyboard shortcuts)

Note: This table contains double-letter shortcuts (for example, LL). To use these shortcuts, press the letters in quick succession.

Result Windows Mac OS

Find in Timeline panel Ctrl+F Command+F

Toggle expansion of selected layers to show all proper

Toggle expansion of property group and all child property groups to show all properties

Show only Anchor Point property (for lights and cameras, Point Of Interest)

Show only Audio Levels property L L

Show only Mask Feather property F F

ties

Ctrl+` (accent grave) Command+` (accent grave)

Ctrl-click triangle to the left of the property group name

A A

Command-click triangle to the left of the property group name

Show only Mask Path property M M

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Show only Mask Opacity property TT TT

Show only Opacity property (for lights,

Intensit

Show only Position property P P

Show only Rotation and Orientation prop

erties

Show only Scale property S S

Show only Time Remap property RR RR

Show only instances of missing effects FF FF

Show only Effects property group E E

Show only mask property groups MM MM

Show only Material Options property group AA AA

Show only expressions EE EE

Show only modified properties UU UU

Show only paint strokes, Roto Brush strokes, and Pu

ppet pins

Show only audio waveform LL LL

Show only properties with keyframes or

expressio

Show only selected properties and groups SS SS

T T

R R

PP PP

U U

Hide property or group Alt+Shift-click property or group name Option+Shift-click property or group name

Add or remove property or group from set

is shown

that

Add or remove keyframe at current time Alt+Shift+property shortcut Option+property shortcut

Shift+property or group shortcut Shift+property or group shortcut

Showing properties in the Effect Controls panel (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Toggle expansion of selected effects to show all proper

Toggle expansion of property group and all child property groups to show all properties

ties

Ctrl+` (accent grave) Command+` (accent grave)

Ctrl-click triangle to the left of the property group name

Command-click triangle to the left of the property group name

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Modifying layer properties (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Modify property value by default increments Drag property value Drag property value

Modify property value by 10x default increment

Modify property value by 1/10 default increments

Open Auto-Orientation dialog box for selected layers

Open Opacity dialog box for selected layers Ctrl+Shift+O Command+Shift+O

Open Rotation dialog box for selected layers Ctrl+Shift+R Command+Shift+R

Open Position dialog box for selected layers Ctrl+Shift+P Command+Shift+P

Center selected layers in view (modifies Position property to place anchor points of selected layers in center of current view)

Move selected layers 1 pixel at current magnificat

Move selected layers 10 pixels at current magnification (Position)

Move selected layers 1 frame earlier or later Alt+Page Up or Alt+Page Down Option+Page Up or Option+Page Down

Move selected layers 10 frames earlier or later Alt+Shift+Page Up or Alt+Shift+Page Down Option+Shif t+Page Up or Opti on+Shift+Page

ncrease or decrease Rotation (Z Rotation) of

selected layers by 1°

ion (Position)

Shift-drag property value Shift-drag property value

Ctrl-drag property value Command-drag property value

Ctrl+Alt+O Command+Alt+O

Ctrl+Home Command+Home

arrow key arrow key

Shift+arrow key Shift+arrow key

Down

+ (plus) or - (minus) on numeric keypad + (plus) or - (minus) on numeric keypad

Increase or decrease Rotation (Z Rotation) of selected layers by 10°

Increase or decrease Opacity (or Intensity for light layers) of selected layers by 1%

Increase or decrease Opacity (or Intensity for light layers) of selected layers by 10%

Increase Scale of selected layers by 1% Ctrl++ (plus) or Alt++ (plus) on numeric

Decrease Scale of selected layers by 1% Ctrl+- (minus) or Alt+- (minus) on numeric

Increase Scale of selected layers by 10% Ctrl+Shift++ (plus) or Alt+Shift++ (plus) on

Decrease Scale of selected layers by 10% Ctrl+Shift+- (minus) or Alt+Shift+- (minus) on

Modify Rotation or Orientation in 45° increments

Modify Scale, constrained to footage frame aspect ratio

Reset Rotation to 0° Double-click Rotation tool Double-click Rotation tool

Shift++ (plus) or Shift+- (minus) on numeric keypad

Ctrl+Alt++ (plus) or Ctrl+Alt+- (minus) on numeric keypad

Ctrl+Alt+Shift++ (plus) or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+(minus) on numeric keypad

keypad

numeric keypad

Shift-drag with Rotation tool Shift-drag with Rotation tool

hift-drag layer handle with Selection tool Shift-drag layer handle with Selection tool

Shift++ (plus) or Shift+- (minus) on numeric keypad

Control+Option++ (plus) or Control+Option+- (minus) on numeric keypad

Control+Option+Shift++ (plus) or Control+Option+Shift+- (minus) on numeric keypad

mmand++ (plus) or Option++ (plus) on

Co numeric keypad

Command+- (minus) or Option+- (minus) on numeric keypad

ommand+Shift++ (plus) or Option+Shift++

(plus) on numeric keypad

Command+Shift+- (minus) or Option+Shift+(minus) on numeric keypad

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Reset Scale to 100% Double-click Selection tool Double-click Selection tool

Scale and reposition selected layers to fit

ion

composit

Scale and reposition selected layers to fit composition width, preserving image aspect ratio for each layer

Scale and reposition selected layers to fit composit

ion height, preserving image aspect

ratio for each layer

Ctrl+Alt+F Command+Option+F

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H Command+Option+Shift+H

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+G Command+Option+Shift+G

3D layers (keyboard shortcuts)

Note: (Mac OS) Shortcuts involving function keys F9-F12 may conflict with shortcuts used by the operating system. See Mac OS Help for instructions to reassign Dashboard & Expose shortcuts.

Result Windows Mac OS

Switch to 3D view 1 (defaults to Front) F10 F10

Switch to 3D view 2 (defaults to Custom View 2)F11 F11

Switch to 3D view 3 (defaults to Active Camera)

Return to previous view Esc Esc

New light Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L Command+Option+Shift+L

F12 F12

New camera Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C Command+Option+Shift+C

Move the camera and its point of interest to look at selected 3D layers

With a camera tool selected and its point of interest to look at selected 3D layers

With a camera tool selected and its point of interest to look at all 3D layers

Turn Casts Shadows property on or off for selected 3D layers

, move the camera

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+\ Command+Option+Shift+\

F F

Ctrl+Shift+F Command+Shift+F

Alt+Shift+C Option+Shift+C

Keyframes and the Graph Editor (keyboard shortcuts)

Note: (Mac OS) Shortcuts involving function keys F9-F12 may conflict with shortcuts used by the operating system. See Mac OS Help for instructions to reassign Dashboard & Expose shortcuts.

Result Windows Mac OS

Toggle between Graph Editor and layer bar modes

Select all keyframes for a property Click property name Click property name

Select all visible keyframes and properties Ctrl+Alt+A Command+Option+A

Shift+F3 Shift+F3

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Workspace and workflow

Deselect all keyframes, properties, and property groups

Move keyframe 1 frame later or earlier Alt+Right Arrow or Alt+Left Arrow Option+Right Arrow or Option+Left Arrow

Move keyframe 10 frames later or earlier Alt+Shift+Right Arrow or Alt+Shift+Left

Set interpolation for selected keyframes (layer bar mode)

Set keyframe interpolation method to hold or Auto Bezier

Set keyframe interpolation method to linear or Auto Bezier

Set keyframe interpolation method to linear or hold

Easy ease selected keyframes F9 F9

Easy ease selected keyframes in Shift+F9 Shift+F9

Easy ease selected keyframes out Ctrl+Shift+F9 Command+Shift+F9

Set velocity for selected keyframes Ctrl+Shift+K Command+Shift+K

Add or remove keyframe at current time. For

erty shortcuts, see Showing properties

prop

and groups in the Timeline panel (keyboard shortcuts) .

Shift+F2 or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+A Shift+F2 or Command+Option+Shift+A

Arro

Ctrl+Alt+K Command+Option+K

Ctrl+Alt+H Command+Option+H

Ctrl-click in layer bar mode Command-click in layer bar mode

Ctrl+Alt-click in layer bar mode Command+Option-click in layer bar mode

Alt+Shift+property shortcut Option+property shortcut

Option+Shift+Right Arrow or Option+Shift+Left Arrow

Text (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

New text layer Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T Command+Option+Shift+T

Align selected horizontal text left, center, or right

Align selected vertical text top, center, or bottom

Extend or reduce selection by one character to right or left in horizontal text

Extend or reduce selection by one word to

or left in horizontal text

right

Extend or reduce selection by one line up or down in horizontal text

Extend or reduce selection by on e line to right or left in vertical text

Extend or reduce selection one word up or down in vertical text

Extend or reduce selection by one character up or down in vertical text

Select text from insertion point to beginning or end of line

Ctrl+

Shift+L, Ctrl+Shift+C, or Ctrl+Shift+R Command+Shift+L, Command+Shift+C, or

Ctrl+Shift+L, Ctrl+Shift+C, or Ctrl+Shift+R Command+Shift+L, Command+Shift+C, or

Shift+Right Arrow or Shift+Left Arrow Shift+Right Arrow or Shift+Left Arrow

Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow or Ctrl+Shift+Left Arrow

Shift+Up Arrow or Shift+Down Arrow Shift+Up Arrow or Shift+Down Arrow

Shift+Right Arrow or Shift+Left Arrow Shift+Right Arrow or Shift+Left Arrow

Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow

Shift+Up Arrow or Shift+Down Arrow Shift+Up Arrow or Shift+Down Arrow

Shift+Home or Shift+End Shift+Home or Shift+End

Command+Shift+R

Command+Shift+Right Arrow or Command+Shift+Left Arrow

Command+Shift+Up Arrow or Command+Shift+Down Arrow

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Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Move insertion point to beginning or end of line

Select all text on a layer Double-click text layer Double-click text layer

Select text from insertion point to beginning

nd of text frame

or e

Select text from inser tion point to mouse click point

In horizontal text, move insertion point one character left or right; one line up or down; one word left or right; or one paragraph up or down

In vertical text, move insertion point one charac

ter up or down; one left or right; one word up or down; or one paragraph left or right

Select word, line, paragraph, or entire text frame

Turn All Caps on or off for selected text Ctrl+Shift+K Command+Shift+K

Turn Small Caps on or off for selected text Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K Command+Option+Shift+K

Turn Superscript on or off for selected text Ctrl+Shift+= (equals) Command+Shift+= (equals)

Turn Subscript on or off for selected text Ctrl+Alt+Shift+= (equals) Command+Option+Shift+= (equals)

Set horizontal scale to 100% for selected text Ctrl+Shift+X Command+Shift+X

Home or End Home or End

Ctrl+Shift+Home or Ctrl+Shift+End Command+Shift+Home or

Shift-click Shift-click

Left Arrow or Right Arrow; Up Arrow or Down Arrow; Ctrl+Left Arrow or Ctrl+Right Arrow; or Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Down Arrow

Up Arrow or Down Arrow; Left Arrow or Right Arrow; Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Down Arrow ; or Ctrl+Left Arrow or Ctrl+Right Arrow

ouble-click, triple-click, quadruple-click, or

D quintuple-click with Type tool

Command+Shift+End

Left Arrow or Right Arrow; Up Arrow or Down Arrow; Command+Left Arrow or Command+Right Arrow; or Command+Up Arrow or Command+Down Arrow

Up Arrow or Down Arrow; Left Arrow or Right Arrow; Command+Up Arrow or Command+Down Arrow; or Command+Left Arrow or Command+Right Arrow

Double-click, triple-click, quadruple-click, or quintuple-click with Type tool

Set vertical scale to 100% for selected text Ctrl+Alt+Shift+X Command+Option+Shift+X

Auto leading for selected text Ctrl+Alt+Shift+A Command+Option+Shift+A

Reset tracking to 0 for selected text Ctrl+Shift+Q Command+Shift+Control+Q

Justify paragraph; left align last line Ctrl+Shift+J Command+Shift+J

Justify paragraph; right align last line Ctrl+Alt+Shift+J Command+Option+Shift+J

Justify paragraph; force last line Ctrl+Shift+F Command+Shift+F

Decrease or increase font size of selected text

units

by 2

Decrease or increase font size of selected text by 10 units

Increase or decrease leading by 2 units Alt+Down Arrow or Alt+Up Arrow Option+Down Arrow or Option+Up Arrow

Increase or decrease leading by 10 units Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow or Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow Command+Option+Down Arrow or

Decrease or increase baseline shift by 2 units Alt+Shift+Down Arrow or Alt+Shift +Up Arrow Option+Shift+Down Arrow or

Decrease or increase baseline shift by 10 units Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Down Arrow or

Ctrl+Shift+, (comma) or Ctrl+Shift+. (period) Command+Shift+, (comma) or

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+, (comma) or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+. (period)

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Up Arrow

Command+Shift+. (period)

Command+Option+Shift+, (comma) or Command+Option+Shift+. (period)

Comman

d+Option+Up Arrow

Option+Shift+Up Arrow

Command+Option+Shift+Down Arrow or Command+Option+Shift+Up Arrow

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Decrease or increase kerning or tracking 20 units (20/1000 ems)

Decrease or increase kerning or tracking 100 units (100/1000 ems)

Toggle paragraph composer Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T Command+Option+Shift+T

Alt+Left Arrow or Alt+Right Arrow Option+Left Arrow or Option+Right Arrow

Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow or Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow Command+Option+Left Arrow or

Command+Option+Right Arrow

Masks (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

New mask Ctrl+Shift+N Command+Shift+N

Select all points in a mask Alt-click mask Option-click mask

Select next or previous mask Alt+` (accent grave) or Alt+Shift+` (accent

Enter free-transform mask editing mode Double-click mask with Selection tool or

Exit free-transform mask editing mode Esc Esc

Scale around center point in Free Transform mode

Move selected path points 1 pixel at current magnificat

ion

grave)

t mask in Timeline panel and press Ctrl+T

selec

Ctrl-drag Command-drag

arrow key arrow key

Option+` (accent grave) or Option+Shift+` (accent grave)

Double-click mask with Selection tool or select mask in Timeline panel and press Command+T

Move selected path points 10 pixels at current magnification

Toggle between smooth and corner points Ctrl+Alt-click vertex Command+Option-click vertex

Redraw Bezier handles Ctrl+Alt-drag vertex Command+Option-drag vertex

Invert selected mask Ctrl+Shift+I Command+Shift+I

Open Mask Feather dialog box for selected mask

Open Mask Shape dialog box for selected mask

Shift+arrow key Shift+arrow key

Ctrl+Shift+F Command+Shift+F

Ctrl+Shift+M Command+Shift+M

Paint tools (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Swap paint background color and foreground

color

Set paint foreground color to black and background color to white

Set foreground color to the color currently under any paint tool pointer

Set foreground color to the average color of a 4-pixel x 4-pixel area under any paint tool pointer

X X

D D

Alt-click Option-click

Ctrl+Alt-click Command+Option-click

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Set brush size for a paint tool Ctrl-drag Command-drag

Set brush hardness for a paint tool Ctrl-drag, then release Ctrl while dragging Command-drag, then release Command

Join current paint stroke to the previous stroke

Set starting sample point to point currently under Clone Stamp tool pointer

Momentarily activate Eraser tool with Last Stroke Only option

Show and move overlay (change Offset value of aligned Clone Stamp tool or change Source Position value of unaligned Clone Stamp tool)

Activate a specific Clone Stamp tool preset 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 on the main keyboard 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 on the main keyboard

Duplicate a Clone Stamp tool preset in Paint panel

Set opacity for a paint tool Digit on numeric keypad (for example,

Set opacity for a paint tool to 100% . (decimal) on numeric keypad* . (decimal) on numeric keypad*

Set flow for a paint tool Shift+a digit on numeric keypad (for example,

Set flow for a paint tool to 100% Shift+. (decimal) on numeric keypad* Shift+. (decimal) on numeric keypad*

Move earlier or later by number of frames specif

ied for stroke Duration

Hold Shift while beginning stroke Hold Shift while beginning stroke

Alt-click Option-click

Ctrl+Shift Command+Shift

Alt+Shift-drag with Clone Stamp tool Option+Shift-drag with Clone Stamp tool

lt-click the button for the preset Option-click the button for the preset

9=90%, 1=10%)*

Ctrl+Page Up or Ctrl+Page Down (or 1 or 2 on the main keyboard)

agging

while dr

Digit on numeric keypad (for example, 9=90%, 1=10%)*

Shift+a digit on numeric keypad (for example, 9=90%, 1=10%)*

Command+Page Up or Command+Page Down (or 1 or 2 on the main keyboard)

Note: Some shortcuts are marked with an asterisk (*) to remind you to make sure that Num Lock is on when you use the numeric keypad.

