Apple Final Cut Express 4 - Manual (Page 827)

Chapter 52 Compositing and Layering 827
IX
Working with Layered Photoshop Sequences
When you import a layered Photoshop file into Final Cut Express, all the layers of the
source Photoshop file are composited together with a sequence frame size identical to
the imported Photoshop file’s frame size.
If you want to import a layered Photoshop file as a single clip, you must flatten the
image in Photoshop and then import the file into Final Cut Express.
The sequence Final Cut Express creates has the same number of layers as the imported
file. The background layer becomes a clip in track V1, and each consecutive layer
appears in the same order as the layers in the original Photoshop file. If you change the
order of the video tracks, the layering order changes. If the background in the
Photoshop file is transparent, the background of the new sequence is transparent as
well and defaults to black.
Layer opacity settings, layer modes, and layer visibility are preserved, but layer masks
are not. If a Photoshop layer mode has no corresponding compositing mode in
Final Cut Express, that layer mode is ignored.
An imported Photoshop
file becomes a sequence
in the Browser.
The background layer
becomes a clip in track V1,
with other layers on the
tracks above.
A Photoshop file is a
sequence with its own
tab in the Timeline.