Organize your project assets
Learn how to navigate Adobe After Effects so you can organize your projects — including imported assets, precompositions, and timeline layers — and apply effects efficiently.
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Navigate and organize your projects efficiently
Working in After Effects can become overwhelming if things aren’t well organized. Use columns, labels, and search presets to find elements easily, and use precompose to gather layers into groups. No matter your skill level, you’ll benefit from these organization tips.
Working in After Effects CC can become overwhelming rather quickly if you don't know how to both efficiently navigate and organize your projects.
So, this tutorial is designed to help all users, no matter the skill level, better navigate and organize their projects.
I'll be working with this sample project but feel free to follow along with your own files as these techniques are applicable to any After Effects CC projects.
Use the Solids folder
Now there are 5 methods I'm going to employ to better organize this project and the first method involves creating folders in the Project panel.
Let's make sure the Project panel is active by clicking in the dark gray area right here in the upper left corner of the interface.
Then let's go down to the bottom of that panel and click once on the Solids folder to select it.
And then click on the triangle to the left of the name to open the folder and you can see it contains a Deep Cyan Solid 1 and a Null 1 object.
Anytime you create new layers like a layer solid, null object, or adjustment layer they'll be automatically added into the Solids folder.
Now if you right-click or control-click on the Solids Folder notice there's an option that's selected at the bottom of the menu.
This means anytime we create another layer solid null object or adjustment layer the layer will automatically be added to this selected folder as we continue working in this project.
Basically, having this option means we can make any folder the Solids folder in a project or we could just rename the Solids folder if we wanted it to have a different name.
I'll go ahead and collapse or close that folder for now since I'm fine with how it's set up.
Create new folder
Now I want to create a folder for my different textured elements.
So, click once on the UsedCanvas2.jpg file and you'll notice it's a texture.
To see a more detailed view of that file just double-click it to open it in the Footage panel.
In this project, we have three different textures: this canvas one, a concrete texture, and the rolled paint texture.
To quickly add all three of these textures into a folder I'll just hold down the Command key on the Mac or Ctrl key on Windows and then click once on each of the three textures until they're all selected.
Then you can let go the keyboard and the mouse and just click and drag on one of the selected elements and just drag them down to the folder icon and then let them go.
Notice the files have been added to the folder and all you have to do is just start typing the name of the folder, I'll call this textures.
And if you want to be more consistent than I am you could stick with the style of the first letter capitalization to match the Solids folder but I'll leave mine lowercase as this makes no technical difference other than aesthetics.
Use labels in Project panel
Now let's look to the right of the Name column and you'll see some colorful boxes known as Labels.
If you click on any label you can change its color but if you look at the top option you can also use this menu to select an entire layer group.
So, if you haven't done so already go ahead and click on any one of these gray boxes and choose Select Label Group.
Now that all the JPEG files are selected let's repeat the process and drag these down into their own folder and we can call this folder Backgrounds.
Now let's create a folder for our composition.
But before we do that
Sort order in Project panel
I want you to notice how things are organized alphabetically in the Project panel.
If you click on the Name column you can flip the order from A to Z or Z to A.
I'd like the comps folder to always be on top.
So, let's click and drag the composition down to the new folder button and name it 01_Comps.
And when I press Return since I started with a number that folder is now at the top of my Project panel.
Now to make sure we're all on the same page let's open the 01_Comps folder by clicking the triangle here on the left and then double click on the composition to open the comp and make sure the Timeline panel is active.
Use labels in Timeline
Notice we also have labels here in the Timeline and they function in a similar fashion to the labels in the Project panel.
Let's say I want my text layers to have their own unique label color, so I'll click once on layer 3 and then press Command on the Mac or Ctrl on Windows and then click on layer 5 to select both layers.
Now click on the label color for either layer and let's choose Orange for our new label color.
And now anytime I want to select these text layers I can just click on that label and choose Select Label Group and there you have it, they're all selected.
Search for layer properties
But what happens when you need to quickly get to something that isn't readily visible, like what if I wanted to change the color of this shape layer?
I'd have to select and open the layer and keep twirling open triangles until I got to the parameter I was looking for.
Well, there's a better way.
I'll collapse layer 4 closed for now.
The better way to work more quickly and keep things organized is through the use of Search menus.
There are four places you can search in After Effects CC, the Project panel, the Timeline, Effects and Presets and Help.
The search feature in the Project panel and the Timeline work a little differently, so we'll start in the Timeline.
And to check out the graphic we will be adjusting let's press the Spacebar to begin playback and then just press it again to stop playback once the Current Time Indicator reaches the right side of the Timeline.
Now to better see the color of that line I'll click the blank area underneath the layers in the timeline to deselect the layer.