Shape layers (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Group selected shapes Ctrl+G Command+G

Ungroup selected shapes Ctrl+Shift+G Command+Shift+G

Enter free-transform path editing mode Select Path property in Timeline panel and

Increase star inner roundness Page Up when dragging to create shape Page Up when dragging to create shape

Decrease star inner roundness Page Down when dragging to create shape Page Down when dragging to create shape

Increase number of points for star or polygon; increase roundness for rounded rectangle

Decrease number of points for star or polygon; decrease roundness for rounded rectangle

Reposition shape during creation Hold spacebar when dragging to create shape Hold spa cebar when dragging to create shape

press Ctrl+

Up Arrow when dragging to create shape Up Arrow when dragging to create shape

Down Arrow when dragging to create shape Down Arrow when dragging to create shape

Select Path property in Timeline panel and press Command+T

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Result Windows Mac OS

Set rounded rectangle roundness to 0 (sharp corners); decrease polygon and star outer roundness

Set rounded rectangle roundness to maximum roundness

Constrain rectangles to squares; constrain ellips stars to zero rotation

Change outer radius of star Ctrl when dragging to create shape Command when dragging to create shape

; increase polygon and star outer

es to circles; constrain polygons and

Left Arrow when dragging to create shape Left Arrow when dragging to create shape

Right Arrow when dragging to create shape Right Arrow when dragging to create shape

Shift when dragging to create shape Shift when dragging to create shape

Markers (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Set marker at current time (works during RAM preview and au

Set marker at current time and open marker dialog box

Set and number a composition marker (0-9) at the current time

Go to a composition marker (0-9) 0-9 on main keyboard 0-9 on main keyboard

Display the duration between two layer marker

dio-only preview)

s or keyframes in the Info panel

* (multiply) on numeric keypad * (multiply) on numeric keypad or Control+8

on main keyboard

Alt+* (multiply) on numeric keypad Option+* (multiply) on numeric keypad or

Control+Option+8 on main keyboard

Shift+0-9 on main keyboard Shift+0-9 on main keyboard

Alt-click the markers or keyframes Option-click the markers or keyframes

Remove marker Ctrl-click marker Command-click marker

Motion tracking (keyboard shortcuts)

Result Windows Mac OS

Move feature region, search region, and attach point 1 pi

Move feature region, search region, and attach point 10 pixels at current magnification

Move feature region and search region 1 pixel at current

Move feature region and search region 10 pixels at current magnification

xel at current magnification

magnification

Saving, exporting, and rendering (key

Result Windows Mac OS

Save project Ctrl+S Command+S

Increment and save project Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S Command+Option+Shift+S

Save As Ctrl+Shift+S Command+Shift+S

arrow key arrow key

Shift+arrow key Shift+arrow key

Alt+arrow key Option+arrow key

Alt+Shift+arrow key Option+Shift+arrow key

board shortcuts)

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Add active composition or selected items to render queue

Add current frame to render queue Ctrl+Alt+S Command+Option+S

Duplicate render item with same output filenam

e as original

Ctrl+Shift+/ (on main keyboard) Command+Shift+/ (on main keyboard)

Ctrl+Shift+D Command+Shift+D

Keyboard shortcuts graphic

Click the link below to download a pdf of about 50 of the more commonly used and pouplar keyboard shortcuts.

AE_KeyboardShortcuts.pdf

Workspaces, panels, and viewers

Workspaces and panels

Adobe video and audio applications provide a consistent, customizable user interface. Although each application has its own set of panels, you move and group panels in the same way in each application.

The main window of a program is the application called a workspace.

window. Panels are organized in this window in an arrangement

Each application includes several predefined workspaces that optimize the layout of panels for specific tasks. You can a

o create and customize your own workspaces by arranging panels in the layout that best suits your working style for

specific tasks.

You can drag panels to new locations, move panels into or out of a group, place panels alongside each other, and undock a

anel so that it floats in a new window above the application window. As you rearrange panels, the other panels resize

automatically to fit the window.

Example workspace A Application window B Grouped panels C Individual panel

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Workspace and workflow

To increase the available screen space, use multiple monitors. When you work with multiple monitors, the application window appears on the main monitor, and you place floating windows on the second monitor. Monitor configurations are stored in the workspace.

Workspaces are stored in XML files in the preferences folder. With some caveats regarding monitor size and layout, t

e workspaces can be moved to another computer and used there.

hes

• (Windows) [drive]:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\12.2\ModifiedWorkspaces

• (Mac OS) [drive]/Users/[user_name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/12.2/ModifiedWorkspaces

See this video tutorial about workspaces by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website for more details.

Choose a workspace

• Choose Window > Workspace, and select the desired workspace.

• Choose a workspace from the Workspace menu in the Tools panel.

• If the workspace has a keyboard shortcut assigned, press Shift+F10, Shift+F11, or Shift+F12.

To assign a keyboard shortcut to the current workspace, choose Window > Assign Shortcut To [Workspace Name] Wo rk sp ac e .

Save, reset, or delete workspaces

Save a custom workspace

As you customize a workspace, the application tracks your changes, storing the most recent layout. To store a specific layo

ut more permanently, save a custom workspace. Saved custom workspaces appear in the Workspace menu, where

you can return to and reset them.

❖ Arrange the frames and panels as desired, and then choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace. Type a name

for the workspace, and click OK.

Note: (A look match), it uses the current local workspace.

Reset a workspace

Reset the current workspace to return to its original, saved layout of panels.

❖ Choose Window > Workspace > Reset workspace name.

Delete a workspace

1 Choose Window > Workspace >Delete Workspace.

2 Choose the workspace you want to delete, and then click OK.

fter Effects, Premiere Pro) If a project saved with a custom workspace is opened on another system, the application

s for a workspace with a matching name. If the application cannot find a match (or the monitor configuration doesn’t

Note: You cannot delete the currently active workspace.

Dock, group, or float panels

You can dock panels together, move them into or out of groups, and undock them so they float above the application window. As you drag a panel, drop zones—areas onto which you can move the panel—become highlighted. The drop zone you choose determines where the panel is inserted, and whether it docks or groups with other panels.

Docking zones

Docking zones exist along the edges of a panel, group, or window. Docking a panel places it adjacent to the existing gr

p, resizing all groups to accommodate the new panel.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Dragging panel (A) onto docking zone (B) to dock it (C)

Grouping zones

Grouping zones exist in the middle of a panel or group, and along the tab area of panels. Dropping a panel on a grouping

acks it with other panels.

zone st

Dragging panel (A) onto grouping zone (B) to group it with existing panels (C)

Dock or group panels

1 If the panel you want to dock or group is not visible, choose it from the Window menu.

2 Do one of the following:

• To move an individual panel, drag the gripper area in the upper-left corner of a panel’s tab onto the desired drop

zone.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Drag panel gripper to move one panel

• To move an entire group, drag the group gripper in the upper-right corner onto the desired drop zone.

Drag group gripper to move entire group

The application docks or groups the panel, according to the type of drop zone.

Undock a panel in a floating window

When you undock a panel in a floating window, you can add panels to the window and modify it similarly to the applica

tion window. You can use floating windows to use a secondary monitor, or to create workspaces like the

workspaces in earlier versions of Adobe applications.

❖ Select the panel you want to undock (if it’s not visible, choose it from the Window menu), and then do one of the

following:

• Choose Undock Panel or Undock Frame from the panel menu. Undock Frame undocks the panel group.

• Hold down Ctrl (Windows®) or Command (Mac OS®), and drag the panel or group from its current location.

When you release the mouse button, the panel or group appears in a new floating window.

• Drag the panel or group outside the application window. (If the application window is maximized, drag the panel

to the Windows taskbar.)

Resize panel groups

To quickly maximize a panel beneath the pointer, press the ` (accent grave) key. (The accent grave is the unshifted character under the tilde, ~, on standard US keyboards.) Press the key again to return the panel to its original size.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

When you drag the divider between panel groups, all groups that share the divider are resized.

1 Do either of the following:

• To resize either horizontally or vertically, position the pointer between two panel groups. The pointer becomes

a double arrow .

• To resize in both directions at once, position the pointer at the intersection between three or more panel groups.

The pointer becomes a four-way arrow .

2 Hold down the mouse button, and drag to resize the panel groups.

Dragging divider between panel groups to resize them horizontally A Original group with resize pointer B Resized groups

Open, close, and show panels and windows

Even if a panel is open, it may be out of sight, beneath other panels. Choosing a panel from the Window menu opens it and brings it to the front of its group.

When you close a panel group in the application window, the other groups resize to use the newly available space. When you clo

se a floating window, the panels within it close, too.

• To open or close a panel, choose the panel from the Window menu.

• To close a panel or window, click its Close button .

• To open or close a panel, use its keyboard shortcut.

• If a frame contains multiple panels, place the pointer over a tab and roll the mouse scroll wheel forward or backward

to change which panel is active.

• If a frame contains more grouped panels than can be shown at once, drag the scroll bar that appears above the tabs.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Scroll bar for showing tabs of other panels

Viewers

A viewer is a panel that can contain multiple compositions, layers, or footage items, or multiple views of one such item. The Composition, Layer, Footage, Flowchart, and Effect Controls panels are viewers.

Locking a viewer prevents the currently displayed item from being replaced when you open or select a new item. Ins

tead, when a viewer is locked and a new item is opened or selected, After Effects creates a new viewer panel for that item. If you select the item from the viewer menu of a locked viewer, a new viewer isn't created; the existing viewer is used.

Inst ead of hou sing m ult iple ite ms i n a s ing le v iew er and usi ng t he v iew er m enu to switc h be twe en t hem , yo u can c hoo se t

o o

pen a separate viewer for each open composition, layer, or footage item. When you have multiple viewers open, you

can arrange them by docking or grouping them, like any other panels.

For example, you can create one Composition viewer each for different 3D views (Top, Bottom, Back, Front, custom vi

s) so that you can maximize each of the views with the ` (accent grave) keyboard shortcut, which maximizes or

restores the panel under the pointer.

To create a custom workspace with multiple viewers, ensure that all viewers are unlocked before you save the workspace. Locked viewers are associated with a specific project context and are therefore not saved in the preferences file.

• To create a new viewer, choose New from the viewer menu. (See Open panel, viewer, and context menus.)

• To lock or unlock a viewer, choose Locked from the viewer menu, or click the Toggle Viewer Lock button.

• To lock the current viewer, split the current frame, and create a new viewer of the same type in the new frame, press

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+N (Mac OS).

• To cycle forward or backward through the items in the viewer menu list for the active viewer, press Shift+period (.)

or Shift+comma (,).

Edit this, look at that (ETLAT) and locked Composition viewers

If a Composition viewer is locked, the Timeline panel for another composition is active, and the Composition viewer for the active composition is not shown, then most commands that affect views and previews operate on the composition for which the viewer is shown.

For example, pressing the spacebar can start a standard preview for the composition visible in a locked Composition vi

er rather than the composition associated with the active Timeline panel.

This behavior facilitates a working setup sometimes referred to as edit-this-look-at-that (ETLAT). The most common s

nario in which this behavior is useful is the scenario in which you make a change in the Timeline panel for a nested

(upstream) composition and want to preview the result of the change in a containing (downstream) composition.

Note: E

TLAT behavior works for keyboard shortcuts for zooming, fitting, previewing, taking and viewing snapshots,

ing channels, showing and hiding grids and guides, and showing the current frame on a video preview device.

show

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Workspace and workflow

To prevent this behavior, unlock the Composition viewer or show the Composition viewer for the composition that you want to view or preview.

See this video on the Video2Brain website to learn about the improvements in ETLAT (edit-this-look-at-that) workflow in After Effects CS5.5 and later.

More Help topics

Panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows (keyboard shortcuts)

Choose a viewer to always preview

Previews (keyboard shortcuts)

Views (keyboard shortcuts)

About precomposing and nesting

Modify keyboard shortcuts

To modi fy key bo ard sho rtcu ts, u se the Key Ed Up scr ipt from Jef f Alm asol , whi ch is ava ilab le on the Adobe After Effects

Exchange website.

Sebastien Perier provides instructions on his website for assigning keyboard shortcuts to scripts so that you can run a script with a single keystroke. This technique relies on the KeyEd Up script.

For information on remapping keyboard shortcuts for keyboard layouts other than the standard US English layout, see

Jonas Hummelstrand’s website.

For a reference of keyboard shortcuts, see Keyboard shortcuts reference.

Note: O

n Mac OS, some keyboard commands for interacting with the operating system conflict with keyboard commands

for in

teracting with After Effects. Select Use System Shortcut Keys in the General preferences to override the After Effects

keyboard command in some cases in which there’s a conflict with the Mac OS keyboard command.

Preferences

The following sections describe the Preferences menu and and the various tasks that can be performed using this menu.

Open Preferences menu

To open the Preferences menu, go to:

• Edit > Preferences > [category name] (Windows)

• After Effects > Preferences > [category name] (Mac OS)

Use the following keyboard shortcuts to open the Preferences > General menu:

• Ctrl+Alt+; (semicolon) (Windows)

• Command+Option+; (semicolon) (Mac OS)

Last updated 6/14/2014

Workspace and workflow

Reset preferences

To restore the default preference settings, press and hold the following keys while the application is starting.

• Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)

• Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS)

To restore default keyboard shortcuts, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the OK button.

Reveal preferences

Preferences, including keyboard shortcuts and workspaces, are stored as files in the following locations:

• (Windows) \Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\12.0

• (Mac OS) /Users//Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/12.0

To reveal the preferences in After Effects without s

• Edit > Preferences > General and click Reveal Preferences in Explorer button (Windows)

• After Effects > Preferences > General and click Reveal Preferences in Finder button (Mac OS)

It is recommended that you do not modify the files in this directory manually; use the Preferences dialog box to modify the prefer on managing workspaces, see Workspaces and Panels.

ences. For information on modifying keyboard shortcuts, see Modify keyboard shortcuts. For information

earching on your hard drive, go to:

Note: T

he Library folder in Mac OS X is hidden. See the following article to learn how to access hidden user files on Mac

tp://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

OS:ht

The Preferences menu options

The following list briefly describes the different options listed under the Edit > Preferences menu, especially those options that are not self-explanatory.

General preferences

• Levels Of Undo: Undo changes

• Path Point Size: Specifies size of Bezier direction handles and vertices for masks and shapes, direction handles for

motion paths, and other similar controls.

• Show Tool Tips: After Effects user interface tips

• Create Layers At Composition Start Time: Layers overview

• Switches Affect Nested Comps: About precomposing and nesting

• Default Spatial Interpolation To Linear: About spatial and temporal keyframe interpolation

• Preserve Constant Vertex Count When Editing Masks: Designate the first vertex for a Bezier path

Pe n To o l Shor t c ut To g g le s B et w e en Pen a n d M a s kFe at h e r To o l s : Var i abl e - wi d t h m a s k f e a t he r

• Synchronize Time Of All Related Items: Preferences and composition settings that affect nested compositions

• Expression Pick Whip Writes Compact English: Edit an expression with the pick whip

• Create Split Layers Above Original Layer: Split a layer

• Allow Scripts To Write Files And Access Network: Loading and running scripts

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Workspace and workflow

• Enable JavaScript Debugger: After Effects scripting guide at the Adobe After Effects Developer Center on the Adobe

website

• Use System Color Pi cker: Choose a color picker

• Create New Layers At Best Quality: Layer image quality and subpixel positioning

• Use System Shortcut Keys (Mac OS only): Keyboard shortcuts reference

• Dynamic Link with After Effects Uses Project File Name with Highest Number: About Dynamic Link (Production

Premium or Master Collection only)

Previews preferences

• Adaptive Resolution Limit: Preview modes and Fast Previews preferences

Also, see Fast Previews (CS6).

The GPU Information dialog box is available to check the texture memory for your GPU, and to set the ray-tracing p

ference to the GPU, if it is available. The OptiX version number is available, as well as the Copy button to copy

the general information at the top of the dialog box to the system clipboard.

