About The Layer And Footage Panels; To Work With Panel Columns; To Expand Collapsed Items; To Display Footage - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

To work with panel columns

You can work with columns in the Project, Timeline, and Render Queue panels.
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Do any of the following:
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To display or hide a column, choose Columns from the panel menu and select the column you want to display or
hide. A check mark indicates that the column is visible.
•
To resize a column, drag the bar to the right of a column name. Drag to the left to make the column smaller and
to the right to make it larger. You can't change the size of the Duration column in the Project panel.
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To change the order of columns, select the column name and drag it to a new location.

To expand collapsed items

You can expand collapsed items in a panel. For example, you can expand collapsed items in the Timeline panel or
the Effects & Presets panel.
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Ctrl+Shift-click (Windows) or Command+Shift-click (Mac OS) the item.

About the Layer and Footage panels

Use the Layer and Footage panels to preview and edit different parts of a project. These panels share a set of controls
that you can use to view safe zones (the visible areas of a television screen), identify RGB and alpha channels, and
change the magnification. These controls function the same way in both panels. Although the Layer and Footage
panels share some controls, you typically perform different tasks in each panel. Use the Layer panel to create or edit
masks, animate anchor points, and paint. Use the Footage panel to evaluate, trim, and insert movies.
In addition to the shared controls, the Layer panel also contains the View menu and the Render check box. After
Effects switches the view according to your actions. For example, if you select the Pen tool, After Effects switches to
Masks view so that you can create or edit a mask. Select Render to view any changes to the layer (such as masks or
effects), and deselect it to view the original, unaltered layer.
To choose a view in the Layer panel
Open a Layer panel by double-clicking the layer in the Timeline panel.
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2 Choose a view from the View menu in the Layer panel:
Displays existing masks.
Masks
Displays existing anchor points.
Anchor Point Path
Displays existing tracking points.
Motion Tracker Points
Displays the effect when Render is selected. (The effects are identified by name, for instance, Paint.)
Effects

To display footage

The standard Footage panel displays viewing and editing controls (the trimming tools and so forth) that are also
found in the Layer and Composition panels. The default Footage panel for movie files, however, displays movie
controls instead. Use these movie controls (either QuickTime or Video For Windows controls, depending on the
footage type) to play the movie and any included audio. To use the After Effects viewing and editing controls for
movie files, you must open movie files in the standard Footage panel.
Note: AVI files larger than 2 GB appear in the standard Footage panel, not the default movie file Footage panel.
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Do one of the following:
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To display a footage item in the default Footage panel, double-click a footage item in the Project panel.
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 21
User Guide