Working With Effects; About Effects; Applying And Controlling Effects; Chapter 16: Applying Effects - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

Chapter 16: Applying effects

Working with effects

About effects

After Effects includes a variety of effects, which you apply to layers. For example, effects can alter the exposure or
color of footage, manipulate sound, distort images, enhance lighting, animate credits and titles, or create a transition.
All effects are stored in Adobe After Effects 7.0 > Support Files > Plug-ins (Windows) or Adobe After Effects 7.0 >
Plug-ins (Mac OS). Because effects are implemented as plug-ins, you can use additional effects from other Adobe
plug-in–compatible applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, and you can use effects provided by parties other than
Adobe. You can add a single new effect or an entire folder of new effects to the Plug-ins folder. When After Effects
starts, it searches this folder and its subfolders for all installed effects and adds them to the Effect menu and to the
Effects & Presets panel.
Expression Controls effects do not modify existing layer properties; rather, these effects add layer properties to which
expressions can refer.
For more information on the various categories of effects, see "Effect categories" on page 368.
For additional information, go to Adobe Studio on the Adobe website.
Adobe periodically provides updates to software and Help. To check for updates, click the Preferences button
Adobe Help Center, and then click Check For Updates. Follow the on-screen instructions.
See also
"To modify properties with Expression Controls effects" on page 561
"Plug-ins" on page 66

Applying and controlling effects

You can apply or remove an effect at any time. Once you've applied effects to a layer, you can temporarily turn off
one or all the effects in the layer to concentrate on another aspect of your composition. Effects that are turned off do
not appear in the Composition panel and typically are not included when the layer is previewed or rendered.
However, in the Render Queue panel, you can specify that the composition is rendered with all effects on, regardless
of which effects you are displaying in the Composition panel. Turning off an effect does not delete the keyframes
created for any of the effect properties; all keyframes remain until the effect is deleted from the layer.
By default, when you apply an effect to a layer, the effect is active for the duration of the layer. However, you can make
an effect start and stop at specific times or make the effect more or less intense over time by using keyframes or
expressions.
You apply and edit effects to an adjustment layer just as you do to any other layer. However, when you apply an effect
to an adjustment layer, the effect is applied to all layers below it in the Timeline panel.
Note: Effects, masks, and transformations are ignored when referred to by another layer's effect.
Effects can also be saved, browsed, and applied as animation presets.
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