• Viewer Quality (Zoom Quality and Color Management Quality): Viewer Quality preferences

• Audio Preview Duration: Preview video and audio

Display preferences

• Motion Path: Motion paths

• Disable Thumbnails In Project Panel: Composition thumbnail images

• Show Rendering Progress In Info Panel And Flowchart: Preview video and audio

• Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, And Footage Panels: Improve performance

Import preferences

• Still Footage: Create layers from footage items or change layer source

• Sequence Footage: Import a single still image or a still-image sequence

• Interpret Unlabeled Alpha As: Alpha channel interpretation: premultiplied or straight

• Drag Import Multiple Items As: Import footage items by dragging

• There is a dropdown menu to choose drop-frame or non-drop-frame timecode for Indeterminate Media NTSC,

which applies to imports like still image sequences in which timecode values are not present or are unknown.

Output preferences

• Segment Sequences At, Segment Movie Files At, and Audio Block Duration: Segment settings

• Use Default File Name And Folder: Name output files automatically

Grids & Guides preferences

• Safe zones, grids, guides, and rulers

Labels preferences

• Color labels for layers, compositions, and footage items

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Media & Disk Cache preferences

• Enable Disk Cache and Maximum Disk Cache Size: Caches: RAM cache, disk cache, and media cache

• Conformed Media Cache and Clean Database & Cache: Media cache

• Create Layer Markers From Footage XMP Metadata and Write XMP IDs To Files On Import: XMP metadata in

After Effects

Video Preview preferences

• Preview on an external video monitor

Appearance preferences

• Use Label Color For Layer Handles And Paths and Use Label Color For Related Tabs: Color labels for layers,

compositions, and footage items

• Cycle Mask Colors: Cycle through colors for mask paths

• Use Gradients: Us e gradients in user interface.

• Brightness: Brightens or darkens user interface (UI) colors.

Auto-Save preferences

Save and back up projects in After Effects

Memory & Multiprocessing preferences

Audio Hardware and Audio Output Mapping preferences

Preview video and audio

Sync Settings

The Sync Settings feature enables you to sync preferences and settings through the Creative Cloud.

Sync Setting features in After Effects

Sync Settings

When you work on multiple computers, managing and syncing preferences among the computers can be timeconsuming, complex, and error prone.

The new Sync Settings feature enables you to sync preferences and settings via Creative Cloud. For example, if you use two co

mputers, the Sync Settings feature makes it easy for you to keep those settings synchronized across these two

computers.

The synchronization takes place via your Adobe Creative Cloud account and then are downloaded and applied on the other computer. You can also synchronize settings from another Creative Cloud account. After Ef fects creates a user profile on your computer and uses it to synchronize settings to and from the associated Creative Cloud account.

count. Settings are uploaded to your Creative Cloud

You can initiate the synchronization manually; it does not happen automatically and it cannot be scheduled.

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Workspace and workflow

Sync settings

To initiate the sync, from the Edit menu (Windows) or After Effects menu (Mac OS) choose [your Adobe ID] > Sync Settings Now.

• Download Settings: Sync Settings from Creative Cloud to your computer; overwrite the local version with the

Creative Cloud version of settings.

• Upload Settings: Sync settings from this local computer to Creative Cloud.

Progress and details about the Sync Settings process is displayed in the Info panel (Window > Info)

Restart After Effects to apply downloaded preferences after using Sync Settings .

Sync settings from a different account

By default, the Adobe ID associated with the license for the product is used to sync the preferences. To use a different Adobe ID to sync the settings, from the Edit menu (Windows) or After Effects menu (Mac OS) choose [your Adobe ID] > Use Settings From a Different Account. Enter the Adobe ID and password.

Managing sync

Clear Settings

You can clear all settings and revert to default settings. From the Edit menu (Windows) or After Effects menu (Mac OS), choose [your Adobe ID] > Clear Settings.

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Workspace and workflow

Click Quit to clear the current preferences, and close After Effects. When the application is launched again, default preferences are set.

Manage Sync settings

To change the Sync Settings for Windows:

• Click Edit > [your Adobe ID] > Manage Sync Settings

• Click Edit > Preferences > Sync Settings

To change the Sync Settings for Mac OS:

• Click After Effects > [your Adobe ID] > Manage Sync Settings

• Click After Effects > Preferences > Sync Settings

You can change the sync options and also choose what to do in case o and settings. Synchronizable preferences refer to preferences that are not dependent on computer or hardware settings.

Automatically clear user profile on application quit Enable this option to clear the user profile when you quit After

Effects. On next launch, preferences are fetched from the default Adobe ID used to license the product.

Select the Preferences to sync.

f conflict. Select the options to sync preferences

• Synchronizable Preferences

• Keyboard Shortcuts

• Composition Settings Presets

• Interpretation Rules

• Render Settings Templates

• Output Module Settings Templates

For more details on what Settings are synced, see Details of Sync Settings features.

Note: Keyboard shortcuts created for Windows synchronize only with Windows and Mac OS keyboard shortcuts

ronize only with Mac OS.

synch

When Conflicts Occur Specify an action to take when a conflict is detected.

Note: The sync settings feature does not sync files manually placed in the preferences folder location.

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After Effects keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to speed up your tasks and also work more efficiently. Here is a downloadable shortcuts graphic of about 50 of the more commonly used and popular After Effects shortcuts.

AfterEffects_KeyboardShortcuts.pdf

The complete list of After Effects keyboard shortcuts is available here .

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Chapter 3: Projects and compositions

Projects

About projects

An After Effects project is a single file that stores compositions and references to all of the source files used by footage items in that project. Compositions are collections of layers. Many layers use footage items (such as movies or still images) as a source, though some layers—such as shape layers and text layers—contain graphics that you create within After Effects.

A project file has the filename extension .aep or .aepx. A project file with the .aep filename extension is a binary project file

. A project file with the .aepx filename extension is a text-based XML project file.

The name of the current project appears at the top of the application window.

A template project file has the filename extension .aet. (See Template projects and example projects .)

XML project files

Text-based XML project files contain some project information as hexadecimal-encoded binary data, but much of the information is exposed as human-readable text in string elements. You can open an XML project file in a text editor and edit some details of the project without opening the project in After Effects. You can even write scripts that modify project information in XML project files as part of an automated workflow.

Elements of a project that you can modify in an XML project file:

• Marker attributes, including comments, chapter point parameters, and cue point parameters

• File paths of source footage items, including proxies

• Composition, footage item, layer, and folder names and comments

Note: Footage item names are exposed in string elements in XML project files only if the names have been customized. Fo

otage item names derived automatically from the names of source files and solid color names are not exposed in string

elements

Some strings, such as workspace and view names, are expos these strings are not respected when After Effects opens the project file.

Note: Do not use the XML project file format as your primary file format. The primary project file format for After Effects is

the binary project file (.aep) format. Use the XML project file format to save a copy of a project and as an intermediate

format for automation workflows.

uman-readable strings, but modifications made to

ed as h

To save an XML project (.aepx) file as a binary project (.aep) file, choose File > Save As and enter a file name ending with .aep, without the x. (See Save and back up projects in After Effects CS5 .)

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Projects and compositions

Project links embedded in QuickTime, Video for Windows files

When you render a movie and export it to a container format, you can embed a link to the After Effects project in the container file.

To import the project, import the container file, and choose Project from the Import As menu in the Import File dialog b

f the container file contains a link to a project that has been moved, you can browse to locate the project.

ox. I

Create and open projects

Only one project can be open at a time. If you create or open another project file while a project is open, After Effects prompts you to save changes in the open project, and then closes it. After you create a project, you can import footage into the project.

• To create a project, choose File > New > New Project.

• To open a project, choose File > Open Project, locate the project, and then click Open.

Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that creates and saves a new project for each selected composition in the current project.

Template projects and example projects

A template project is a file with the filename extension .aet. You can use the many template projects included with After Effects—including DVD menu templates—as the basis for your own projects, and you can create new templates base on your projects

Note: A

fter Effects CC does not install template projects, however, you can download the same template projects that came

th previous versions of After Effects on the After Effects Exchange. For more information, see this post on the After Effects

wi team blog.

When you open a template project, After Effects creates a new, untitled project based on the template. Saving changes t

his new project does not affect the template project.

o t

A great way to see how advanced users use After Effects is to open one of the template projects included with After Effects, open a composition to activate it, and press U or UU to reveal only the animated or modified layer properties.

wing the animated and modified properties shows you what changes the designer of the template project made to create

the template.

Often, the creator of a template project locks layers that should be left unmodified, and leaves layers that should be mo

fied unlocked. This is a convenient way to prevent accidental or inappropriate modifications.

You can download example projects and template projects from many websites, including the After Effects Exchange on the Adobe website. For more sources of After Effects example projects and template projects, see After Effects

community resources on the Adobe website.

See this video tutorial by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website for information about where to find template

projects and sample expressions included with After Effects.

Open a template project

• To open a template project, choose File > Open Project. On Windows, choose Adobe After Effects Project Template

from the Files Of Type menu.

Create a template project

• To convert a project to a template project, change the filename extension from .aep to .aet.

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• To save a copy of a project as a template project, choose File > Save A Copy, and then rename the copy with the

filename extension .aet.

Save and back up projects in After Effects

• To save a project, choose File > Save.

• To save a copy of the project with a new automatically generated name, choose File > Increment And Save, or press

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+S (Mac OS).

• A copy of the current project is saved in the same folder as the original project. The name of the copy is the name of

the original followed by a number. If the name of the original ends with a number, that number is increased by 1.

• To save the project with a different name or to a different location, choose File > Save As > Save As. The open project

takes the new name and location; the original file remains unchanged.

• To save the project as a copy in the XML project file format, choose File > Save As > Save A Copy As XML. (See

About projects .)

• To save a copy of the project with a different name or to a different location, choose File > Save As > Save A Copy.

The open project retains its original name and location, and a copy is created with the new settings but is not opened.

• In After Effects CC (12), to save a project that can be opened in After Effects CS6, choose File > Save As > Save A

Copy As CS6.

• In After Effects CC 2014, to save a project that can be opened in After Effects CC (12), choose File > Save As > Save

A Copy As CC (12).

To save a copy of the project and copies of assets used in the project to a single folder on disk, use the Collect Files co

Note: New features in the current version of After Effects that are used in a project will be ignored in the project that is saved in

. (See Collect files in one locationsection for details).

mmand

the format of the previous version of After Effects.

Flowchart panel

In the flowchart for each project or composition, individual boxes (or tiles) represent each composition, footage item, and layer. Directional arrows represent the relationships between components.

Note: T

he Flowchart panel shows you only the existing relationship

elements.

Nested compositions and other elements that make up the composition appear when you expand a composition tile.

Mid-gray lines between tiles in the flowchart indicate that the Video or Audio switch for those items is deselected in t

imeline panel. Black or light gray lines indicate that the switch is selected, depending on the Brightness setting in

he T

the Appearance preferences.

• To open the project flowchart, press Ctrl+F11 (Windows) or Command+F11 (Mac OS), or click the Project

Flowchart button at the top of the vertical scroll bar on the right edge of the Project panel.

• To open a composition flowchart, select the composition and choose Composition > Composition Flowchart, or

click the Composition Flowchart button at the bottom of the Composition panel.

• To activate (select) an item, click its tile in the Flowchart panel.

When you click a composition in the flowchart, it becomes active in the Project panel and the Timeline panel. When you cli

ck a layer, it becomes active in the Timeline panel. When you click a footage item, it becomes active in the

Project panel.

s. You cannot use it to change relationships between

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Projects and compositions

• To customize the appearance of the flowchart, use the Flowchart panel menu and the buttons along the bottom of

the panel.

For tool tips identifying the buttons in the Flowchart panel appears.

et your pointer hover over a button until the tool tip

, l

• To delete elements, select them and press Delete. If the selected element is a footage item or composition, it is deleted

from the project and no longer appears in the Timeline and Project panels. If the selected element is a layer, it is deleted from the composition in which it appears.

• To access the context menu for a selected element, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the icon to the

left of the name in the element tile. The icons have various appearances, depending on the element type, such as layers and compositions . For example, you can use the context menu for a layer to work with masks and effects, or to change switches, apply transformations, and adjust layer image quality.

Note: Wh na element name.

Rich Young provides additional information about the Flowchart panel and the Composition Mini-flowchart on the

After Effects Portal website.

en you change element properties in the Flowchart panel, be careful to context-click the icon in the tile, not the

me of the element. The context menu associated with the element icon is different from the one that opens from the

More Help topics

Automation

Import an After Effects project

Lock or unlock a layer

Layer switches and columns in the Timeline panel

Opening and navigating nested compositions

Precomposing, nesting, and pre-rendering

About precomposing and nesting

If you want to group some layers that are already in a composition, you can precompose those layers. Precomposing layers places them in a new composition, which replaces the layers in the original composition. The new nested composition becomes the source for a single layer in the original composition. The new composition appears in the Project panel and is available for rendering or use in any other composition. You can nest compositions by adding an existing composition to another composition, just as you would add any other footage item to a composition. Precomposing a single layer is useful for adding transform properties to a layer and influencing the order in which elements of a composition are rendered.

Nesting is t com

A nested composition is sometimes called a precomposi or pre-comp. When a precomposition is used as the source footage item for a layer, the layer is called a precomposition layer.

he inclusion of one composition within another. The nested composition appears as a layer in the containing

position.

tion, which is occasionally abbreviated in casual use to precomp

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During rendering, the image data and other information can be said to flow from each nested composition into the composition that contains it. For this reason, nested compositions are sometimes referred to as being upstream of the compositions that contain them, and the containing compositions are said to be downstream of the nested compositions that they contain. A set of compositions connected through nesting is called a composition network. You can navigate within a composition network using the Composition Navigator and Mini-Flowchart. (See Opening and navigating

nested compositions .)

Precompositions in After Effects are similar to Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop.

Uses for precomposing and nesting

Precomposing and nesting are useful for managing and organizing complex compositions. By precomposing and nesting, you can do the following:Apply complex changes to an entire compositionYou can create a composition that contains multiple layers, nest the composition within the overall composition, and animate and apply effects to the nested composition so that all of the layers change in the same ways over the same time period.Reuse anything you buildYou can build an animation in its own composition and then drag that composition into other compositions as many times as you want.Update in one stepWhen you make changes to a nested composition, those changes affect ev ery c ompos iti on in w hich it is used, j ust li ke c hange s ma de to a sou rce foota ge ite m af fec t every c ompos iti on in w hich it is used. Alter the default rendering order of a layerYou can specify that After Effects render a transformation (such as rotation) before rendering effects, so that the effect applies to the rotated footage.Add another set of transform properties to a layerThe layer that represents the composition has its own properties, in addition to the properties of the layers that it contains. This allows you to apply an additional set of transformations to a layer or set of layers.

For example, you can use nesting to make a planet both rotate and revolve (moving like the Earth, which spins on its o

wn axis a precompose that layer, modify the Anchor Point property of the precomposition layer, and then animate the Rotation property of the precomposition layer.

nd also travels around the Sun). To create such a system, animate the Rotation property of the planet layer,

Preferences and composition settings that affect nested compositions

Because a precomposition is itself a layer, you can control its behavior using layer switches and composition switches in the Timeline panel. You can choose whether changes made to the switches in the containing composition are propagated to the nested composition. To prevent layer switches from affecting nested compositions, choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS), and then deselect Switches Affect Nested Comps.

In the Advanced tab of the Composition Settings dialog box (Composition > Composition Settings), choose Preserve R

olut ion When Nes ted or Preser ve F rame R ate When Nes ted Or I n Rend er Q ueu e fo r a c ompos ition to ret ain its own

es resolution or frame rate, and not inherit those settings from the containing composition. For example, if you deliberately used a low frame rate in a composition to create a jerky, hand-animated result, you should preserve the frame rate for that composition when it is nested. Similarly, the results of rotoscoping may look wrong when converted to a different frame rate or resolution. Use this setting instead of the Posterize Time effect, which is less efficient.

Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that makes toggling the Preserve Resolution When Nested or Preserve Frame Rate When Nested Or In Render Queue preference setting more convenient.

Changing the current time in one panel updates the current time in other panels associated with that composition. By defa

t, the current time is also updated for all compositions related to the current composition by nesting. To prevent compositions related by nesting from updating their current times when you change the current time in one composition, deselect the Synchronize Time Of All Related Items preference (Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS)).

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Projects and compositions

Online resources about precomposing and nesting

Angie Taylor provides an extensive discussion and explanation of animation using nesting, parenting, expressions, and null object layers in a PDF excerpt from her book Creative After Effects 7: Workf low Techniques for Animation, Visual

Effects, and Motion Graphics.

Chris and Trish Meyer provide an introduction to precomposing and nesting in a PDF excerpt from the “Parenting and N

ting” chapter of their book After Effects Apprentice: Real-World Skills for the Aspiring Motion Graphics Artist.

