Preparing and importing Photoshop files

Because After Effects includes the Photoshop rendering engine, After Effects imports all attributes of Photoshop files, including position, blending modes, opacity, visibility, transparency (alpha channel), layer masks, layer groups (imported as nested compositions), adjustment layers, common layer styles, layer clipping paths, vector masks, image guides, and clipping groups.

To see a video tutorial on importing Photoshop files, visit the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/vid0252.

Before you import a layered Photoshop file into After Effects, prepare it thoroughly to reduce preview and rendering time. Avoid problems importing and updating Photoshop layers by doing the following:

Organize and name layers. If you change a layer name in a Photoshop file after you have imported it into After Effects, After Effects retains the link to the original layer. However, if you delete a layer, After Effects is unable to find the original layer and lists it as Missing in the Project panel.
Make sure that each layer has a unique name. This is not a requirement of the software, but helps to keep you from becoming confused.
If you think that you might add layers to the Photoshop file in Photoshop after you have imported it into After Effects, go ahead and add a small number of placeholder layers before you import the file into After Effects. When you refresh the file in After Effects, it will not pick up any layers that have been added since the file was imported.

A convenient command within After Effects is Layer > New > Adobe Photoshop File, which adds a layer to a composition and then opens the source of that layer in Photoshop for you to begin creating a visual element, such as a background layer for your movie. The layer in Photoshop is created with the correct settings for your After Effects composition. As with many of the Creative Suite applications, you can use the Edit Original command in After Effects to open a PSD file in Photoshop, make and save changes, and have those changes appear immediately in the movie that refers to the PSD source file. Even if you don’t use Edit Original, you can use the Reload Footage command to have After Effects refresh its layers to use the current version of the PSD file. (See Create a layer and new Photoshop footage item and Edit footage in its original application.)

Masks and alpha channels

Adobe Photoshop supports a transparent area and one optional layer mask (alpha channel) for each layer in a file. You can use these layer masks to specify how different areas within a layer are hidden or revealed. If you import one layer, After Effects combines the layer mask (if present) with the transparent area and imports the layer mask as a straight alpha channel.

If you import a layered Photoshop file as a merged file, After Effects merges the transparent areas and layer masks of all the layers into one alpha channel that is premultiplied with white.

When you import a Photoshop file as a composition, vector masks are converted to After Effects masks. You can then modify and animate these masks within After Effects.

Photoshop clipping groups, layer groups, and Smart Objects

If the layered Photoshop file contains clipping groups, After Effects imports each clipping group as a precomposition nested within the main composition. After Effects automatically applies the Preserve Underlying Transparency option to each layer in the clipping-group composition, maintaining transparency settings. These nested precompositions have the same dimensions as the main composition. (Paul Tuersley provides a script that crops the precompositions to the size of their contents, while retaining their correct position in the main composition: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_paulphotoshopcrop.)

Photoshop layer groups are imported as individual compositions.

It is often valuable to group layers into Smart Objects in Photoshop so that you can import meaningful collections of Photoshop layers as individual layers in After Effects. For example, if you used 20 layers to create your foreground object and 30 layers to create your background object in Photoshop, you probably don’t need to import all of those individual layers into After Effects if all that you want to do is animate your foreground object flying in front of your background object; consider grouping them into a single foreground Smart Object and a single background Smart Object before importing the PSD file into After Effects.

Photoshop layer styles and blending modes

After Effects also supports blending modes and layer styles applied to the file. When you import a Photoshop file with layer styles, you can choose the Editable Layer Styles option or the Merge Layer Styles Into Footage option:

Editable Layer Styles: Matches appearance in Photoshop and preserves supported layer style properties as editable.
Note: A layer with a layer style interferes with intersection of 3D layers and the casting of shadows.
Merge Layer Styles Into Footage: Layer styles are merged into the layer for faster rendering, but the appearance may not match the appearance of the image in Photoshop. This option doesn’t interfere with intersection of 3D layers or casting of shadows.

Photoshop video layers

Photoshop files can even contain video and animation layers. After Effects can import these files like any other Photoshop files, either as a footage item with all layers merged together or as a composition with each Photoshop layer separate and editable in After Effects. (Working with Photoshop video layers requires QuickTime 7.1 or later.)

3D models in PSD files

Adobe Photoshop Extended can import and manipulate 3D models in several popular formats, including 3D Studio (.3ds) and Universal 3D (.u3d).

When you import a PSD file as a composition and that PSD file contains a 3D object layer, you can choose to make the layer a live Photoshop 3D layer. If you don’t choose this option when you import the file, you can convert the layer to a live Photoshop 3D layer in After Effects by choosing Layer > Convert To Live Photoshop 3D. When a layer is a live Photoshop 3D layer, it contains an instance of the Live Photoshop 3D effect, which is an effect that honors the active camera for the composition. (See Effects with a Comp Camera attribute.)