Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 163

You can only duplicate some property groups, including shapes, masks, and effects. However, you can't duplicate top-
level property groups such as Contents, Masks, Effects, and Transforms. If you attempt to duplicate a top-level
property group, the entire layer is duplicated, instead.
Set a property value
If multiple layers are selected and you change a property for one layer, then the property is changed for all selected
layers. Sliders, angle controls, and some other property controls are only available in the Effect Controls panel.
• Place the pointer over the underlined value, and drag to the left or right.
• Click the underlined value, enter a new value, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).
Note: You can enter simple arithmetic expressions for property values and other number entries. For example, you can
enter 2*3 instead of 6, 4/2 instead of 2, and 2e2 instead of 200.
• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the underlined value and choose Edit Value.
• Drag the slider left or right.
• Click a point inside the angle control
Note: After you click inside the angle control, you can drag outside it for more precision.
• To increase or decrease the property value by 1 unit, click the underlined value and press the Up Arrow or Down
Arrow key. To increase or decrease by 10 units, hold Shift while pressing the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key. To
increase or decrease by 0.1 units, hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while pressing the Up Arrow or
Down Arrow key.
• To reset properties in a property group to their default values, click Reset next to the property group name. If the
property contains keyframes, a keyframe is added at the current time with the default value.
See also
"Work with effects in the Effect Controls panel" on page 349
"Shortcuts for showing properties in the Timeline panel" on page 640
"Shortcuts for modifying properties" on page 641
Work with layer anchor points
Transformations, such as rotation and scale, occur around a layer's anchor point (sometimes called transformation
point or transformation center). By default, the anchor point
The easiest way to pan and scan over a large image is to animate Anchor Point and Scale properties.
Anchor point in center of text layer (left) compared to anchor point moved to the end of the text layer (right)
or drag the angle control line.
for most layer types is at the center of a layer.
AFTER EFFECTS CS3 157
User Guide