Chris and Trish Meyer share tips on setting up a composition hierarchy so that making changes in a project is easier in

this article from the ProVideo Coalition website.

See this page on aescripts website for the Un-Precompose script, which extracts layers from a precomposition.

See this page on aescripts website for the Zorro-The Layer Tagger script, which allows you to group layers in your

composition using tags rather than precomposing.

Precompose layers

Precomposing layers places them in a new composition (sometimes called a precomposition), which replaces the layers in the original composition. Precomposing a single layer is useful for adding transform properties to a layer and influencing the order in which elements of a composition are rendered.

1 Select the layers in the Timeline panel, and choose Layer > Pre-compose or press Ctrl+Shift+C (Windows) or

Command+Shift+C (Mac OS).

2 Select one of the following:

Leave All Attributes In Leaves the properties and keyframes of the precomposed layer in the original composition,

applied to the new layer that represents the precomposition. The frame size of the new composition is the same as the size of the selected layer. This option is not available when you select more than one layer, a text layer, or a shape layer.

Move All Attributes Into The New Composition Moves the properties and keyframes of the precomposed layers one

level further from the root composition in the composition hierarchy. When you use this option, changes you applied to the properties of the layers remain with the individual layers within the precomposition. The frame size of the new composition is the same as the frame size of the original composition.

Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that precomposes selected layers to the duration of the selected layers, with options for head and tail durations for more editing flexibility.

Opening and navigating nested compositions

Nested compositions are sometimes referred to as being upstream of the compositions that contain them, and the containing compositions are said to be downstream of the nested compositions that they contain. The root composition is the most downstream; the most deeply nested composition is the most upstream. A composition flow path is a chain of compositions that are related to one another by containing or being nested within one another. A composition network is the entire set of compositions that are related to one another through nesting.

After Effects provides several ways to open a nested composition (precomposition):

• Double-click the composition entry in the Project panel.

• Double-click a precomposition layer in the Timeline panel. Alt-double-click (Windows) or Option-double-click

(Mac OS) to open the precomposition layer as a layer in the Layer panel.

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Projects and compositions

Note: Double-clicking a precomposition layer when a paint tool or the Roto Brush tool is active opens the layer in the Layer panel.

• To open the most recently active composition in the same composition network as the currently active composition,

press Shift+Esc.

• Use the Composition Navigator.

• Use the Composition Mini-Flowchart.

The Composition Navigator

The Composition Navigator is a bar along the top edge of the Composition panel that shows the composition active in th

viewer in relation to other compositions in the same composition network. The compositions shown are the most

recently active compositions in the flow path of the currently active composition.

A Active (current) composition B Arrow for opening Composition Mini-Flowchart C Panel menu button D Ellipsis

Arrows between the composition names indicate the direction in which pixel information flows for this flow path. The default is to show compositions in the Composition Navigator bar with downstream compositions on the left and upstream compositions on the right. This default is indicated by the Flow Right To Left option in the Composition panel menu. To show compositions in the other order, choose Flow Left To Right. This setting is a global preference; it applies to all compositions and to the Composition Mini-Flowchart view.

The names of downstream compositions are dim to indicate that their contents are not used or shown in the active co

osition.

• To show or hide the Composition Navigator bar, choose Show Composition Navigator from the Composition panel

menu.

• To activate any composition shown in the Composition Navigator bar, click the composition name.

• If the flow path is too long to show in the Composition panel, an ellipsis button appears at the left or right edge

of the Composition Navigator bar. To temporarily show the entire flow path, click the ellipsis button.

To scroll through a long flow path, place the pointer over a composition button in the Composition Navigator and roll the mouse scroll wheel.

The Composition Mini-Flowchart

The Composition Mini-Flowchart is a transient control that you can use to quickly navigate within a composition net

rk. When you open the Composition Mini-Flowchart, it shows the compositions immediately upstream and downstream of the selected composition.

Colors in the Composition Mini-Flowchart are based on the label colors assigned to compositions in the Project panel. If

omposition is used multiple times within one composition, the multiple instances of the nested composition

a c

appear as one entry with a number in parentheses indicating the number of instances.

To open the Composition Mini-Flowchart, do one of the following:

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Projects and compositions

A Indicator that composition does not flow into other compositions B Flow direction C Active (current) composition D Upstream compositions E Indicators that other compositions fl

ow into these compositions

• Tap the Shift key when a Composition, Layer, or Timeline panel is active.

Note: Do not hold the Shift key down; press it briefly. Tapping the Shift key to open the Composition Mini-Flowchart doesn’t work i

f the insertion point is in a search field, text field, or expression field.

• Click the arrow to the right of a composition name in the Composition Navigator bar.

• Choose Composition Mini-Flowchart from the Composition menu, the Composition panel menu, or the Timeline

panel menu.

• Click the Composition Mini-Flowchart button at the top of the Timeline panel.

As with the Composition Navigator, you can choose whether to show the flow direction from left to right or from right to left. Arr

ows indicate the direction of the flow. If a composition has a next to it instead of an arrow, then the

composition either does not have any compositions flowing into it or it does not flow into any compositions.

Upstream compositions in the Composition Mini-Flowchart are sorted from top to bottom either alphabetically or by l

order. To switch between these sorting orders, press the S key when the Composition Mini-Flowchart is open.

ayer When sorting by layer order, a composition used multiple times is sorted according to its topmost instance in the stacking order. Downstream compositions are always sorted alphabetically.

To navigate among and select compositions in the Composition Mini-Flowchart, use the arrow keys or click the arrow or

ttons on either side of a composition. To activate the selected composition, press the spacebar or Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS). To close the Composition Mini-Flowchart without taking any action, press Esc, tap Shif

t, or click outside the Composition Mini-Flowchart.

Rich Young provides additional information about the Flowchart panel and the Composition Mini-flowchart on the

After Effects Portal website.

Pre-render a nested composition

A complex nested composition can take a long time to render, either for previews or for final output. If you have a nested composition that you do not expect to work on further, you can save time during each rendering operation by pre-rendering the nested composition into a movie and replacing the composition with the rendered movie. You can still modify the original nested composition, because it remains in the Project panel. If you make a significant change to the original nested composition, render it again.

Pre-rendering a nested composition is especially beneficial when you will use it multiple times in a project.

Note: A

pply your final output settings when you pre-render the nested composition.

1 Select the composition in the Project or Composition panel.

2 Choose Composition > Pre-render.

The Pre-render command adds the composition to the render queue and sets the Import & Replace Usage postrender ac

3 In the Render Queue panel, adjust settings as necessary, and click the Render button to render the composition.

tion to replace the composition with the rendered movie.

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Projects and compositions

See this video tutorial on the Video2Brain website about how to save time with pre-rendering and proxies in After

Effects.

Note: A

n alternative to replacing the composition with the movie is to use the rendered movie as a proxy for the nested

osition.

comp

Render order and collapsing transformations

A composition consists of layers stacked on top of one another in the Timeline panel. When the composition is rendered—either for previewing or for final output—the bottom layer is rendered first. Within each raster (non-vector) layer, elements are applied in the following order: masks, effects, transformations, and layer styles. For continuously rasterized vector layers, the default rendering order is masks, followed by transformations, and then effects.

Transformations a including Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity. What you see in the Layer panel is the result of the rendering before transformations are performed.

Note: F

or additional control over when transformations are performed, you can apply the Transform effect and reorder it

th respect to other effects.

In a group of effects or masks, items are processed from top to bottom. For example, if you apply the Circle effect and then a

pply the Magnify effect, the circle is magnified. However, if you drag the Magnify effect above (before) the Circle

effect in the Effect Controls or Timeline panel, the circle is drawn after the magnification and isn’t magnified.

After a layer has been rendered, rendering begins for the next layer. The rendered layer below may be used as input to t

endering of the layer above—for example, for determining the result of a blending mode.

he r

If a composition contains other compositions nested within it, the nested composition is rendered before other layers in the co

Note: S pre

and nesting .)

Collapsing transformations

If the Collapse Transformations switch is selected for a nested composition, then the transformations for the nested composition are not performed until after the masks and effects for the containing composition are rendered. This r or collapsed—and performed together. The same is true for vector layers that are not continuously rasterized.

ntaining composition.

ome effects ignore masks on the layer to which they’re applied. To have such an effect operate on a masked layer,

-compose the layer with the mask applied, and then apply the effect to the pre-composed layer. (See About precomposing

r order allows the transformations for the nested composition and the containing composition to be combined—

ende

re cha

nges to those properties grouped under the Transform category in the Timeline panel,

Note: I

nstead of a Collapse Transformations switch, vector layers have a Continuously Rasterize switch in the same

tion. Vector layers include shape layers, text layers, and layers with vector graphic files as the source footage. Text layers

loca and shape layers are always continuously rasterized.

Collapsing transformations can, for example, preserve resolutio composition, and the nested composition is scaled up by a factor of two in the containing composition. In this case, rather than performing both transformations and losing image data in the process, one transformation can be performed—doing nothing, because the individual transformations cancel each other.

If transformations are not collapsed, a nested composition that contains 3D layers is rendered as a 2D image of the 3D arran

gement, using the default composition camera. This rendering prevents the nested composition from intersecting with 3D layers, casting shadows on 3D layers, and receiving shadows from 3D layers in the containing composition. The nested composition is also not controlled by the cameras and lights of the containing composition.

hen a layer is scaled down by half in a nested

n w

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If transformations are collapsed, the 3D properties of the layers in the nested composition are exposed to the containing composition. Thus, the nested composition can intersect with 3D layers, cast shadows on 3D layers, and receive shadows from 3D layers in the containing composition. The containing composition's camera and lights can also control the nested composition.

Essentially, collapsing transformations for a nested composition tells After Effects to not flatten and crop the layers in th

e p

recomposition. Because an adjustment layer operates on the composite of all of the layers beneath it within the same composition, an adjustment layer within a nested composition with collapsed transformations will force the flattening and cropping that collapsing transformations would normally prevent.

When a closed mask (with mask mode other than None), a layer with collapsed transformations, the layers in the nested composition are first rendered on their own, then masks and effects are applied, and then the result is composited into the main composition. This rendering order means that the blending modes of the nested layers are not applied to any underlying layers in the main composition, and that 3D layers above and below the collapsed layer cannot intersect or cast shadows on each other.

Online resources

This video from the “After Effects CS5: Learn by Video” series provides a detailed visual demonstration of the render

order and how to work with (and around) it.

Chris and Trish Meyer explain collapsing transformations and continuous rasterization in this article on the ProVideo

Coalition website.

styl

e, or an effect is applied to a nested composition

More Help topics

Create layers from footage items or change layer source

3D layer interactions, render order, and collapsed transformations

Layer switches and columns in the Timeline panel

Parent and child layers

Post-render actions

Placeholders and proxies

Basics of rendering and exporting

Change the stacking order for selected layers

Composition basics

For more information about creating compositions, see this video by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website.

About compositions

A composition is the framework for a movie. Each composition has its own timeline. A typical composition includes multiple layers that represent components such as video and audio footage items, animated text and vector graphics, still images, and lights. You add a footage item to a composition by creating a layer for which the footage item is the source. You then arrange layers within a composition in space and time, and composite using transparency features to determine which parts of underlying layers show through the layers stacked on top of them. (See Layers and properties and Transparency and compositing .)

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A composition in After Effects is similar to a movie clip in Flash Professional or a sequence in Premiere Pro.

You render a composition to create the frames of a final output movie, which is encoded and exported to any number of form

ats. (See Basics of rendering and exporting .)

Simple projects may include only one composition; complex projects may include hundreds of compositions to organ

ize large amounts of footage or many effects.

In some places in the After Effects user interface, composition is abbreviated as comp.

Each composition has an entry in the Project panel. Double-click a composition entry in the Project panel to open the co

osition in its own Timeline panel. To select a composition in the Project panel, right-click (Windows) or Control-

mp click (Mac OS) in the Composition panel or Timeline panel for the composition and choose Reveal Composition In Project from the context menu.

Use the Composition panel to preview a composition and modify its contents manually. The Composition panel co

ains the composition frame and a pasteboard area outside the frame that you can use to move layers into and out of the composition frame. The offstage extents of layers—the portions not in the composition frame—are shown as rectangular outlines. Only the area inside the composition frame is rendered for previews and final output.

The composition frame in the Composition panel in After Effects is similar to the Stage in Flash Professional.

When working with a complex project, you may find it easiest to organize the project by nesting compositions—putting on

more compositions into another composition. You can create a composition from any number of layers by

e or precomposing them. If you are finished modifying some layers of your composition, you can precompose those layers and then pre-render the precomposition, replacing it with a rendered movie. (See Precomposing, nesting, and pre-

rendering.)

You can navigate within a hierarchy of nested compositions using the Composition Navigator and Composition MiniFlo

hart. (See Opening and navigating nested compositions.)

Use the Flowchart panel to see the structure of a complex composition or network of compositions.

Timeline button Click this button at the bottom of the Composition panel to activate the Timeline panel for the

current composition.

Press the backslash (\) key to switch activation between the Co

mposition panel and Timeline panel for the current

composition.

Comp button Click this button in the upper-right corner of the Timeline panel to activate the Composition panel

for the current composition.

Flowchart button Click this button at the bottom of the Composition panel to activate the Flowchart panel for the

current composition.

Create a composition

You can change composition settings at any time. However, it’s best to specify settings such as frame aspect ratio and frame size when you create the composition, with your final output in mind. Because After Effects bases certain calculations on these composition settings, changing them late in your workflow can affect your final output.

For more information about creating compositions, see this video by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website.

Note: Y

ou can override some composition settings when rendering to final output. For example, you can use different frame

zes for the same movie. For more information see Render settings and Output modules and output module settings.

When you create a composition without changing settings in the Composition Settings dialog box, the new comp

osition uses the settings from the previous time that composition settings were set.

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Note: New compositions do not inherit the previous Preserve Frame Rate When Nested Or In Render Queue and Preserve Resolution When Nested settings.

You can create a set of After Effects compositions tailored for a selected set of devices by using the File > New Document I

ter Effects command in Adobe Device Central. See Create compositions for playback on mobile devices .

n > Af

Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that creates and saves a new project for each selected composition in the current project. If a folder is selected in the Project panel when you create a new composition, the n

composition is placed in the selected folder.

Create a composition and manually set composition settings

❖ Choose Composition > New Composition, or press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Mac OS).

Create a composition from a single footage item

❖ Drag the footage item to the Create A New Composition button at the bottom of the Project panel or choose File

> New Comp From Selection.

Composition settings, including frame size (width and height) and pixel aspect ratio, are automatically set to match t

racteristics of the footage item.

he cha

Create a single composition from multiple footage items

1 Select footage items in the Project panel.

2 Drag the selected footage items to the Create A New Composition button at the bottom of the Project panel, or

choose File > New Comp From Selection.

3 Select Single Composition and other settings in the New Composition From Selection dialog box:

Use Dimensions From Choose the footage item from which the new composition gets composition settings,

including frame size (width and height) and pixel aspect ratio.

Still Duration The duration for the still images being added.

Add To Render Queue Add the new composition to the render queue.

Sequence Layers, Overlap, Duration, and Transition Arrange the layers in a sequence, optionally overlap them in

time, set the duration of the transitions, and choose a transition type.

Create multiple compositions from multiple footage items

1 Select footage items in the Project panel.

2 Drag the selected footage items to the Create A New Composition button at the bottom of the Project panel, or

choose File > New Comp From Selection.

3 Select Multiple Compositions and other settings in the New Composition From Selection dialog box:

Still Duration The duration of the compositions created from still images.

Add To Render Queue Add the new compositions to the render queue.

Duplicate a composition

1 Select the composition in the Project panel.

2 Choose Edit > Duplicate or press Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac OS).

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Create compositions for playback on mobile devices

Screen dimensions and video frame rates vary from one mobile device to another. For information on acquiring footage for playback on mobile devices, see Planning for playback on computer monitors and mobile devices.

For a video tutorial about creating compositions for mobile devices, go to the Adobe TV website.

1 In Adobe Device Central, choose File > New Document In > After Effects.

2 Select one or more devices.

3 In the New Composition tab, select Create Master Composition.

4 Click Create in the lower-right corner of the New Composition tab.

If After Effects is already running, then the new compositions are created in the existing project. If After Effects is not al

ready running, then After Effects starts and the new compositions are created in a new project.

You do your design, animation, and other work in the Device Ma compositions for previews and to render for final output.

