How To Important Photoshop Layers To After Effects

Bring your Photoshop designs to life past importing your layers into After Furnishings

1 of the all-time features of Adobe's Creative Deject is the power to import layers and elements between programs. You tin can fix your designs in Photoshop and import the layers into After Effects for blitheness. Once you know how to prepare your files for the transition, the procedure becomes a whole lot easier.‍

‍Photoshop is a great place to create designs yous tin then breathing in Later on Effects. The techniques we'll be covering should work with pretty much annihilation you can create in the recent versions of Photoshop and After Furnishings. Knowing how to properly set upward your designs in Photoshop is crucial for keeping the import process smooth and piece of cake. We'll be covering those techniques in another upcoming tutorial, and then for today, enjoy this nicely-prepared file in case you'd like to follow along!

{{lead-magnet}}

After Effects is an awarding with a lot of options, which ways that you might accept several different means to approach something … and which one is best may depend on what you're doing. And then, nosotros'll be exploring the different methods yous tin can utilize to bring your layered Photoshop file into After Effects, and why you might choose different ones at dissimilar times.

How To Import Photoshop Files into After Effects

Remember how I said that After Effects has a lot of options? Well, at that place are several unlike means to even but import a file! They all pretty much do the same thing, and so you're free to use whichever one you like.

Import File / Import Multiple Files

First up is the simplest path. Get to File > Import > File…

This is handy if you lot need to grab a specific file or a grouping of files for a composition. Once yous select your file and click Import, you'll run into a pop-up window, which we'll talk more almost in a moment.

You tin can also left-click in the bin on the left side of your screen and select from the same options.

New Composition from Footage

If yous haven't opened a new composition nevertheless, you lot can select New Composition From Footage and bring in your files that fashion.

Libraries > Add to Projection

If your file is in a CC Library, you can but right-click on it and select Add to Project.

Alternatively, yous can select the item in your CC Library and elevate it straight into your Project Panel or an existing composition.

Elevate and Driblet

Lastly, you tin just drag and drop the file from your File Browser. (This is usually my become-to method!)

Whew! Nearly of those methods will trigger that browser popular-upwardly window I mentioned, then let'south take a look at the options in there.

File Browser Pop-Up (OS-Specific)

Since this isn't an epitome sequence, make certain Photoshop Sequence is unchecked. Yous also have the option to import as Footage or a Composition. However, this dropdown menu is actually redundant, and so you tin can commonly ignore information technology. Equally soon every bit yous select the file and click Import, you lot're sent to this next pop-up, where the important decisions brainstorm.

Importing a Photoshop File as (Flattened) Footage

After Effects wants to know how you'd similar to import your file. This time, we're choosing Footage, which will import the entire Photoshop document as a single flattened image. Now nosotros can bring that file into either an existing or new composition.

I accept my image imported into After Effects, just as I said, information technology's merely a flattened image, without many options. Notwithstanding, this is still linked to the original Photoshop file.

If I go back to Photoshop, make a modify, and save the file, those changes will then be reflected in After Effects. This makes quick touch ups to the design super simple.

However, this means you'll demand to operate in two different programs to properly affect your limerick, which can be more work than you'd like. Instead, allow's import the file in a different fashion and so we can manipulate it within Afterward Effects.

Importing Divide Photoshop Layers into Subsequently Effects

Permit's go rid of everything else and start fresh. Import your file in your preferred method, only at present you'll select Import Kind > Composition - Retain Layer Sizes.

You'll also encounter your Layer Options change, assuasive you to keep Photoshop Layer Styles editable or merge them into the layers. This is situationally dependent, so you'll need to brand that decision based on your blueprint.

Now Afterwards Furnishings has created two items: A composition, and a folder containing all of the layers within that composition. AE will set the duration and framerate based on either the footage imported, or—since we are using even so images—based on settings of the last composition y'all used.

A quick note about your Timeline. The layer club should exist the same as it was in Photoshop, only there are some differences. In Photoshop, collections of layers are called Groups, and they are useful when applying Masks and Filters. In Later on Furnishings, they are called Pre-Compositions, and in that location are a number of ways to utilize them beyond what yous can exercise in Ps.

In some ways, precomps are virtually more similar Smart Objects, in that they aren't really immediately accessible without actually diving into them, in a fashion that leaves you unable to see the other parts of your projection structure.

Y'all likewise may notice that some elements don't import exactly the way they look in Photoshop. In this case, our vignette isn't feathered properly, but fortunately that'due south an easy aligning. Make sure to take some fourth dimension in one case you've imported your layers to check that everything looks the way yous want. Importing a reference consign of your Photoshop design is a not bad way to double-check yourself. This is the base from which you lot'll build your animation.

Since we imported these at Layer Size, yous'll likewise notice that the layers each have their own individual bounding boxes, referring to the visible areas of the image layer, and each layer's Anchor Indicate will sit down at the center of that specific bounding box. Some features, such as Photoshop's Layer Masks, will actually impact the size of the bounding box After Effects volition detect, so information technology's important to make those decisions earlier proceeding with blitheness.

This method means you might need to do a bit more forethought in Photoshop, but gives you access to the full layer size later importing to Afterwards Effects. Blitheness often involves moving layers around, so having access to the full layer is ordinarily very helpful.

Import Photoshop Files as a Composition (Certificate Size)

At that place is 1 terminal import method to discuss, and that is importing equally a limerick. I wish they'd named this Composition - Document Size, because that'southward what it does!

Once you lot have imported your layers, you lot'll notice a major difference from our previous importing method. Instead of a variety of bounding boxes, the image layers are all locked at our limerick size, and every layer'southward Ballast Point will be at the center of the composition. This means whatever post-import mask or position changes you brand in your  Photoshop file won't affect that layer's bounding box or sizing in After Effects, but it too means you may have a lot less flexibility in animation.

Irresolute layers in your composition in Later on Effects

If you make changes to your project in Photoshop, such as renaming layers, Subsequently Furnishings should be able to keep up. Nonetheless, if yous delete a layer from your Photoshop file, After Furnishings will be upset with you and consider that layer to be missing footage.

Similarly, if yous add together a new layer to your Photoshop file, it won't automatically show up in Afterwards Effects—the link only sees the layers that existed when you lot originally imported information technology. If y'all want to add a new layer or element, you'll need to either re-import the file or add the chemical element in à la carte. Make sure to bank check out the total tutorial for more pointers on which importing methods will make the about sense for your project.

Time to Kickstart Your Designs with After Furnishings

And if y'all desire to take your designs and bring them to life, and then you'll need to swoop deeper into everything Subsequently Effects can do. That'due south why nosotros'd recommend looking at After Effects Kickstart!

After Effects Kickstart is the ultimate Afterwards Effects intro course for motion designers. In this course, you lot'll learn the nigh commonly used tools and best practices for using them while mastering the After Effects interface.

Source: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/how-to-import-photoshop-layers-into-after-effects

Posted by: hayesnothisper.blogspot.com

Share this post