Get to know After Effects

Learn Adobe After Effect's basic tools and techniques with the Get Started series. Get familiar with the workspace and how to create and save your work.

Published August 10, 2023

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1 Open and save projects

Open, create, and save new projects.

As you first launch After Effects CC it's really important to understand how project files are saved and how all the assets that you'll be working with should be organized on your hard drive before you ever bring them into an After Effects CC project.

The first time you launch the application you'll notice the Start screen and working from the top down it's divided up into two sections, the Work section and the Learn section.

We're going to focus on the Work section and go to the upper left corner here and RECENT is selected.

And that gives me a list of the recent projects that I've opened.

Now obviously if you've never opened an After Effects CC project before you probably won't have anything in your list.

Now usually when I get started I click on the New Project... button.

But since I already created a project for us to work with I'm going to choose Open Project...

When the Open panel pops up navigate to your project files.

If you don't have these project files you can feel free to follow along using your own Assets.

In the Open dialog box let's look at our project files.

Notice I have four different After Effects CC project files and if you come over here on the right-hand side you'll notice under the Size that none of them are particularly large.

In fact, they're less than a megabyte a piece.

Let's continue to look at our project.

I'll click once on the Open & Save Projects file and then go to the lower right-hand corner and click the Open button to open that file.

Now as you can see in this After Effects CC project, I've got quite a lot of things going on.

If we just press the Spacebar we can preview the animation.

And just press the Spacebar to stop playback.

And as you can see I've got video files in there, I've got graphics in there, let's take a closer look and figure out where these files actually are.

If we go to the upper left corner of the interface there's this area called the Project panel.

Click once in the Project panel to make it active and I know it's the Project panel because it says Project in the upper left-hand corner.

This is the panel where you will import and organize all the assets that you'll be using in your different After Effects CC projects.

When you build graphic builds like this they'll be built in something called a Composition which is represented here in the Composition panel and down here in the Timeline.

Composition is just a stack of layers that create this composite.

In the Project panel if we look you'll notice I've already created a bunch of folders and organized several different elements like I have a Music file here, if we go down to the bottom I have Video Footage.

If you click on any one of these files you'll get information at the top of the Project panel showing you a little bit about that file.

This is a video file, it should be larger than 1 Megabyte.

So, let's do some further investigation by right-clicking on the video file and choose Reveal in Explorer if you're on Windows or Reveal in Finder if you're on the Mac.

So, if we look at the selected file you can see it's a compressed video file, an MP4 file, and its size is definitely larger than 1 Megabyte.

I'm going to navigate back one folder in my browser.

I'll click here and you notice these are my project files.

The way I have organized things on my hard drive I created a folder called Assets and anything that I thought I was going to import into any of these After Effects CC projects, I put in the Assets folder.

That's because After Effects CC projects don't embed external files, they reference where those files live on your hard drive.

So, whenever you're working in After Effects CC it's always wise to keep all the elements you'd like to import into your project in one centralized location.

What you learned: Open or create projects

The Start screen contains a list of previously opened projects.
Click the New Project button on the Start screen to create a new project, or the Open Project button to open a project file.

2 Tour the interface

Get to know the interface.

Let’s take a look at how the interface of After Effects CC is designed so you can begin to get comfortable navigating in the application.

I am going to be working in a project I have already built but please feel free to follow along using any After Effects CC project.

Now, it's important to note there are many different panels, buttons, switches and options to the interface.

And in this video, we will be focusing on the main elements of the interface to get you up and running quickly.

To determine how the elements are laid out within the interface we need to first set our workspace.

So, in the Menu bar, I am going to go to Window, Workspace and make sure I am set to the Standard workspace.

Different workspaces are designed for different job tasks, for example, if I were doing a text heavy animation I might use the Text workspace.

But again, we will make sure we are in the Standard workspace and if your interface still doesn't look right you can come down here and Reset “Standard” to Saved Layout.

Now I want you to come to the upper left portion of the interface and click once to make sure this panel is active.

This panel is the Project panel and I know that because its name in the upper left corner and to the right of the name you will see three lines.

If you click on those three lines, that will give you access to the Panel menu which gives you settings specific to the individual panel.

You will notice these lines repeated throughout the different panels in the interface.

Now the Project panel is where you will import and organize all the elements you will be using to build your After Effects CC projects.

Now in this project I have already organized everything into folders.

So, I am going to go down to the bottom folder where it says Video Footage, and to look in that folder I will click the triangle to the left of the folder and then I will just click once on the top video clip.

And that will load up a preview here on the top of my Project panel and it also shows me some important settings about the format of that file itself.

Now when you are working on After Effects CC and building elements, you will be building things called Compositions.

At the top of the Project panel, I have the AA_Compositions folder and in there I have the Tour the Interface composition.

So, if I double click on that icon, notice now the Timeline is active and the Timeline and the Composition panel which is right here in the middle of the interface work together in conjunction.

The Timeline is divided up into two sections.

The left side allows you to stack layers vertically one on top of the other.