The Device Master composition is nested and centered in each of the device-specific compositions. The frame rate, hei

t, and width settings for the Device Master composition are each set to the maximum of the values for the device-

gh specific compositions. You can resize or move the nested Device Master composition within each device-specific composition—for example, to tweak layout for different frame aspect ratios. A guide layer for each device in the Device Master composition facilitates your design work.

A Preview composition is also created. The Preview composition co that you can preview your master composition in the context of several mobile devices simultaneously.

After you render and export the compositions, you can preview and test the resulting movies on the simulated devices with

in Adobe Device Central.

ster composition. You use the device-specific

ists of a grid of device-specific compositions so

Timeline panel

Each composition has its own Timeline panel. You use the Timeline panel to perform many tasks, such as animating layer properties, arranging layers in time, and setting blending modes. The layers at the bottom of the layer stacking order in the Timeline panel are rendered first and—in the case of 2D image layers— appear farthest back in the Composition panel and in the final composite.

To cycle forward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+period To cycle backward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+comma (,) (Windows) or Option+Shift+comma (,) (Mac

OS).

(.) (Windows) or Option+Shift+period (.) (Mac OS).

The current time for a composition is indicated by the current-time indicator (CTI), the vertical red line in the time g

ph. The current time for a composition also appears in the current time display in the upper-left corner of the

ra Timeline panel. For more information on moving the current-time indicator, see Move the current-time indicator

(CTI).

The left side of the Timeline panel consists of columns of co time graph—contains a time ruler, markers, keyframes, expressions, duration bars for layers (in layer bar mode), and the Graph Editor (in Graph Editor mode).

rols for layers. The right side of the Timeline panel—the

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A Current-time display B Current-time indicator (CTI) C Time ruler D Layer switches E Time graph

Press the backslash (\) key to switch activation between the Composition panel and Timeline panel for the current composition.

Composition settings

You can enter composition settings manually, or you can use composition settings presets to automatically set frame size (width and height), pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate for many common output formats. You can also create and save your own custom composition settings presets for later use. Resolution, Start Timecode (or Start Frame), Duration, and Advanced composition settings are not saved with composition settings presets.

Note: The l th

ree hours does not display correctly. The maximum composition size is 30,000x30,000 pixels. A 30,000x30,000 8-bpc image requires approximately 3.5 GB; your maximum composition size may be less, depending on your operating system and available RAM.

imit for composition duration is three hours. You can use footage items longer than three hours, but time after

Working with composition settings

• To open the Composition Settings dialog box to change composition settings, do one of the following:

• Select a composition in the Project panel or activate the Timeline or Composition panel for a composition, and

choose Composition > Composition Settings, or press Ctrl+K (Windows) or Command+K (Mac OS).

• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a composition in the Project panel or Composition panel (not

on a layer), and choose Composition Settings from the context menu.

• To save a custom composition settings preset, set Width, Height, Pixel Aspect Ratio, and Frame Rate values in the

Composition Settings dialog box, and then click the Save button .

• To delete a composit ion settings preset, choose it from t he Preset menu in the Comp osition Settings dialog box, and

click the Delete button .

• To restore default composition settings presets, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Delete button

or the Save button in the Composition Settings dialog box.

Note: You cannot move custom composition settings presets from one system to another, as they are embedded into the

eferences file.

• To scale an entire composition, choose File > Scripts > Scale Composition.jsx.

Note: Ensure all layers are unlocked in the selected composition or the script will fail.

ff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website to set the frame rate and duration of the current composition

and all compositions nested within it.

Christopher Green provides a script (Selected_Comps_Changer.jsx) on his website with which you can change the composition settings for compositions selected in the Project panel.

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Projects and compositions

Basic composition settings

Start Timecode or Start Frame Timecode or frame number assigned to the first frame of the composition. This value

does not affect rendering; it merely specifies where to start counting from.

Background Color Use the color swatch or eyedropper to pick a composition background color. (See Select a color or

edit a gradient.)

note: When you add one composition to another (nesting), the back preserved, and the background of the nested composition becomes transparent. To preserve the background color of the nested composition, create a solid-color layer to use as a background layer in the nested composition.

For information on specific Basic composition settings not listed here, see the related sections:

ground color of the containing composition is

• Pixel aspect ratio and frame aspect ratio

• Frame rate

• Resolution

Advanced composition settings

After Effects includes an updated advanced section to allow for ray-traced 3D renderer options. The 3D renderer plugin has been renamed as, "Renderer" for these choices because you are choosing one renderer or another for a composition.

To choose a composition type, select one of the following from the Renderer menu:

• Classic 3D

• Ray-traced 3D

Click the Options button to launch the Ray-traced 3D Renderer Options dialog box. You can also Ctrl-click (Windows) or C

ommand-click (Mac OS) the Current Renderer Indicator button in the upper-right of the Composition panel to

launch the dialog box.

Here you can choose:

• Ray-tracing quality: Click the Ray-tracing quality setting to change it according to your workflow.

• Higher values for ray-tracing quality decrease noise but greatly increase render time.

• Ray-tracing quality controls the number of rays fired per pixel (for example, a value of 4 fires 16 or 4x4 rays, and

8 fires 64 rays).

• A larger number produces a more accurate pixel at the expense of computation time.

• A value of 1 will provide better performance, but there won't be any reflection blur (for example, it is always

sharp), soft shadow, depth of field, or motion blur.

Increasing the Ray-tracing Quality value will not increase the sharpness. Instead it decreases the noise inherent in point s

pling. You should use the lowest value that produces an acceptable amount of noise or no noise.

• Anti-aliasing Filter: Controls the method of averaging the fired rays for a pixel. None fires all rays within the

bounds of a pixel, whereas the others spreads the grid of fired rays partially across adjacent pixels to produce a better average. Box, Tent, and Cubic (which is not bicubic) are listed in the order of better quality.

• None

• Box

• Te nt

• Cubic

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The anti-aliasing filter controls the amount of blurriness. None gives the sharpest result but the edges of the projection catcher may look aliased, with Box blur, Triangle, and Cubic giving blurrier results.

Note: R

ay-traced 3D layers use Ray-tracing Quality to control the appearance of motion blur.Depth of field calculations in

raced 3D are more accurate than they are in Classic 3D (and previously in Advanced 3D).

Ray-t

Anchor Click an arrow button to anchor layers to a corner or edge of the composition as it is resized.

For information on specific Advanced composition settings not listed here, see the related sections:

• Specify resolution to use for rendering shadows

• Preferences and composition settings that affect nested compositions

• Motion blur

Composition thumbnail images

You can choose which frame of a composition to show as a thumbnail image (poster frame) for the composition in the Project panel. By default, the thumbnail image is the first frame of the composition, with transparent portions shown as black.

• To set the thumbnail image for a composition, move the current-time indicator to the desired frame of the

composition in the Timeline panel, and choose Composition > Set Poster Time.

• To add a transparency grid to the thumbnail view, choose Thumbnail Transparency Grid from the Project panel

menu.

• To hide the thumbnail images in the Project panel, choose Edit > Preferences > Display (Windows) or After Effects

> Preferences > Display (Mac OS) and select Disable Thumbnails In Project Panel.

More Help topics

Creating layers

Preview video and audio

Flowchart panel

Basics of rendering and exporting

About precomposing and nesting

Test content in Adobe Device Central

Show and hide layers in the Timeline panel

Layer switches and columns in the Timeline panel

The Graph Editor

Columns

Keyboard shortcuts

Timecode and time display units

Many quantities in After Effects are either points in time or spans of time, including the current time, layer In and Out points, and durations of layers, footage items, and compositions.

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By default, After Effects displays time in Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) timecode: hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. You can change to another system of time display, such as frames, or feet and frames of 16mm or 35mm film.

You may want to see time values in feet plus frames format, for example, if you are preparing a movie for eventual output t

film; or in simple frame numbers if you plan to use your movie in an animation program such as Flash. The format

you choose applies to the current project only.

Note: C

hanging the time display format does not alter the frame rate of your assets or output—it changes only how frames

e numbered for display in After Effects.

Video-editing workstations often use SMPTE timecode that is recorded onto videotape for reference. If you are creating vi

hat will be synchronized with video that uses SMPTE timecode, use the default timecode display style.

deo t

In After Effects CS5.5 and later, timecode from source files can be displayed from a variety of file formats. Source time

code is found in several areas of the interface including the Project panel, Project Settings dialog box, Composition

Settings dialog box and Preferences dialog box. See Source timecode for more information.

Change time-display units

• To cycle through Timecode Base, or Frames / Feet + Frames (depending if you have the “Use Feet + Frames” option

checked in the Project Settings), Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the current-time display. The current-time display is in the upper-left corner of the Timeline panel and at the bottom of the Layer, Composition, and Footage panels. (See Timeline panel.) The option that is not selected in Project Settings will be displayed as smaller text underneath.

• To change time display units, choose File > Project Settings, and choose from the options in the Time Display Style

section.

Options for time-display units

Timecode Displays time as timecode in the time rulers of the Timeline, Layer and Footage panels, using either Use

Media Source (source timecode) or starting at 00:00:00:00. Select the Timecode option to use timecode instead of Frames. Note that there are no options for choosing frame rate or drop-frame / non-drop-frame, as source timecode is detected and used instead.

Note: You may have both drop-frame and non-drop-frame timecode in any composition within a project.

Frames Displays frame number instead of time. Use this setting for convenience when doing work that you are

integrating with a frame-based application or format, like Flash or SWF. To use Frames, select Frames and deselect Feet + Frames.

Feet + Frames Displays the number of feet of film, plus frames for fractional feet, for 16mm or 35mm film. To use Feet

+ Frames, select Frames and select Feet + Frames.

Frame Count Determines the starting number for the time display style for Frames.

Timecode Conversion Timecode value of the item is used for the starting number (if the item has source timecode). If

there is no timecode value, counting begins with zero. Timecode Conversion causes After Effects to behave as it has in previous versions, where the frame count and the timecode count of all assets are mathematically equivalent.

Start at 0 The counting for frames begins at zero.

Start at 1 The counting for frames begins at one.

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Note: The new options of “Start at 0” and “Start at 1” allow you to specify different frame counting schemes between the “Frames” and “Timecode.” For example, you might choose to honor the source timecode of footage items, but count frames beginning at zero or one.

Source timecode

Source timecode support file formats After Effects can read and use timecode for most formats including: QuickTime, DV, AVI, P2, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, h.264, AVCHD, RED, XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD, WAV and DPX image sequence importers.

Project panel Source timecode is displayed in columns in the Project panel: Media Start, Media End, Media Duration

and Tape Name. These refer to the source’s start, end and total duration. In addition, columns have been added for In, Out, and Duration, which reflect the In and Out points set by the user in the Footage panel for footage item, or the work area for compositions.

Project Settings The Project Settings dialog box has been substantially reworked to accommodate the source timecode

feature set. For details, see Options for time-display units .

Composition Settings dialog box The Composition Settings dialog box has been changed to accomodate the source

timecode feature set. For details, see Frame rate.

Preferences dialog box The Preferences dialog box’s Import pane has been changed to support source timecode

features. See Import preferences.

Online resources about timecode

Trish and Chris Meyer provide an article on the ProVideo Coalition website that describes the difference between dropframe and non-drop-frame timecode.

Chris Pirazzi provides technical details about timecode on his Lurker's Guide to Video website.

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Chapter 4: Importing footage

Importing and interpreting footage items

About imported files and footage items

You import source files into a project as the basis for footage items and use them as sources for layers. The same file can be the source for multiple footage items, each with its own interpretation settings. Each footage item can be used as the source for one or more layers. You work with collections of layers in a composition.

You primarily work with footage items in the Project panel. You can use the Footage panel to evaluate footage and p

rm simple editing tasks, such as trimming the duration of a footage item.

erfo

You can import many different kinds of files, collections of files, or components of files as sources for individual footage item

s, including moving image files, still-image files, still-image sequences, and audio files. You can even create footage items yourself within After Effects, such as solids and precompositions. You can import footage items into a project at any time.

When you import files, After Effects does not copy the image data itself into your project but creates a reference link to th

e s

ource of the footage item, which keeps project files relatively small.

If you delete, rename, or move an imported source file, you break the reference link to that file. When a link is broken, the n

ame of the source file appears in italics in the Project panel, and the File Path column lists it as missing. If the footage item is available, you can reestablish the link—usually just by double-clicking the item and selecting the file again.

You can find footage items for which the source items are missing by typing missing in the search field in the Project panel. See Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels.

To reduce rendering time and increase performance, it is often best to prepare footage before you import it into After E

ffe

cts. For example, it is often better to scale or crop a still image in Photoshop before you bring it into After Effects, rather than scaling and cropping the image in After Effects. It is better to perform an operation once in Photoshop than to force After Effects to perform the same action many times per second—once for each frame in which the image appears.

To save time and minimize the size and complexity of a project, import a source item as a single footage item and then us

ultiple times in a composition. It is occasionally useful, however, to duplicate a footage item and interpret each

e it m

differently. For example, you can use the same footage at two different frame rates.

If you use another application to modify a footage item that is used in a project, the changes appear in After Effects the n

t time that you open the project or select the footage item and choose File > Reload Footage.

To replace the source footage item for a layer with another footage item, without affecting changes made to the layer properties, select the layer and then Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the new footage item onto the layer

the Timeline panel.

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Importing footage

To replace all uses of selected footage items with another footage item, select footage items in the Project panel, and then Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the new footage item onto a selected footage item in the Project panel.

When After Effects imports video and audio in some formats, it processes and caches versions of these items that it can r

dily access when generating previews. This caching greatly improves performance for previews, because the video

and audio items do not need to be reprocessed for each preview. See Media cache .

For more information about importing assets, see this video tutorial on the Creative COW website by Andrew Devis.

Supported import formats

Some filename extensions—such as MOV, AVI, MXF, FLV, and F4V—denote container file formats rather than denoting a specific audio, video, or image data format. Container files can contain data encoded using various compression and encoding schemes. After Effects can import these container files, but the ability to import the data that they contain is dependent on which codecs (specifically, decoders) are installed.

By installing additional codecs, you can extend the ability of A must be installed into the operating system (Windows or Mac OS) and work as a component inside the QuickTime or Video for Windows formats. Contact the manufacturer of your hardware or software for more information about codecs that work with the files that your specific devices or applications create.

Importing and using some files requires the installation of additional import plug-ins. (See Plug-ins.)

Adobe Premiere Pro can capture and import many formats that After Effects can’t import natively. You can bring data f

Adobe Premiere Pro into After Effects in many ways. (See Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.)

rom

For workflow guides and updates for P2, RED, XDCAM, AVCCAM, and DSLR cameras and footage, see the Adobe

website.

This video from the "After Effects CS5: Learn by Video" series explains codecs, containers, and formats and shows how

to get information about source files and footage items.

Audio formats

er Effects to import additional file types. Many codecs

• Adobe Sound Document (ASND; multi-track files imported as merged single track)

• Advanced Audio Coding (AAC, M4A)

• Audio Interchange File Format (AIF, AIFF)

• MP3 (MP3, MPEG, MPG, MPA, MPE)

• Video for Windows (AVI; requires QuickTime on Mac OS)

• Wav e f o r m ( WAV)

Still-image formats

• Adobe Illustrator (AI, AI4, AI5, EPS, PS; continuously rasterized)

• Adobe PDF (PDF; first page only; continuously rasterized)

• Adobe Photoshop (PSD)

• Bitmap (BMP, RLE, DIB)

• Camera raw (TIF, CRW, NEF, RAF, ORF, MRW, DCR, MOS, RAW, PEF, SRF, DNG, X3F, CR2, ERF)

• Cineon/DPX (CIN, DPX; 10 bpc)

• Discreet RLA/RPF (RLA, RPF; 16 bpc; imports camera data)

• EPS

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Importing footage

• GIF

• JPEG (JPG, JPE)

• Maya camera data (MA)

• Maya IFF (IFF, TDI; 16 bpc)

• OpenEXR (EXR, SXR, MXR; 32 bpc)

• PICT (PCT)

• Portable Network Graphics (PNG; 16 bpc)

• Radiance (HDR, RGBE, XYZE; 32 bpc)

• SGI (SGI, BW, RGB; 16 bpc)

• Softimage (PIC)

Note: 3D Channel effect plug-ins from fnord software are included with After Effects to provide access to multiple layers and

channels of OpenEXR files. (See Using channels in OpenEXR files.)

Note: After Effects can also read ZPIC files corresponding to imported PIC files. See Im

applications.)

porting and using 3D files from other

• Tar g a ( T G A , VDA, ICB, VS T )

• TIFF (TIF)

You can import files of any still-image format as a sequence. See Preparing and importing still images .