Notice the shape is kind of an orange color.
So, I'll select layer 4 and go up to the Search menu and start typing the word color.
In here you can see the colors have been isolated.
To change the line, click on the orange color well and choose a rich blue color, then click OK and deselect the layer and now we can see it's blue.
Use custom search options
You also can have custom search options.
Let's clear out the previous search by highlighting the word and pressing Delete or you can just click the X here on the right side.
Let's say I want to search for all the text layers.
So, I'll type the word text and you can see anything involved with the word text has been isolated in the Timeline.
Also, any recently searched items will appear here in the top menu unless it was already a preset search like Color.
If we keep looking down the list I want to draw your attention to two other presets and these were the Missing presets.
So, if you have any effects that are missing or fonts that are missing you can search for them here.
And along those lines you can actually type the word Missing in the Project Search area to find any footage that you might need to relink.
Use search presets
So, let's say I want to have this text search set up as a shortcut all the time without having to type the word.
Well, I can hover over the text and press Shift as I click on the word.
And you'll see it's now listed in the bottom next to the other presets.
Now anytime I want to search for text here I'll just clear out the last search, I don't need to type the word text, I can just click right on the magnifying glass and click on text.
Boom!
There are all my text elements, no typing required.
Now it's important to note the search field functions based on what layers are selected or not selected.
Since I didn't have any layers selected when I searched text it automatically pulled up all options associated with text across all layers.
But if I had just one layer selected, here let me clear the search field with the X on the right.
Now, when I use the shortcut to search for text it only pulls up the results for the layer I had selected.
Now we've seen how to quickly select multiple layers using labels
Group layers to make a precomp
but what if I wanted to group a bunch of layers together.
To show you that workflow I'll collapse layer 3 then select layer 2 and Shift-Click to select through layer 5.
Now I'm choosing these layers since they're all the layers required to create this title graphic.
If we look at the parent column you'll notice those layers are all using layer 2 as the parent layer which is a null object we can use to reposition those layers.
So, I'd like to apply a drop shadow to the title and rather than applying the effect to all the layers I can just go up under the Layer menu and choose Pre-compose... with all those layers selected.
In the pop-up, we can leave Move all attributes selected and rename the new composition Title Precomp and then click OK.
And you can see they've all been moved into one composition.
So now I can simply go up to Effects, Perspective and choose Drop Shadow to apply the drop shadow to the entire treatment.
If you want to toggle the visibility of this effect you can just click on the fx little button here in the upper left corner of the Effect Controls panel.
And if you want to see the individual layers that make up the title again just double click on the composition in the Timeline to open the pre-composition and there they are.
Organize with columns
Now let's go back to the LuckySpade_Presents comp so we can talk about one more method of organization, Columns.
Let's make sure and keep our project nice and tidy by clearing out the search field in the Timeline.
It's always a good idea to keep this field empty, so I'll just click the X on the right side.
Let's make the Project panel active by clicking once in the Project panel tab.
Maximize panels
With this panel active, we can maximize the panel by either pressing the tilde key in the upper left corner of your keyboard or by double clicking on the panel tab itself.
Now let's look at the columns we have available.
We have the Name column, Labels, File Type, Size, Media Duration, File Path and more.
If you want to see more columns you can right-click or control-click on any of these gray areas at the top of the columns.
To create a custom column, I'll go to Columns and choose Comment.
Notice it added that column here on the right side.
To make this column a little more accessible I'll click on its name and then drag it towards the left and I'll stop just to the right of the Name column.
Use comments to organize elements
You can add any kind of notes or information into this column to further organize any elements in the Project panel.
I want to use it to rank my favorite images.
So, let's open the Backgrounds folder by clicking its triangle.
Let's say this ghost_town_bg_01.jpg image is my first choice.
In the Comments column, I'll just type the number 1.
And let's say this background 04 is my second choice, so I'll go to the Comment column and type the number 2.
What's great about this is the fact that this new information is now searchable or I can just click on the Comment column header and it will organize the elements according to the new information.
Now even though I use numbers to organize things sequentially it's important to note that you can type absolutely anything into the comments column good, bad, yellow, green, yes, no, you get the idea.
Just so we can see our project again we can either press the tilde key again on our keyboard or double click on the Project panel tab again and the panel will resize back to its original size.
So, as you can see whether you use the search field or color labels, pre-composing, folders or columns there's always a method available to keep your project easy to find and well organized.
Apply effects proficiently to your projects
There are several ways to apply effects to layers in your projects. Whether you add effects directly to a layer, use adjustment layers, or apply layer solids and blend modes, you should understand how the order of operations affects your results.
In this video, we're going to talk about all the different ways you can apply effects efficiently to your projects in After Effects CC.