So, if I want to select a layer I can just click once on that layer and I know it's selected because it's bright white.

I can turn its Visibility off here on the left-hand side by clicking on the Eyeball or clicking it again to turn it back on.

Now if I want to change where this layer appears vertically I can click on that layer and drag it down to the bottom of the Timeline.

And when I let go now you'll notice it's hidden under all the other layers, so I can't see it.

If I want to undo the last thing I did I can press Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on the Mac to undo.

You can press that multiple times to go back multiple steps.

Now on the right side of the Timeline this determines where the layers appear over time and you notice this blue line has an element on top that if I hover over top it tells me it's the Current Time Indicator.

The menu that popped up is called a Tool tip and they are on by default.

So, if you are not sure what something is, just hover over top of it.

Now the Current Time Indicator determines exactly what frame we are going to be viewing in the Composition panel.

So, if I click on this and drag left to right in the Timeline, notice I am viewing different frames in my Composition panel.

Notice also, as I slide over different layers we can see other elements in our composition.

To know exactly what frame you are on, you want to look in the lower left corner of the Composition panel, here, this will tell you or in the upper left corner of the Timeline itself.

As you are working in the interface of After Effects CC, you might want to look in the upper right corner in the Info panel because you will get little menu items letting you know what it was you last completed.

Now you may have noticed we are working in kind of a circle, starting with the Project panel, then to the Timeline, then the Composition panel, now I am on the right side in the Info panel and if we come all the way back up to the start of our circle here in the upper left area we have the Toolbar.

The Toolbar allows you to add different elements to your projects, for example, I could add a Rectangle into here or I could add Cameras, I could add Paint Brush Strokes, you get the general idea.

Honestly 90% of the time when I am working in After Effects CC, I am using this left most tool here called the Selection tool and looking at the Tool tip I can see if I press V on my keyboard that will grab that tool.

Now, you may have noticed whenever you click on an object you have made it selected.

So, Layer 1 is selected, when I double clicked on the composition that is selected.

When I clicked in the Timeline that panel is active.

So, when you are working in After Effects CC it's very important that you pay close attention to where you are clicking and what is selected because there will be different Menu options made available depending on which panel or property is currently active.

What you learned: The interface

Active panels are highlighted in blue. When you click any panel you make it active and are able to access its options.
Menu bar (at the very top) shows the File, Edit, Composition, and other menus that give you access to a variety of commands, adjustments, and panels.
Tools panel (under the menu bar, upper left) contains tools for adding and editing elements in your compositions. Similar tools are grouped together. You can access related tools in a group by clicking and holding a tool in the panel.
Project panel (upper left corner below the Tools panel) is the area where you import, search, and organize assets in your After Effects projects. In the bottom of the panel you can create new folders and compositions as well as change item and project settings.
Composition panel (center) is a viewport showing the currently loaded composition. Compositions contain one or more layers of video and or graphic elements stacked in the timeline.
Timeline (bottom) displays layers of the currently loaded composition.
Close a project: Choose File > Close Project.

3 Import media

Import assets for use in a project.

While many graphics can be created in After Effects CC there will be plenty of times when you'll want to animate files created in other applications like Photoshop CC files or Illustrator CC files, you know, photographs and video files.

To get started we're going to import a couple of different kinds of files.

The first way you can import assets into After Effects CC is by going up to the Menu bar and clicking on File, go to Import and choose File...

Navigate to wherever you saved your project files and you notice I have an Assets folder saved right next to them.

So, I'm going to open up the Assets folder and in here we'll go ahead and import a couple of different assets.

The first one I want to Import is the SummerCamp_Badge Illustrator CC file.

So, I'll click once on that file and then down here at the bottom I have a couple of different options.

I want to make sure that Illustrator/PDF/EPS Sequence is not selected and under Import As I'll just import this as Footage.

Which means it's just going to go ahead and flatten any possible layers that are involved with that Illustrator CC file.

I don't need to Create a Composition and I'll go ahead and just click the Import button.

And now that file has been brought into the Project panel and notice it's automatically selected and I'm getting a preview over a black background here in the Project panel.

If I want to preview that file larger I can go ahead and just double click directly on the file and that will open here in the Footage panel.

Notice it looks like it's the Composition panel but it's really not.

See the white line under the Footage panel this is letting me preview in the Footage panel.

If I click this white X to the left of the word Footage that will go ahead and close that panel.

Another way to Import is to double click in the Project panel.

Navigate back to that Assets folder and this time I'll import both the BlueMtns and the Camper_Mtns file.

I'll click on the first one, hold down Shift and click on the next one and they're both selected.

Again, want to make sure Multiple Sequences is not selected and then I'll go ahead and just click Import and both those elements will be imported right here into the Project panel.

I could use drag and drop if I had an Explorer window or a Finder window and I could drop things directly into the Project panel.

But another great way is to use the New Composition From Footage button because I want to import some video footage and create a composition from that footage.

So, I'll click on the New Composition From Footage button and you guess that I'm going to find a video clip, so I'll click once on this Road Trip-Camp MP4 File and I'll click Import.