Video and animation formats

• Animated GIF (GIF)

• Support for ARRIRAW files from the ARRI ALEXA, or ARRIFLEX D-21 cameras

• The following are known issues with ARRIRAW:

The importer works in 16 bit, so set your project to 16 or 32 bpc.

There is no exposure or color space control in the importer, and no importer options at all.

Footage is always decoded at full resolution, even if a lower frame size is needed.

Metadata is not exposed as XMP, so is not available in After Effects.

Collect Files does not work with ARRIRAW footage.

• CinemaDNG

Note:CinemaDNG is the Interpret Footage dialog box. Color management for CinemaDNG includes the same color spaces as After Effects existing CameraRAW: Adobe RGB, sRGB IEC619662.1, ColorMatch RGB, and ProPhoto RGB.

a subset of CameraRAW. A subset of CameraRAW settings can be accessed via More Options in

• For more information on CinemaDNG, and to download the CinemaDNG importer, go to the Adobe Labs website.

• DV (in MOV or AVI container, or as containerless DV stream)

• Electric Image (IMG, EI)

Project formats

• Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, CS3, CS4, CS5 (PRPROJ; 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 Windows only)

• Adobe After Effects 6.0 and later binary projects in After Effects CS5 (AEP, AET)

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Importing footage

• Adobe After Effects 6.5 and later binary projects in After Effects CS5.5 and later (AEP, AET)

• Adobe After Effects CS4 and later XML projects (AEPX)

The Automatic Duck Pro Import AE plug-in is now bundled with the application, and called Pro Import After Effects. With

it, you can import AAF and OMF files from an Avid system, XML files from Final Cut Pro 7, or earlier, and project files from Motion 4, or earlier. For more information on using Pro Import After Effects, see its User Guide, accessible by choosing File > Import > Pro Import After Effects, then clicking the Help button.

You can also import Final Cut Pro projects into Premiere Pro and then bring that project's components into After Effe

cts.

In this video by Todd Kopriva and video2brain, learn how to import projects using Pro Import After Effects. We

demonstrate using a Final Cut Pro project, but the same procedure works for other formats, such as XML, AAF, and OM

te: A

fter Effects can also read EIZ files corresponding to imported EI files. See Importing and using 3D files from other

plications.)

• FLV, F4V

• Media eXchange Format (MXF)

MXF is a container format. After Effects can only import some kinds of data contained within MXF files. After Effects can im

port the Op-Atom variety of MXF files used by Panasonic video cameras to record to Panasonic P2 media. After Effects can import video from these MXF files using the AVC-Intra 50, AVC-Intra 100, DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, an d DVC PRO HD codecs . Af ter Effects ca n al so i mport X DCAM HD file s in MXF format, the MXF OP1 format, which contains MPEG-2 video that complies with the XDCAM HD format.

• MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 formats: MPEG, MPE, MPG, M2V, MPA, MP2, M2A, MPV, M2P, M2T, M2TS

(AVCHD), AC3, MP4, M4V, M4A

Note: Some MPEG data formats are stored in container formats with filename extensions that are not recognized by After

s; examples include .vob and .mod. In some cases, you can import these files into After Effects after changing the

Effect filename extension to one of the recognized filename extensions. Because of variations in implementation in these container formats, compatibility is not guaranteed.

For information about MPEG formats, see the MPEG website and the MPEG page on the Wik i p e d i a w ebsite.

• PSD file with video layer (requires QuickTime)

• QuickTime (MOV; 16 bpc, requires QuickTime)

Note: David Van Brink provides the qt_tools toolset on his omino examining QuickTime files.

website. This toolset is useful for converting and

• RED (R3D)

Note: R3D files are interpreted as containing 32-bpc colors in a non-linear HDTV (Rec. 709) color space. The RED R3D Sou

rce Settings color adjustments don't preserve overbright values. Color adjustments done within After Effects do preserve overbright colors when you work in 32-bpc (bits per channel) color. To avoid clipping, manipulate exposure in After Effects, rather than in the footage interpretation stage in the RED R3D Source Settings dialog box. (For more information on using R3D files, see the RED website and the Adobe website.)

• SWF (continuously rasterized)

Note: SWF files are imported with an alpha channel. Audio is not retained. Interactive content and scripted animation are not r

etained. Animation defined by keyframes in the main, top-level movie is retained.

• Video for Windows (AVI, WAV; requires QuickTime on Mac OS)

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Importing footage

• Windows Media File (WMV, WMA, ASF; Windows only)

• XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX

Note: After Effects can import Sony XDCAM HD assets if they were recorded to MXF files. After Effects cannot import XD

CAM HD assets in IMX format. After Effects can import Sony XDCAM EX assets stored as essence files with the .mp4 filename extension in a BPAV directory. For information about the XDCAM format, see this PDF document on the Sony website.

Import footage items

You can import media files into your project either by using the Import dialog box or by dragging. The imported footage items appear in the Project panel.

If the Interpret Footage dialog box appears after you import a footage item, it contains an unlabeled alpha channel, and y

ust select an alpha channel interpretation method or click Guess to let After Effects determine how to interpret

ou m

the alpha channel. (See Alpha channel interpretation: premultiplied or straight .)

Import footage items using the Import dialog box

1 Choose File > Import > File, choose File > Import > Multiple Files, or double-click an empty area of the Project

panel.

If you choose Import Multiple Files, then you can perform the next step more than once without needing to choose a

mport command multiple times.

n I

To display only supported footage files (excluding project files), choose All Footage Files from the Files Of Type (Windows) or Enable (Mac OS) menu.

2 Do one of the following:

• Select a file, and then click Open.

• Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) multiple files to select them, and then click Open.

• Click a file and then Shift-click another file to select a range of files, and then click Open.

• (Windows only) Select an entire folder, and then click Import Folder.

Note: If the Sequence option is selected, multiple files from the folder are imported as a sequence of still images.

Import footage items by dragging

If you always want the layered still-image files that you drag into After Effects to be imported as a composition, choose

Edit > Preferences > Import (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Import (Mac OS), and choose Composition or Comp

osition - Retain Layer Sizes from the Drag Import Multiple Items As menu. (See Import a still-image sequence as a

composition.)

• To import a single file, drag it from Windows Explorer (Windows) or the Finder (Mac OS) into the Project panel.

• To import the contents of a folder as a sequence of still images that appear in the Project panel as a single footage

item, drag a folder from Windows Explorer (Windows) or the Finder (Mac OS) into the Project panel.

• To import the contents of the folder as individual footage items that appear in the Project panel in a folder, Alt-drag

a folder from Windows Explorer (Windows) or Option-drag a folder from the Finder (Mac OS) into the Project panel.

• To import a rendered output file from the Render Queue panel, drag the corresponding output module from the

Render Queue panel into the Project panel.

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Importing footage

Note: If you drag an output module from the Render Queue panel into the Project panel before rendering, After Effects creates a placeholder footage item. References to the placeholder footage item are automatically replaced when the output module is rendered; the placeholder footage item itself is not replaced.

Interpret footage items

After Effects uses a set of internal rules to interpret each footage item that you import according to its best guess for the source file’s pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, color profile, and alpha channel type. If After Effects guesses wrong, or if you want to use the footage differently, you can modify these rules for all footage items of a particular kind by editing the interpretation rules file (interpretation rules.txt), or you can modify the interpretation of a specific footage item using the Interpret Footage dialog box.

The interpretation settings tell After Effects the following about each footage item:

• How to interpret the interaction of the alpha channel with other channels (See Alpha channel interpretation:

premultiplied or straight .)

• What frame rate to assume for the footage item (See Frame rate .)

• Whether to separate fields and, if so, what field order to assume (See Interlaced video and separating fields.)

• Whether to remove 3:2 or 24Pa pulldown (See Remove 3:2 or 24Pa pulldown from video.)

• The pixel aspect ratio of the footage item (See Pixel aspect ratio and frame aspect ratio .)

• The color profile of the footage item (See Interpret a footage item by assigning an input color profile.)

Note: In all of these cases, the information is used to make decisions about how to interpret data in the imported footage it

em—to tell After Effects about the input footage. The interpretation settings in the Interpret Footage dialog box should match the settings used to create the source footage file. Do not use the interpretation settings to try to specify settings for your final rendered output.

Generally, you don’t need to change interpretation settings. However, if a footage item isn’t of a common kind, After Ef

fec

ts may need additional information from you to interpret it correctly.

You can use the controls in the Color Management section of the Interpret Footage dialog box to tell After Effects how to i

nterpret the color information in a footage item. This step is usually only necessary when the footage item does not

contain an embedded color profile.

When you preview in the Footage panel, you see the results of the footage interpretation operations.

Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that you can use to make guessing the 3:2 pulldown, 24Pa pulldown, or alpha channel interpretation more convenient.

Note: S

elect Preview in the Interpret Footage dialog box to preview the results of the settings made in this dialog box before

you

accept the changes.

Interpret a single footage item using the Interpret Footage dialog box

❖ Select a footage item in the Project panel and do one of the following:

• Click the Interpret Footage button at the bottom of the Project panel.

• Drag the footage item to the Interpret Footage button.

• Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

• Press Ctrl+Alt+G (Windows) or Command+Option+G (Mac OS).

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Importing footage

Interpret a proxy using the Interpret Footage dialog box

❖ Select the original footage item in the Project panel and do one of the following:

• Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Interpret Footage button at the bottom of the Project

panel.

• Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the footage item to the Interpret Footage button.

• Choose File > Interpret Footage > Proxy.

Apply Interpret Footage settings to multiple footage items

You can ensure that different footage items use the same settings by copying interpretation settings from one item and applying them to others.

1 In the Project panel, select the item with the interpretation settings that you want to apply.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Remember Interpretation.

3 Select one or more footage items in the Project panel.

4 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Apply Interpretation.

Edit interpretation rules for all items of a specific kind

The interpretation rules file contains the rules that specify how After Effects interprets footage items. In most cases, you don’t need to customize the interpretation rules file. When you import a footage item, After Effects looks for a match in the interpretation rules file, and then determines interpretation settings for the footage item. You can override these settings after importing, using the Interpret Footage dialog box.

In most cases, the name of the interpretation rules file is interpretation rules.txt; however, some updates to After Effects in

all a new interpretation rules file with a name that indicates the updated version number, and the updated application uses this new file. If you’ve made changes to the old interpretation rules file, you may need to apply those changes to the new file, too.

Locations of the interpretation rules file in After Effects CC:

• (Windows) <drive>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects <13.0>

• (Mac OS) <drive>/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects <13.0>

Locations of the interpretation rules file in previous versions of After Effects CC:

• (Windows) <drive>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects <12.x>

• (Mac OS) <drive>/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects <12.x>

1 Quit After Effects.

2 As a precaution, make a backup copy of the interpretation rules file. By default, this file is in the same location as the

After Effects application.

3 Open the interpretation rules file in a text editor.

4 Modify the settings according to the instructions in the file.

Note: You must supply a four-character file-type code for each footage type or codec. If you don’t know the code for a fil

e or codec in a project, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you select the file in the Project panel. The filetype code and codec code (if the file is compressed) appear in the last line of the file description at the top of the Project panel.

5 Save interpretation rules.txt.

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Importing footage

Alpha channel interpretation: premultiplied or straight

Image files with alpha channels store transparency information in one of two ways: straight or premultiplied. Although the alpha channels are the same, the color channels differ.

With straight (or unmatted) channels, transparency information

d only in the alpha channel, not in any of the

is store visible color channels. With straight channels, the results of transparency aren’t visible until the image is displayed in an application that supports straight channels.

With premultiplied (or matted) channels, transparency information is stored in the alpha channel and also in the visible RGB cha

nnels, w

hich are multiplied with a background color. Premultiplied channels are sometimes said to be matted with color. The colors of semitransparent areas, such as feathered edges, are shifted toward the background color in proportion to their degree of transparency.

Some software lets you specify the background color with which the channels are premultiplied; otherwise, the back

ground color is usually black or white.

Straight channels retain more accurate color information than premultiplied channels. Premultiplied channels are co

atible with a wider range of programs, such as Apple QuickTime Player. Often, the choice of whether to use images

mp with straight or premultiplied channels has been made before you receive the assets to edit and composite. Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects recognize both straight and premultiplied channels, but only the first alpha channel they encounter in a file containing multiple alpha channels.

Setting the alpha channel interpretation correctly can prevent problems when you import a file, such as undesirable colo

he edge of an image or a loss of image quality at the edges of the alpha channel. For example, if channels are

rs at t interpreted as straight when they are actually premultiplied, semitransparent areas retain some of the background color. If a color inaccuracy, such as a halo, appears along the semitransparent edges in a composition, try changing the interpretation method.

A footage item with premultiplied channels (top) appears with a black halo when interpreted as Straight-Unmatted (lower-left). When the footage item is interpreted as Premultiplied-Matted With Color and the background color is specified as black, the halo does not appear (lower-right).

You can use the Remove Color Matting effect to remove the fringes from the semi-transparent areas of a layer by unmultiplying it.

Aharon Rabinowitz provides a video tutorial on the Creative COW website that describes how and when to use the Remove Color Matting effect.

Set the alpha channel interpretation for a footage item

1 In the Project panel, select a footage item.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

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Importing footage

3 If you want to switch the opaque and transparent areas of the image, select Invert Alpha.

4 In the Alpha section, select an interpretation method:

Guess Attempts to determine the type of channels used in the image. If After Effects cannot guess confidently, it

beeps.

Ignore Disregards transparency information contained in the alpha channel.

Straight - Unmatted Interprets the channels as straight.

Premultiplied - Matted With Color Interprets channels as premultiplied. Use the eyedropper or color picker to

specify the color of the background with which the channels were premultiplied.

Set the default alpha channel preferences

1 Choose Edit > Preferences > Import (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Import (Mac OS).

2 Choose options from the Interpret Unlabeled Alpha As menu. The options in this menu are similar to the options

in the Interpret Footage dialog box. Ask User specifies that the Interpret Footage dialog box opens each time a footage item with an unlabeled alpha channel is imported.

Frame rate

The composition frame rate determines the number of frames displayed per second, and how time is divided into frames in the time ruler and time display. In other words, the composition frame rate specifies how many times per second images are sampled from the source footage items, and it specifies the time divisions at which keyframes can be set.

Note: A

fter Effects contains a menu for drop-frame or non-drop-frame timecode in the Composition Settings dialog box.

previous releases, this option was a global setting per project.

This video form the “After Effects CS5: Learn by Video” series provides an introduction to frame rates for footage items,

compositions, and rendered movies, and how to modify each kind of frame rate to achieve the desired result.

Composition frame rate is usually determined by the type of output that you are targeting. NTSC video has a frame rate o

frames per second (fps), PAL video has a frame rate of 25 fps, and motion picture film typically has a frame

f 29.97 rate of 24 fps. Depending on the broadcast system, DVD video can have the same frame rate as NTSC video or PAL video, or a frame rate of 23.976. Cartoons and video intended for CD-ROM or the web are often 10–15 fps.

Setting the composition frame rate to twice the rate of the output format causes After Effects to display each field of interlaced source footage as its own, separate frame in the Composition panel. This process lets you set keyframes on

vidual fields and gain precision when animating masks.

When you render a movie for final output, you can choose to use the composition frame rate or another frame rate. The abi

lity to set the frame rate for each output module is useful when you are using the same composition to create

output for multiple media.

Each motion-footage item in a composition can also have its own frame rate. The relationship between the footage-item f

me rate and the composition frame rate determines how smoothly the layer plays. For example, if the footage-item

ra frame rate is 30 fps and the composition frame rate is 30 fps, then whenever the composition advances one frame, the next frame from the footage item is displayed. If the footage-item frame rate is 15 fps and the composition frame rate is 30 fps, then each frame of the footage item appears in two successive frames of the composition. (This assumes, of course, the simple case in which no time stretching or frame blending has been applied to the layer.)

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Importing footage

Ideally, use source footage that matches the final output frame rate. This way, After Effects renders each frame, and the final output does not omit, duplicate, or interpolate frames. If, however, the source footage has a frame rate slightly different from what you want to output to (for example, 30-fps footage and 29.97-fps final output), you can make the footage frame rate match the composition frame rate by conforming it.

Conforming the frame rate of a footage item does not alter the original file, only the reference that After Effects uses. W

n conforming, After Effects changes the internal duration of frames but not the frame content. Afterward, the footage plays back at a different speed. For example, if you conform the frame rate from 15 fps to 30 fps, the footage plays back twice as fast. In most cases, conform the frame rate only when the difference between the footage frame rate and the output frame rate is small.