So, to start I'm going to make the Timeline panel active and begin playback by pressing the Spacebar so we can preview the project.
And as you can see we have an animated title.
I'll press the Spacebar again to stop playback because I want to add a little more visual interest into the scene.
Let's start by adding a little bit of a blur to the background layer.
Examine all layers in project
Notice the layer is numbered 7 but we appear to only have 3 layers in the comp.
So, if we look in the top middle section of the Timeline you can see I've already enabled the Shy button.
If we toggle that off you'll see all the extra layers required to build this project.
I hit those extra layers because I wanted you to just focus on the 3 layers but still be able to work in a “real-world project”.
Let's make sure and enable the Shy button and to get started adding some visual interest into the scene let's work on applying our first effect.
Use the Effects menu
But before we do that it's important to understand there are two different ways you can apply effects to layers in After Effects CC.
The first way since the layer is selected you can go up to the Menu bar and click Effect, then you'll see a list of different kinds of effects already organized into groups.
I'd like to apply a blur so I'll navigate down to the Blur group and select Fast Box Blur.
Now that the effect has been applied you can view it up here in the upper left corner of the interface in the Effect Controls panel.
Let's change the first setting for the Blur Radius to a value of around 12.
I like to scrub values so I can see a preview of what's happening in the Composition panel.
Toggle effect visibility
To toggle the visibility of the applied effect on and off simply click on the fx button in the upper left corner of the Effect Controls panel or down here in the switches section of the Timeline.
Since this blur effect has blurred across the whole image let's bring some clarity back into the scene by removing the blur from the middle of the composition using a mask path.
Go to the Shape tools and if you don't see the Rectangle tool just click and hold on the Shape tool until you see the Rectangle pop-up and make sure you choose that.
With the Rectangle tool active, I'll start off on the left edge off the side of the composition canvas and then click and drag a box over the middle area making sure to drag all the way across the composition.
Notice that's masked both the effect and the layer.
To apply the mask only to the effect, open the Effects in the Timeline, open the Fast Box Blur Effect and then scroll down to the bottom of the options and you'll see these Plus and Minus buttons.
Click the Plus button and now you notice the mask is only masking the blur effect instead of the entire image.
Now to invert the mask I'm going to press M on the keyboard to open the mask options and change the mode pull down from Add to Subtract.
Since the blur has a hard edge here in the Composition panel I'll press MM on my keyboard to open the Mask options and scrub on the Mask Feather setting to a setting of about 140 pixels.
Now let's preview the animation a little bit.
Click on the Current Time Indicator in the Timeline and scrub it down to the right.
And you'll notice the mask is moving along with the layer.
And that's because this is a 3D layer and there is actually a camera in the scene.
If we turn off Shy you can see there's the camera.
To have the effect apply over the scene and not move with the camera we can simply add the effect to a 2D layer.
Add adjustment layer
To get started with that process go up to the Menu bar and choose Layer, New, Adjustment Layer.
An Adjustment Layer is a blank layer to which you can add effects.
And those effects will only make changes to layers below the Adjustment Layer vertically in the stack of layers here in the Timeline.
That being said let's go ahead and drag the Adjustment Layer above all the other layers in the Timeline.
To further refine the scene let's add a vignette by darkening the corners of the composition using a levels adjustment.
Use the Effects & Presets panel
And this time we'll apply the necessary effect to the Adjustment Layer by using the second method for applying effects.
We will search for the effect by name in the Effect & Presets panel.
Just click once in the Search field and type the name of the effect you're looking for, in this case levels.
Once the effect has been revealed just drag it from the Effects & Presets panel right on to your Adjustment Layer in the Timeline.
To darken the image, click on the black input slider here in the lower left corner of the Histogram and drag it towards the right.
As you reposition the arrow notice how it's adjusting the Input Black setting.
Click and drag the middle arrow to adjust the Gamma settings as well.
To have the effect only darken the corners making sure the Adjustment Layer is still selected let's go up to the Shape tools and choose the Ellipse shape.
Let go of your mouse for a second and then double click on the Ellipse shape in the Toolbar to automatically apply the mask to the Adjustment Layer.
With the mask applied let's look at the Mask options here in the Timeline and change its drop-down menu from Add to Subtract to invert the mask and give us the darkened corners.
To feather the mask let's collapse its options then open them again.
And then just scrub on the Mask Feather parameter to add a nice soft feather transition from the dark areas to the light areas.
I ended up with a value of around 225.
Now we can go ahead and press the Spacebar to preview the animation and we can see we've definitely increased the amount of interest and depth in the scene.
Let's keep going by adding a slight color tint to the scene.
And rather than adding another Adjustment Layer this time let's add a layer solid.