And not only has that file been imported but I've also got a composition that matches those settings and it's already created the first layer in the composition.

So, as you can see there are plenty of different ways you can Import files into After Effects CC.

The most important thing to remember is the fact that these files are not embedded with the Project file, so you want to make sure to keep everything well organized on your hard drive before you bring it into your After Effects CC project.

What you learned: Import media into a project

In the menu bar, choose File > Import > File to open the Import dialog box, navigate the files accessible to your system and choose the elements to import.
Double-click in an empty area of the Project panel to automatically open the Import dialog box without having to go to the menu bar.
Imported files are not embedded in your After Effects Project. Their location is referenced by the project.
All files imported into a project don’t have to reside in a composition.

4 Organize projects

Create order for assets in the Project panel.

It's always a good idea to keep things organized whenever you're working in After Effects CC.

In this video we're going to focus on how to keep things organized specifically in the Project panel.

So, go to the upper left portion of the interface and click once in the Project panel to make it active.

In looking at the different files we have in the Project panel you'll notice we have a bunch of different kinds of files.

The first way to keep things organized is to use Columns.

If you go to the top portion of the Project panel notice I have the Name column.

If we click on that it'll organize itself from A to Z or Z to A.

The next column over is Labels.

Labels assigns colors to specific kinds of files.

So, if I click on the Label column here notice now the files are organized according to their label colors.

I find it interesting that the JPEGs and the Vector Art have the exact same label color.

So, I'd like to change the color for the labels for each one of these JPEG files.

So, I'll click on the BlueMtns.jpg and I'll hold down Shift and I'll click on the Camper_Mtns.jpg and then I'll click on the Label next to one of those files and let's change it to a nice bright Orange color.

Now they both have switched to Orange and notice the order has changed because we still have things organized according to the Label column.

If we click directly on the Type column you get the idea it's organized according to Type.

Now I'm going to double click on the word Project in the upper left corner of the Project panel to maximize that panel.

Because you can access additional columns just by Ctrl-clicking or right-clicking on the dark gray area here right next to the Name.

So here I'll go to Columns and notice I could set up any kind of information I'd like to organize things by, like the In Point or the Out Point or the overall Duration of the file.

Now I don't want to use any of these, so I'll go ahead and just click outside of that menu to hide it.

And I'll double click on the Project panel one more time to make that panel smaller again.

When you have multiple files selected, like I have here in the Project panel, notice you can manipulate those files at the same time with one click like how we change the label color.

Since these are both selected I can also just click on one of those files and drag them down to the New Folder button here in the bottom of the Project panel.

And since both files were selected when I let go they'll both end up in the folder.

Notice the new Folder is already highlighted so I can just go ahead and name it.

And I'll call this images and press Return.

Now, let's organize the video file.

If I click on this Road Trip.MOV video file sure enough there's a preview in my Project panel.

To add this to a folder I'll just click and drag down to the New Folder button and here we can call this Footage.

And notice even though I'm using caps for some and lower for others it really doesn't change how things are organized other than just the fact that they are capitalized or lowercase.

Now the last one I want to create a folder for is the SummerCamp.ai file.

So, I'll click on that and drag it down to the New Folder button and here I can go ahead and name this Vectors.

Now, what happens when you have everything organized into folders but you still want to be able to find those elements without having to open every single folder?

Well, you can come up to the Search area here in the Project panel.

So, if I click once in the Search area and start to type the word camp, any footage that has the word ‘cam’ in it is going to be popped up.

Now, it's really important that you clear out this field when you're done searching for things so that you can see everything back in the Project panel when you're finished.

Now the last thing you might want to do is delete files, like let's say there is an image that you're not working with anymore, well here I'll open the images folder and I'll click on the Camper_Mtns.jpg and drag it down not to the New Folder icon but over here to the Trash icon.

And when I let go it's going to tell me: Are you sure you want to remove this because it's being used in one composition?

I'll go ahead and say Delete.

And notice when I do that now the image has gone out of my composition.

So, if I didn't want to do that I can just press Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on the Mac to undo but now you know how to actually delete files in your Project panel.

Now I have to say getting in the habit of keeping the Project panel well organized is a very good way to keep your creative life pain-free as you continue on in your journey as an After Effects CC artist.

What you learned: Organize assets in the Project panel

Dragging an element in the Project panel down to the New Folder icon will create a folder and add the dragged element directly into that new folder.
Labels are another method for organizing and selecting multiple elements in a project.
You can browse and organize elements using columns in the Project panel.
The search field in the Project panel can help you find specific assets.
Dragging an element in the Project panel down to the trash icon will delete the file from the project.

Presenter: Ian Robinson
Contributor: Will Freeman
Contributor: David K. Helmly
Contributor: Dave Werner

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We can improve your experience by tailoring the site and the content to things we think might be of interest
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1 Open and save projects

View transcript

2 Tour the interface

View transcript

3 Import media

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4 Organize projects

View transcript