Note: C

onforming can change the synchronization of visual footage that has an audio track, because changing the frame

te changes the duration of the video but leaves the audio unchanged. If you want to stretch both audio and video, use the

ra Time Stretch command. (See Time-stretch a layer.) Keyframes applied to the source footage remain at their original locations (which retains their synchronization within the composi

n but not the visual content of the layer). You may need

tio

to adjust keyframe locations after conforming a footage item.

You can change the frame rate for any movie or sequence of still images. For example, you can import a sequence of ten s

ll images and specify a frame rate for that footage item of 5 frames per second (fps); this sequence would then have

a duration of two seconds when used in a composition.

Note: W in

hen you import a sequence of still images, it assumes the frame rate specified by the Sequence Footage preference

the Import category. The default rate is 30 frames per second (fps). You can change the frame rate after importing by

reinterpreting the footage item. (See Interpret footage items .)

Lower frame rates tend to give the impression of unreality, so many people prefer to work at a lower frame rate such as 24 f

mes per second for creative work instead of working at the 29.97 frames per second that is standard for NTSC

video.

Note: I

f you remove 3:2 pulldown from interlaced video footage, After Effects automatically sets the frame rate of the

sulting footage item to four-fifths of the original frame rate. When removing 3:2 pulldown from NTSC video, the resulting

re frame rate is 24 fps.

The frame rate of the composition should match the frame rate of the final output format. In most cases, you can simply cho

e a composition settings preset. In contrast, set the frame rate for each footage item to the frame rate of the

original source footage.

Trish and Chris Meyer provide tips and tricks regarding conforming footage items to a specific frame rate in an article (P

on Artbeats website.

DF)

Trish and Chris Meyer provide links to technical reference materials about frame rates and other details of digital video on th

e ProVideo Coalition website.

Change frame rate for a footage item

1 Select the footage item in the Project panel.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

3 Select Conform To Frame Rate, enter a new frame rate for Frames Per Second, and then click OK.

Instead of using Interpret Footage to change a footage item’s frame rate, you can time-stretch a layer based on the footage item. For example, time-stretch a layer by 100.1% to convert between 30fps and 29.97fps. Time-stretching modifies the

ed of audio as well as video. (See Time-stretch a layer.)

spe

Change frame rate for a composition

1 Choose Composition > Composition Settings.

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Importing footage

2 Do one of the following:

• Choose a composition settings preset from the Preset menu.

• Set the Frame Rate value.

Note: Jeff Almasol provides a script on is red

efinery website to set the frame rate and duration of the current composition

and all compositions nested within it.

Pixel aspect ratio and frame aspect ratio

Pixel aspect ratio (PAR ) is the ratio of width to height of one pixel in an image. Frame aspect ratio (sometimes called image aspect ratio or IAR) is the ratio of width to height of the image frame.

A 4:3 frame aspect ratio (left), and a wider 16:9 frame aspect ratio (right)

Most computer monitors use square pixels, but many video formats—including ITU-R 601 (D1) and DV—use nonsquare rectangular pixels.

Some video formats output the same frame aspect ratio but use a different pixel aspect ratio. For example, some NTSC digitiz

ers produce a 4:3 frame aspect ratio, with square pixels (1.0 pixel aspect ratio), and a frame with pixel dimensions of 640x480. D1 NTSC produces the same 4:3 frame aspect ratio but uses nonsquare pixels (0.91 pixel aspect ratio) and a frame with pixel dimensions of 720x486. D1 pixels, which are always nonsquare, are vertically oriented in systems producing NTSC video and horizontally oriented in systems producing PAL video.

If you display nonsquare pixels on a square-pixel monitor without alteration, images and motion appear distorted; for exa

le, circles distort into ellipses. However, when displayed on a video monitor, the images are correct. When you

mp import D1 NTSC or DV source footage into After Effects, the image looks slightly wider than it does on a D1 or DV system. (D1 PAL footage looks slightly narrower.) The opposite occurs when you import anamorphic footage using D1/DV N T S C Wi d e s c reen or D1/DV PA L Wi d e s c reen. Widescreen video fo r m ats have a f rame asp ect ratio of 1 6 : 9 .

Note: T

o preview non-square pixels on a computer monitor, click the Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction button at t

bottom of the Composition panel. The quality of the pixel aspect ratio correction for previews is affected by the Zoom

ity preference in the Previews category. (See Viewer Quality preferences.)

Qual

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Importing footage

Square and nonsquare pixels A Square pixels and 4:3 frame aspect ratio B Nonsquare pixels and 4:3 frame aspect ratio C Nonsquare pixels displayed on a square-pixel

tor

moni

If a footage item uses nonsquare pixels, After Effects displays the pixel aspect ratio next to the thumbnail image for the footage item in the Project panel. You can change the pixel aspect ratio interpretation for individual footage items in the Interpret Footage dialog box. By ensuring that all footage items are interpreted correctly, you can combine footage items with different pixel aspect ratios in the same composition.

After Effects reads and writes pixel aspect ratios directly from QuickTime movies. For example, if you import a movie c

tured as widescreen (16:9 DV), After Effects automatically tags it correctly. Similarly, AVI and PSD files contain

information that explicitly indicates the pixel aspect ratio of the images.

If a footage item does not contain information that explicitly indicates the pixel aspect ratio of the image, After Effects us

e pixel dimensions of the footage item frame to make a guess. When you import a footage item with either the

es th D1 pixel dimensions of 720x486 or the DV pixel dimensions of 720x480, After Effects automatically interprets that footage item as D1/DV NTSC. When you import a footage item with the D1 or DV pixel dimensions of 720x576, After Effects automatically interprets that footage item as D1/DV PAL. However, you can make sure that all files are interpreted correctly by looking in the Project panel or the Interpret Footage dialog box.

Note: M D1 or

ake sure to reset the pixel aspect ratio to Square Pixels when you import a square-pixel file that happens to have a

DV pixel dimensions—for example, a non-DV image that happens to have pixel dimensions of 720x480.

The pixel aspect ratio setting of the composition should match the pixel aspect ratio of the final output format. In most cases

, you can simply choose a composition settings preset. In contrast, set the pixel aspect ratio for each footage item

to the pixel aspect ratio of the original source footage.

Trish and Chris Meyer provide tips and tricks regarding pixel aspect ratio in two PDF documents on the Artbeats we

ite:

• Pixel aspect ratio, part 1

• Pixel aspect ratio, part 2

Chris Pirazzi provides technical details ab

out aspect ratios on his Lurker's Guide to Video website.

Upgrade pixel aspect ratios to correct values

After Effects CS3 and earlier used pixel aspect ratios for standard-definition video formats that ignore the concept of clean aperture. By not accounting for the fact that clean aperture differs from production aperture in standard-definition video, the pixel aspect ratios used by After Effects CS3 and earlier were slightly inaccurate. The incorrect pixel aspect ratios cause some images to appear subtly distorted.

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Importing footage

Note: The clean aperture is the portion of the image that is free from artifacts and distortions that appear at the edges of an image. The production aperture is the entire image.

Chris Meyer explains why the corrected pixel aspect ratios are better and how some workflows are affected in the “New P

el Aspect Ratios” video in the After Effects CS4 New Creative Techniques series on the Lynda.com website.

Todd Kopriva summarizes information about the corrected pixel aspect ratios in a post on the Adobe website.

The following table provides details about pixel aspect ratio values in After Effects:

format value in After Effects CS4 and later previous value

D1/DV NTSC 0.91 0.9

D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 1.21 1.2

D1/DV PAL 1.09 1.07

D1/DV PAL Widescreen 1.46 1.42

This discrepancy is limited to these older, standard-definition formats for which clean aperture differs from production a

ture. This discrepancy doesn’t exist in newer formats.

per

New projects and compositions created in After Effects CS4 and later use the correct pixel aspect ratio values by default.

Projects and compositions created in After Effects CS3 or earlier are upgraded to use the correct pixel aspect ratios w

n these projects are opened in After Effects CS4 and later.

Note: If you have a custom interpretation rules file, then you should update it with the correct pixel aspect ratio values.

you use square-pixel footage items that are designed to fill the frame in a composition with non-square pixels, you

may

find that the change in pixel aspect ratios causes a difference in behavior. For example, if you previously created 768x576 square-pixel footage items to use in a PAL D1/DV composition, you should now create those items with square-pixel dimensions of 788x576.

Composition settings presets for square-pixel equivalents of standard definition formats have changed as follows:

format pixel dimensions in After Effects CS4 and

NTSC D1 square-pixel equivalent 720x534 720x540

NTSC D1 Widescreen square-pixel equivalent 872x486 864x486

PAL D1/DV square-pixel equivalent 788x576 768x576

PAL D1/DV Widescreen square-pixel equivale

late

1050x576 1024x576

previous pixel dimensions

Change pixel aspect ratio interpretation for a footage item

1 Select a footage item in the Project panel.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

3 Choose a ratio from the Pixel Aspect Ratio menu and click OK.

Change pixel aspect ratio for a composition

1 Choose Composition > Composition Settings.

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2 Do one of the following:

• Choose a composition settings preset from the Preset menu.

• Choose a value from the Pixel Aspect Ratio menu.

Common pixel aspect ratios

Pixel aspect ratio When to use

Square pixels 1.0 Footage has a 640x480 or 648x486 frame size,

D1/DV NTSC 0.91 Footage has a 720x486 or 720x480 frame size,

D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 1.21 Footage has a 720x486 or 720x480 frame size,

D1/DV PAL 1.09 Footage has a 720x576 frame size, and the

D1/DV PAL Widescreen 1.46 Footage has a 720x576 frame size, and the

Anamorphic 2:1 2.0 Footage was shot using an anamorphic film

HDV 1080/DVCPRO HD 720, HD Anamorphic 1080

1.33 Footage has a 1440x1080 or 960x720 frame

920x1080 HD (not HDV or DVCPRO HD), is

is 1 1280x720 HD or HDV, or was exported from an application that doesn’t support nonsquare pixels. This setting can also be appropriate for footage that was transferred from film or for customized projects.

and t

he desired result is a 4:3 frame aspect ratio. This setting can also be appropriate for footage that was exported from an application that works with nonsquare pixels, such as a 3D animation application.

and t

he desired result is a 16:9 frame aspect ratio.

ed result is a 4:3 frame aspect ratio.

desir

ed result is a 16:9 frame aspect ratio.

lens, or it was anamorphically transfer red from a film frame with a 2:1 aspect ratio.

, and the desired result is a 16:9 frame

size aspect ratio.

DVCPRO HD 1080 1.5 Footage has a 1280x1080 frame size, and the

desir

ed result is a 16:9 frame aspect ratio.

More Help topics

Create layers from footage items or change layer source

Footage (keyboard shortcuts)

Camera Raw

Supported output formats

Import assets in Panasonic P2 format

Importing assets from tapeless formats

Importing XML project files from Final Cut Pro

Import a single still image or a still-image sequence

Footage (keyboard shortcuts)

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Importing footage

Footage (keyboard shortcuts)

Remove Color Matting effect

Render settings

Converting movies

Importing and interpreting video and audio

Interlaced video and separating fields

Interlacing is a technique developed for transmitting television signals using limited bandwidth. In an interlaced system, only half the number of horizontal lines for each frame of video are transmitted at a time. Because of the speed of transmission, the afterglow of displays, and the persistence of vision, the viewer perceives each frame in full resolution. All of the analog television standards use interlacing. Digital television standards include both interlaced and noninterlaced varieties. Typically, interlaced signals are generated from interlaced scanning, whereas noninterlaced signals are generated from progressive scanning.

Each interlaced video frame consists of two fi the upper field (or Field 1) contains the odd-numbered lines, and the lower field (or Field 2) contains the even-numbered lines. An interlaced video monitor displays each frame by first drawing all of the lines in one field and then drawing all of the lines in the other field. Field order specifies which field is drawn first. In NTSC video, new fields are drawn to the screen approximately 60 times per second, corresponding to a frame rate of approximately 30 frames per second.

Noninterlaced video frames aren’t separated into fields. A pr frame by drawing all the horizontal lines, from top to bottom, in one pass. Computer monitors are almost all progressive-scan monitors, and most video displayed on computer monitors is noninterlaced.

The terms pr scanning refers to the recording or drawing of t he sc an lines by a camera or monitor, whereas noninterlaced refers to the fact that the video data itself isn’t separated into fields.

ressive and noninterlaced are thus closely related and are often used interchangeably, but progressive

ds. Each field contains half the number of horizontal lines in the frame;

ressive-scan monitor displays a noninterlaced video

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Importing footage

Interlaced scanning of interlaced video fields compared with progressive scanning of noninterlaced video frame. A For interlaced video, entire upper field (odd-numbere d lines) is drawn to screen first, from top to bottom, in one pass. B Next, entire lower field (even-num is d

bered lines) is drawn to screen, from top to bottom, in one pass. C For noninterlaced video, entire frame (all lines in counting order)

rawn to screen, from top to bottom, in one pass.

Separate video fields

If you want to use interlaced or field-rendered footage (such as NTSC video) in an After Effects project, you get the best results if you separate the video fields when you import the footage. After Effects separates video fields by creating a full frame from each field, preserving all of the image data from the original footage.

Separating fields is critical if you plan to make significant changes to the image. When you scale, rotate, or apply effects t

nterlaced video, unwanted artifacts, such as crossed fields, are often introduced. By separating fields, After Effects

o i accurately converts the two interlaced frames in the video to noninterlaced frames, while preserving the maximum amount of image quality. Using noninterlaced frames allows After Effects to apply edits and effects consistently and at the highest quality.

After Effects creates field-separated footage from a single formerly interlaced frame by splitting it into two independent f

mes. Each new frame has only half the information of the original frame, so some frames may appear to have a lower

ra resolution than others when viewed at Draft quality. When you render the final composition, After Effects reproduces high-quality interlaced frames for output. When you render a movie at Best quality, After Effects interpolates between the scan lines of a field to produce maximum image quality.

If your output will not be interlaced, it’s best to use noninterlaced source footage, to avoid the need to separate fields. H

ever, if a noninterlaced version of your source footage is not available, interlaced footage will work fine.

Always separate fields for interlaced footage. Never separate fields for noninterlaced footage items.

You can only remove pull-down after you have separated fields.

When you render a composition containing field-separated footage, set the Field Rendering option to the same field o

as your video equipment. If you don’t field-render the composition, or if you field-render with the incorrect

rder

settings, the final movie may appear too soft, jerky, or distorted.

To quickly give video footage a more film-like appearance, import the footage twice, and interpret each footage item with a different field order. Then add them both to the same composition and blend them together. The misinterpreted

yer adds s

ome film-like blur.

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Importing footage

After Effects automatically separates fields for D1 and DV video footage items. You can manually separate fields for all other types of video footage in the Interpret Footage dialog box.

1 Select the footage item in the Project panel.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

3 Choose an option from the Separate Fields menu.

4 Click Preserve Edges (Best Quality Only) to increase image quality in nonmoving areas when the image is rendered

at Best quality. Then click OK.

Note: If the field settings in the Interpret Footage dialog box are correct for the input footage and the field settings in the

der Settings dialog box are correct for the output device, you can mix footage items of different field orders in a

Ren composition. If either of these settings is incorrect, however, the frames will be in the correct order, but the field order may be reversed, resulting in jerky, unacceptable images.

Determine the original field order

The field order for an interlaced video footage item determines the order in which the two video fields (upper and lower) are displayed. A system that draws the upper lines before the lower lines is called upper-field first; one that draws the lower lines before the upper lines is called lower-field first. Many standard-definition formats (such as DV NTSC) are lower-field first, whereas many high-definition formats (such as 1080i DVCPRO HD) are upper-field first.

The order in which the fields are displayed is important, especially when the fields contain motion. If you separate video f

ields usi

Some programs, including After Effects, label the field order wh

ng the wrong field order, motion does not appear smooth.

en rendering interlaced video files. When you import a labeled video file, After Effects honors the field order label automatically. You can override this field order by applying different footage interpretation settings.

If a file does not contain a field order label, you can match the original field order of your footage. If you are not sure w

ch field order was used to interlace a footage item, use this procedure to find out.

1 Select the item in the Project panel.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

3 In the Interpret Footage dialog box, select Upper Field First from the Separate Fields menu, and then click OK.

4 In the Project panel, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you double-click the footage to open it in the

Footage panel.