So, press the Spacebar to stop playback if you haven't already done so, then go up to the Menu bar and choose Layer, New, Solid...
In the options click the Make Comp Size button and you can choose any color you like for the solid for right now.
And then click OK.
Notice since the layers at the top of the layer hierarchy it's taken over the entire composition.
To add our gradient to the solid make sure the solid is selected and then go right back up to the Menu bar and this time choose Effect, Generate, Gradient Ramp.
So, let's take a second to talk about the order of operations.
Right now, After Effects CC has created our layer solid at the top of the layer hierarchy first, then after creating the solid it's applied the Gradient Ramp settings.
So, we’re only seeing the Gradient Ramp.
Now to change the colors of the gradient I want to use the original color from the text in our scene.
So, let's turn off the visibility of that layer in the Timeline.
And let's go back up to the Effect Controls panel and grab the Eyedropper to the right of the Start Color.
And let's click once in the first letter of our title to sample that kind of butternut orange color.
Now to match both of these colors let's grab the Dropper from the End Color and sample the Start Color we just set.
I'm doing this so the saturations will match when we adjust the colors.
So, let's click once in the Drop well next to the Start Color and let's go to the slider here and rotate the hue up a little bit until we get to a nice bright yellow.
Once you've found a yellow that you like go ahead and click OK.
Now just so we can see what's going on with our layer now let's turn its visibility back on in the Timeline.
In the Effect Controls go to the Ramp Shape pull-down and change it from Linear Ramp to Radial Ramp.
And then let's change the start of the ramp by clicking on the target button to the right of the word Start of Ramp and click in the middle of the composition to set the start.
And then go to the End of Ramp target click on that and then let's click off the lower left corner of the composition so that the orange is on outside edge and the yellow is right there in the middle.
Order of operations
At this point I want to take our analysis in the order of operations one step further by applying one more effect to this layer.
In the Menu bar go to Effect, Noise & Grain and choose the Noise effect to add some noise into the gradient.
Go ahead and increase the Amount of Noise so we can actually see the effect taking place.
So right now, After Effects CC is generating the layer solid then it's generating our Gradient effect and then underneath that it is applying the Noise effect.
You can see the order of operations in the Effect Controls panel work from the top down.
If we change the order of those effects by clicking on the Noise and then dragging it above the Gradient notice now since the Gradient has been applied after the Noise it's taken over the scene and we don't see the Noise at all.
Now I don't necessarily want that noise in the project, so with that currently selected let's just press Delete on our keyboard and that will delete the effect out of the Effect Controls panel.
In order to change how this gradient interacts with all the layers below let's go down to the button in the bottom of the Timeline and toggle it until our switches and modes have switched to Modes.
And let's change the Mode drop-down menu to Color.
Notice the layer of the blend modes has been applied after the effects in the order of operations.
Since we have so many new layers in the project let's clean things up by adding names to the layers.
Select the topmost layer and press Enter on your keyboard and just type Gradient to rename.
Press Enter when you're done editing that text.
Repeat the process for the Adjustment Layer below.
Select it, press Enter on your keyboard and let's rename this one to Vignette.
Since the gradient is tinting absolutely everything in the scene let's click on that layer and drag it down in the Timeline so it's both below the Vignette and the original text.
It's important that the title text remain its original butternut orange color.
So, let's go ahead and blend the effect back into the scene by pressing T to open the Opacity and let's bring the value way down to a setting of around 15.
If we toggle the layer off and on you can see we've added a very nice subtle tint into the scene.
Apply effect that references another layer
Now the last thing I'd like to show you is how we can take a layer mask from one layer and apply it to another layer without using a track mask.
So, go ahead and select the Concrete_Texture_psd in the Timeline and if we toggle the visibility of that layer off and on you can see the texture is going across the entire image.
Now I'd like this texture to only be applied in the corners much like the Vignette layer.
So, with the Concrete_Texture_psd layer selected I'll go up to the Menu bar and go to Effect, Channel, and choose the Set Matte effect.
Starting at the top of the effect let's click on the first drop-down to the right of the text Take Matte From Layer.
Notice we can choose any layer in the composition.
I'll go ahead and choose the Vignette layer.
And the next drop-down to the right allows us to choose Masks instead of Source.
Now you can see the concrete texture is only in the corners because it's referencing the matte being generated from the mask on the Vignette layer.
Whenever you apply an effect that references another layer like the Set Matte effect or the Displacement Map effect those effects can pull values from other layers regardless of the location of those layers in the layer stack in your Timeline.
So, when it comes to applying effects to your After Effects CC projects as you can see you have a whole host of different options.
Now whether you apply that effect directly to a layer or choose to utilize something like an Adjustment Layer the most important thing to remember or consider is how the effects are going to work in the order of operations.
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