Working with flash and after effects – Adobe After Effects CS3 User Manual

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AFTER EFFECTS CS3

User Guide

It is often a good idea to prepare a still image in Photoshop before importing it into After Effects. Examples of such
preparation include correcting color, scaling, and cropping. It is often better for you to do something once to the
source image in Photoshop than to have After Effects perform the same operation many times per second as it
renders each frame for previews or final output.

By creating your new PSD document from the Photoshop New File dialog box with a Film & Video preset, you can
start with a document that is set up correctly for a specific video output type. If you are already working in After
Effects, you can create a new PSD document that matches your composition and project settings by choosing File >
New > Adobe Photoshop File.

Exchanging movies

You can also exchange video files, such as QuickTime movies, between Photoshop and After Effects. When you open
a movie in Photoshop, a video layer is created that refers to the source footage file. Video layers allow you to paint
nondestructively on the movie’s frames, much as After Effects works with layers with movies as their sources. When
you save a PSD file with a video layer, you are saving the edits that you made to the video layer, not edits to the source
footage itself.

You can also render a movie directly from Photoshop. For example, you can create a QuickTime movie from
Photoshop that can then be imported into After Effects.

Color

After Effects works internally with colors in an RGB (red, green, blue) color space. Though After Effects can convert
CMYK images to RGB, you should do video work in Photoshop in RGB.

If relevant for your final output, it is better to ensure that the colors in your image are broadcast-safe in Photoshop
before you import the image into After Effects. A good way to do this is to assign the appropriate destination color
space—for example, SDTV (Rec. 601)—to the document in Photoshop. After Effects performs color management
according to color profiles embedded in documents, including imported PSD files.

Working with Flash and After Effects

If you use Adobe® Flash® to create video or animation, you can use After Effects® to edit and refine the video. For
example, you can export Flash animations and applications as QuickTime movies or Flash Video (FLV) files. You can
then use After Effects to edit and refine the video.

If you use After Effects to edit and composite video, you can then use Flash to publish that video. You can also export
an After Effects video as Flash content for further editing in Flash.

Exporting QuickTime video from Flash

If you create animations or applications with Flash, you can export them as QuickTime movies using the File >
Export > Export Movie command in Flash. For a Flash animation, you can optimize the video output for animation.
For a Flash application, Flash renders video of the application as it runs, allowing the user to manipulate it. This lets
you capture the branches or states of your application that you want to include in the video file.