- After Effects User Guide
- Beta releases
- Getting started
- Workspaces
- Projects and compositions
- Importing footage
- Text and Graphics
- Text
- Motion Graphics
- Work with Motion Graphics templates in After Effects
- Use expressions to create drop-down lists in Motion Graphics templates
- Work with Essential Properties to create Motion Graphics templates
- Replace images and videos in Motion Graphics templates and Essential Properties
- Animate faster and easier using the Properties panel
- Drawing, Painting, and Paths
- Overview of shape layers, paths, and vector graphics
- Paint tools: Brush, Clone Stamp, and Eraser
- Taper shape strokes
- Shape attributes, paint operations, and path operations for shape layers
- Use Offset Paths shape effect to alter shapes
- Creating shapes
- Create masks
- Remove objects from your videos with the Content-Aware Fill panel
- Roto Brush and Refine Matte
- Layers, Markers, and Camera
- Animation, Keyframes, Motion Tracking, and Keying
- Animation
- Keyframe
- Motion tracking
- Keying
- Transparency and Compositing
- Adjusting color
- Effects and Animation Presets
- Effects and animation presets overview
- Effect list
- Effect Manager
- Simulation effects
- Stylize effects
- Audio effects
- Distort effects
- Perspective effects
- Channel effects
- Generate effects
- Time effects
- Transition effects
- The Rolling Shutter Repair effect
- Blur and Sharpen effects
- 3D Channel effects
- Utility effects
- Matte effects
- Noise and Grain effects
- Detail-preserving Upscale effect
- Obsolete effects
- Expressions and Automation
- Expressions
- Expression basics
- Understanding the expression language
- Using expression controls
- Syntax differences between the JavaScript and Legacy ExtendScript expression engines
- Editing expressions
- Expression errors
- Using the Expressions editor
- Use expressions to edit and access text properties
- Expression language reference
- Expression examples
- Automation
- Expressions
- Immersive video, VR, and 3D
- Construct VR environments in After Effects
- Apply immersive video effects
- Compositing tools for VR/360 videos
- Advanced 3D Renderer
- Import and add 3D models to your composition
- Import 3D models from Creative Cloud Libraries
- Image-Based Lighting
- Extract and animate lights and cameras from 3D models
- Tracking 3D camera movement
- Cast and accept shadows
- Embedded 3D model animations
- Shadow Catcher
- 3D depth data extraction
- Modify materials properties of a 3D layer
- Work in 3D Design Space
- 3D Transform Gizmos
- Do more with 3D animation
- Preview changes to 3D designs real time with the Mercury 3D engine
- Add responsive design to your graphics
- Views and Previews
- Rendering and Exporting
- Basics of rendering and exporting
- H.264 Encoding in After Effects
- Export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project
- Converting movies
- Multi-frame rendering
- Automated rendering and network rendering
- Rendering and exporting still images and still-image sequences
- Using the GoPro CineForm codec in After Effects
- Working with other applications
- Collaboration: Frame.io, and Team Projects
- Memory, storage, performance
- Knowledge Base
Mark Christiansen provides a detailed overview of compositing—covering masks, mattes, blending modes, and alpha channels—in a chapter from his After Effects Studio Techniques book posted on the Adobe Press website.
Rich Young collects resources and tutorials for various methods of creating vignettes.
Chris Zwar provides tips on color keying and compositing on his website.
Render and export a sequence of still images
You can export a rendered movie as a sequence of still images, in which case each frame of the movie is output as a separate still-image file. When you render one movie using multiple computers on a network, the movie is always output as a still-image sequence. Many 3D animation programs accept sequences of still images. Sequences of PNG files are often a good choice for transfer of visual elements from After Effects to Flash Professional.
If you are creating a movie for transfer to film, you will need to create a sequence of still images that you can then transfer to film using a film recorder.
Creating a sequence of PSD files is a good way to transfer frames to Photoshop for touchup and editing. You can then import the image sequence back into After Effects.
When specifying the output filename for a still-image sequence, you actually specify a file-naming template. The name that you specify must contain pound signs surrounded by square brackets ([#####]). As each frame is rendered and a filename created for it, After Effects replaces the [#####] portion of the name with a number indicating the order of the frame in the sequence. For example, specifying mymovie_[#####].tga would cause output files to be named mymovie_00001.tga, filmout_00002.tga, and so on.
The maximum number of frames in a still-image sequence is 32,766.
Render and export a single frame of a composition
You can export a single frame from a composition, either as an Adobe Photoshop (PSD) file with layers intact or as a rendered image. This is useful for editing files in Adobe Photoshop, creating a proxy, or exporting an image from a movie for posters or storyboards.
The Photoshop Layers command preserves all layers from a single frame of an After Effects composition in the resulting Photoshop file. Nested compositions up to five levels deep are preserved in the PSD file as layer groups. The PSD file inherits the color bit depth from the After Effects project.
In addition, the layered Photoshop file contains an embedded composite (flattened) image of all the layers. This feature ensures that the file is compatible with applications that don’t support Photoshop layers; such applications display the composited image and ignore the layers.
A layered Photoshop file saved from After Effects may look different from the frame viewed in After Effects if the frame uses features that Photoshop doesn’t support. For example, if the frame contains a blending mode that isn’t available in Photoshop, a blending mode that most resembles it is substituted in the layer, but the embedded composite image (viewable only by applications that don’t support Photoshop layers) looks the same. Alternatively, you can render the frame using the Composition > Save Frame As > File command to export a flattened and rendered version of the file to the PSD format.
PSD files generated by Save Frame As > Photoshop Layers have the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 ICC color profile embedded if color management is disabled for the project (the project's working color space is set to None). If color management is enabled for the project (the project's working color space is set to something other than None), then PSD files generated by Save Frame As > Photoshop Layers have the color profile embedded that corresponds to the project's working color space. (See Color management and color profiles.)
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Go to the frame that you want to export so that it is shown in the Composition panel.
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Do one of the following:
To render a single frame, choose Composition > Save Frame As > File. Adjust settings in the Render Queue panel if necessary, and then click Render.
To export a single frame as an Adobe Photoshop file with layers, choose Composition > Save Frame As > Photoshop Layers.
To change the default output settings for the Save Frame As > File command, change the settings for the Frame Default render settings template (See Create, edit, and manage render settings templates.)