5 If the Preview panel is not visible, choose Window > Preview.

6 In the Footage panel, find a segment that contains one or more moving areas.

7 Using the Nex t Frame button in the Preview panel, step forward at least five frames in the Footage panel. Moving

areas should move consistently in one direction. If the moving areas move backward every other frame, the wrong fie

ld-separation option has been applied to the footage.

Online resources about fields and interlaced video

Chris Pirazzi provides technical details of fields and interlacing on his Lurker's Guide to Video website.

This video from the “After Effects CS5: Learn by Video” series provides an introduction to fields and interlacing, and

shows how to avoid common problems.

Trish and Chris Meyer provide a variety of materials about interlacing, field order, field dominance, field rendering, a

separating fields:

• article (PDF) introducing interlacing and field separation on the Artbeats website

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Importing footage

• article introducing interlacing and field order on the ProVideo Coalition website

• article clarifying meanings of the terms field order and field dominance on the ProVideo Coalition website

• video overview of fields and interlacing on the Lynda.com website

Remove 3:2 or 24Pa pulldown from video

When you transfer 24-fps film to 29.97-fps video, you use a process called 3:2 pulldown, in which the film frames are distributed across video fields in a repeating 3:2 pattern. The first frame of film is copied to fields 1 and 2 of the first frame of video, and also to field 1 of the second video frame. The second frame of film is then spread across the next two fields of video—field 2 of the second video frame and field 1 of the third frame of video. This 3:2 pattern is repeated until four frames of film are spread over five frames of video, and then the pattern is repeated.

The 3:2 pulldown process results in whole

ames (represented by a W) and split-field frames (represented by an S). The

three whole video frames contain two fields from the same film frame. The remaining two split-field frames contain a video frame from two different film frames. The two split-field frames are always adjacent to each other. The phase of 3:2 pulldown refers to the point at which the two split-field frames fall within the first five frames of the footage.

Phase occurs as a result of two conversions that happen during 3:2 pulldown: 24-fps film is redistributed through 30fps video,

so each of four frames of 24-fps film is spread out over five frames of 30(29.97)-fps video. First, the film is slowed down 0.1% to match the speed difference between 29.97 fps and 30 fps. Next, each film frame is repeated in a special pattern and mated to fields of video.

When you apply 3:2 pulldown to footage, one frame of the film (A) is separated into two or three interlaced video fields (B) which are grouped into video frames containing two fields each.

When importing interlaced video that was originally transferred from film, you can remove the 3:2 pulldown that was applied during the transfer from film to video as you separate fields so that effects you apply in After Effects don’t appear distorted.

It’s important to remove 3:2 pulldown from video footage that was originally film so that effects you add in After Effects sy

onize perfectly with the original frame rate of film. Removing 3:2 pulldown reduces the frame rate by 1/5—from

nchr 30 to 24 fps or from 29.97 to 23.976 fps, which also reduces the number of frames you have to change. To remove 3:2 pulldown, you must also indicate the phase of the 3:2 pulldown.

After Effects also supports Panasonic DVX100 24p DV camera pulldown, called 24

P Ad

vance (24Pa). Some cameras

use this format to capture 23.976 progressive-scan imagery using standard DV tapes.

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Importing footage

Before you remove 3:2 pulldown, separate the fields as either upper-field first or lower-field first. Once the fields are separated, After Effects can analyze the footage and determine the correct 3:2 pulldown phase and field order. If you already know the phase and field order, choose them from the Separate Fields and the Remove menus in the Interpret Footage dialog box.

1 In the Project panel, select the footage item from which to remove 3:2 pulldown.

2 Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.

3 In the Fields and Pulldown section, select Upper Field First or Lower Field First from the Separate Fields menu.

4 Do one of the following and click OK:

• If you know the phase of the 3:2 or 24Pa pulldown, choose it from the Remove menu.

• To have After Effects determine the correct settings, click Guess 3:2 Pulldown or Guess 24Pa Pulldown.

Note: If your footage file contains frames from different sources, the phase may not be consistent. If the phase is in

consistent, import the footage multiple times, once for each phase, and interpret each footage item with a different setting. Then, add each footage item to your composition and trim each layer to use only the appropriate frames. In other words, if you have an asset that has multiple pulldown phases, then you need to cut that asset into pieces and remove pulldown separately for each of the pieces. This can come up if the asset is a movie that has been edited together from several sources in an NLE.

Online resources about pulldown

Chris Meyer provides a video tutorial on identifying pulldown on the Lynda.com website.

Chris and Trish Meyer provides an overview of 3:2 pulldown in an article on the Artbeats website.

Chris Meyer provides links to resources about pulldown on the ProVideo Coalition website.

Import assets in Panasonic P2 format

A P2 card is a solid-state memory device that plugs into the PCMCIA slot of a Panasonic P2 video camera. The digital video and audio data from the video camera is recorded onto the card in a structured, codec-independent format known as MXF (Media eXchange Format). Specifically, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects support the Panasonic Op-Atom variant of MXF, with video in AVC-Intra 50, AVC-Intra 100, DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, and DVCPRO HD formats. A clip is said to be in the P2 format if its audio and video are contained in Panasonic Op-Atom MXF files, and these files are located in a specific folder structure.

The root of the P2 folder structur in a separate MXF wrapper file; the video MXF files are in the VIDEO subfolder, and the audio MXF files are in the AUDIO subfolder. The relationships between essence files and the metadata associated with them are tracked by XML files in the CLIP subfolder.

Note: Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects do not support proxies recorded by Panasonic P2 camcorders in P2 card PROX

Y folders.

The video and audio on a P2 card are already in a digital form, as if the P2 card were a hard disk, so no capture step is inv

ol ved in imp ort ing med ia f rom a P 2 card. Th e process of rea ding th e data f rom th e ca rd and converti ng it t o a for mat

that can be used in a project is sometimes referred to as ingest.

e is a C

ONTENTS folder. Each essence item (an item of video or audio) is contained

For your computer to read P2 cards, you must install the appropriate driver, which you can download from the P

onic website. Panasonic also provides the P2 Viewer application, with which you can browse and play media

anas

stored on a P2 card.

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Importing footage

Because Panasonic P2 cards use the FAT32 file system, each file is limited to a size of 4 GB. When a shot is recorded that requires more than the 4 GB, a P2 camera creates another file and continues recording the shot to the new file without interruption. This is referred to as clip spanning, because the shot spans more than one file or clip. Similarly, a camera may span a shot across files on different P2 cards: if the camera has more than one P2 card loaded, it will record the shot until it runs out of room on the first P2 card, create a new file on the next P2 card with available space, and continue recording the shot to it. Although a single shot can be recorded to a group of multiple spanned clips, the mult iple- file shot i s de sig ned to b e trea ted as a si ngl e cl ip or foo tag e item in a vid eo e dit ing a pplic ati on. For A fter Ef fec ts to automatically import a group of spanned clips simultaneously and assemble them into a single footage item, they must all have been recorded to the same P2 card and none of the files can be missing, including the associated XML metadata file.

1 (Optional) Copy the entire contents of the P2 card to a hard disk.

Though it is possible to import assets into Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects directly from a P2 card, it is usually more

efficient to copy the contents of the P2 card to a hard disk before importing.

2 Choose File > Import.

3 Navigate to the CONTENTS folder.

4 Select one or more MXF files:

• To import a video essence item and its associated audio essence items, select the MXF files from the VIDEO

folder.

• To import only the audio essence items, select the MXF files from the AUDIO folder.

• To import a group of spanned clips for a shot that were recorded onto the same P2 card, select only one of the

MXF files in the group from the VIDEO folder. The group is imported as a single footage item with a duration equal to the total duration of all the spanned clips it includes. If you select more than one of these spanned clips, you import duplicates of the whole group of spanned clips, as duplicate footage items in the Project panel.

You cannot import spanned clips from a shot that spans two different cards as a single footage item. Rather, you must s

ct a single MXF file belonging to the shot from each card to create a separate footage item for the part of the shot

ele recorded on each card. For example, if a group of spanned clips for a single shot itself spans two cards, you must select a spanned clip from the group on card 1 and another from the group on card 2. This imports the contents of the shot into two footage items in the Project panel.

The Date column in the Project panel shows when each source clip was acquired. After you import spanned clips, you c

e the Date value to determine their correct chronological order within the shot.

an us

Note: After Effects can’t directly export to the P2 format. To render and export to the P2 format, use Adobe Media Encoder or Pr

emiere Pro.

For additional information on the Panasonic P2 format and workflows with Adobe digital video software, see the Ad

e website:

• Adobe workflow guides for P2, RED, XDCAM, AVCCAM, and DSLR cameras and footage

• P2 workflow guide for Adobe digital video products

• Dave Helmly’s video introduction to the P2 workflow in After Effects

More Help topics

Interpret footage items

Introduce 3:2 pulldown

Importing assets from tapeless formats

Last updated 6/14/2014

Importing footage

Export to Panasonic P2 format

File formats supported for export

Preparing and importing 3D imagefiles

Importing 3D images from Photoshop and Illustrator

3D object layers in PSD files

Adobe Photoshop CC can import and manipulate 3D models (3D objects) in also create 3D objects in basic, primitive shapes.

After Effects cannot import 3D objects from PSD files.

See working with 3d layers video on the learn tutorials page.

Vanis h i n g Point exch a n g e

When you use the Vanishing Point feature in Photoshop Extended, you can then use the File > Export For After Effects (.vp

e) comma geometry of the scene. You can then import the .vpe file into After Effects. After Effects uses the information in the .vpe file to re-create the scene as a composition containing a camera layer and one perspective-corrected 3D layer for each PNG file.

The camera is on the negative z axis, at (x,y)=(0,0). The point of interest for the camera is in the center of the co

osition. The camera zoom is set according to the field of view in the Vanishing Point scene.

The 3D layers for the planes in the scene have a parent layer with its anchor point at the center of the composition, so the w

hole scene can be transformed together.

Vanishing Point exchange only works well for images that have square pixels in Photoshop.

Bob Donlon provides a tutorial on his blog that shows how to use Vanishing Point Exchange.

Aharon Rabinowitz provides a video tutorial on the Creative COW website that shows how to use Vanishing Point Exchange.

Lester Banks provides a video tutorial on his website that demonstrates how to use Vanishing Point in Photoshop Extended and then either bring the 3D scene into After Effects as a .vpe file or bring the 3D scene in as a 3D object layer in

a PS

nd to save the results as a collection of PNG files—one for each plane—and a .vpe file that describes the

D file.

several popular formats. Photoshop can

Andrew Kramer provides a video tutorial on his Vid e o C o pilot webs i te that shows how to use Vanishing Point Exchange.

Importing PSD files as 3D scenes

Paul Tuersley provides a script on the AE Enhancers website that turns a layered PSD file into a 3D scene in After Effects. The script creates a composition and adds expressions to the layers from the PSD file. When you move the la

rs along the z axis, the scene looks exactly like the original artwork through the Active Camera view. You can animate the camera around the scene to see that the layers are at different depths in 3D space.

Illustrator 3D effects

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Importing footage

The effects in the 3D category in Illustrator—Extrude & Bevel, Revolve, and Rotate—give a three-dimensional appearance to any vector graphics object, including text and drawings. If you want to add depth to your vector art and text, consider creating it in Illustrator, using the 3D effects, and then importing the results into After Effects.

Importing and using 3D files from other applications

After Effects can import 3D-image files saved in Softimage PIC, RLA, RPF, OpenEXR, and Electric Image EI format. These 3D-image files contain red, green, blue, and alpha (RGBA) channels, as well as auxiliary channels with optional information, such as z depth, object IDs, texture coordinates, and more.

Though you can import composited files with 3D information into After Effects, you cannot modify or create 3D m

ls directly with After Effects.

ode

After Effects treats each composited 3D file from another application as a single 2D layer. That layer, as a whole, can be gi

n 3D attributes and treated like any After Effects 3D layer, but the objects contained within that 3D file cannot be

ve manipulated individually in 3D space. To access the 3D depth information and other auxiliary channel information in 3D image files, use the 3D Channel effects. (See 3D Channel effects.)

3D Channel effect plug-ins from fnord software are included with After Effects to provide access to multiple layers and cha

nnels of OpenEXR files. (See Using channels in OpenEXR files.)

After Effects can also import baked camera data, including focal length, film size, and transformation data, from Maya p

ject files as a single composition or two compositions. (See Baking and importing Maya data .)

After Effects imports camera data saved with RLA or RPF sequence files. (See Import RLA or RPF data into a camera

layer .)

Softimage PIC files have a corresponding ZPIC file that contains the z-depth channel information. Although you can’t imp

ort a ZPIC file, you can access the additional channel information as long as the ZPIC file is stored in the same

folder as the imported PIC file.

Similarly, Electric Image (EI) files can have associated EIZ cannot import EIZ files into After Effects; instead, you simply store them in the same folder as the EI files. For information about creating EIZ files, see your Electric Image documentation.

Note: S

ome 3D applications, such as Cinema 4D, can export an After Effects composition directly.

A commo loca the 3D file into After Effects, you can use these null objects as a reference for the placements of other visual elements.

n technique when working in a 3D modeling application is to insert null objects, such as null lights or null

tor nodes in the locations where you want to composite in an image in After Effects. Then, after you have imported

s with z-depth channel data. As with ZPIC files, you

file

Online resources about importing and using 3D files from other applications

Lutz Albr ech t pr ovi des a two- par t d ocum ent on t he Adobe web site about integrating 3D applications with After Effects. These articles cover the creation of UV maps, mattes, and channels from various 3D applications, including Maxon Cinema 4D, N and fnord ProEXR plug-ins to use that data in After Effects.

Tyson Ibele provides tutorials on his website that show how to use output from 3ds Max (3D Studio MAX) in After Effects.

ewTek Lightwave, and Luxology modo. The articles then show you how to use RE:Vision Effects RE:Map

Dave Scotland provides a pair of tutorials on the CG Swot website in which he demonstrates how to create RPF files in a

pplication and how to use RPF files in After Effects. The first part explains the RPF format and how to create RPF

3D a files in 3DS Max. The second part shows how to use the Object ID and Z depth information in an RPF file within After Effects, using the ID Matte, Depth of Field, Depth Matte, and Fog 3D effects.

Last updated 6/14/2014

Macromedia After Effects - CC User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Legal notices

Contents

Chapter 1: What's new

New features summary

Key Cleaner effect and Advanced Spill Suppressor effect

Compositing Options (including effect masks)

Importing masks from Premiere Pro

Live text templates - Edit After Effects text templates in Premiere Pro

Video preview on external monitor using Mercury Transmit

Add fonts from Typekit in After Effects

Integration of Kuler panel into After Effects

HTML5 panels using CEP infrastructure

Improvements to Curves effect user interface

Auto Adjustment in Curves effect

Miscellaneous updates

Chapter 2: Workspace and workflow

Planning and setup

Planning your work

Storyboards and scripts (screenplays)

Acquiring, choosing, and preparing footage

Project settings

Composition settings

Performance, memory, and storage considerations

Planning for playback on computer monitors and mobile devices

Cross-platform project considerations

Setup and installation

Installing the software

Activate the software

General user interface items

Activate a tool

Open panel, viewer, and context menus

Columns

Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels

Scroll or zoom with the mouse wheel

Undo changes

After Effects user interface tips

Workflows

General workflow in After Effects

Overview of general workflow in After Effects

Online resources for general workflow in After Effects

Basic workflow tutorial: Create a simple movie

Dynamic Link and After Effects

About Dynamic Link

Create and link to After Effects compositions with Dynamic Link

Create a composition from clips in Adobe Premiere Pro

Create a dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro

Link to an existing composition

Modify a dynamically linked composition in After Effects

Delete a dynamically linked composition or clip

Create a linked sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro with Dynamic Link

Link to a new sequence

Link to an existing sequence

Dynamic Link performance

Working with After Effects and other applications

Working with Adobe Bridge and After Effects

Working with Photoshop and After Effects

Comparative advantages for specific tasks

Exchanging still images

Exchanging movies

Color

Working with Flash and After Effects

Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects

Working with Adobe Media Encoder and After Effects

Edit in Adobe Audition

Keyboard shortcuts reference

General (keyboard shortcuts)

Projects (keyboard shortcuts)

Preferences (keyboard shortcuts)

Activating tools (keyboard shortcuts)

Compositions and the work area (keyboard shortcuts)

Time navigation (keyboard shortcuts)

Previews (keyboard shortcuts)

Views (keyboard shortcuts)

Footage (keyboard shortcuts)

Effects and animation presets (keyboard shortcuts)

Layers (keyboard shortcuts)