Importing Basics; Working With Imported Files; Chapter 5: Preparing And Importing Footage - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

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Chapter 5: Preparing and importing
footage

Importing basics

Working with imported files

A footage item is the basic unit in an After Effects project. Before you begin animating, you need to import footage
into After Effects. You then work with footage items in compositions, collections of layers in which you create all
animation, layering, and effects. You can import moving image files, still-image files, still-image sequences, audio
files, layered files from Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, and other After Effects projects and projects created
in Adobe Premiere Pro. As you build a project, you can import footage items at any time.
When you import files, After Effects does not copy the footage item itself into your project but creates a reference link
in the Project panel to the footage item. This saves disk space.
If you delete, rename, or move an imported source file, you break the reference link to that file. When a link is broken,
the name of the source file appears in italics in the Project panel, and the File Path column lists it as missing. If the
footage item is available, you can reestablish the link—usually just by double-clicking the item and selecting the file
again.
To save time and minimize the size and complexity of a project, import a footage item once and then use it multiple
times in a composition. It is occasionally useful, however, to import a footage item more than once, such as when
you want to use it at two different frame rates.
If you use another application to modify footage that is used in a project, the changes appear in After Effects the next
time you open the project.
When you add a footage item to an After Effects composition, you create a new layer, and the footage item becomes
the source for the new layer. You can replace the source without affecting any edits you make to the layer properties.
You can import a variety of audio file formats directly into After Effects. When you add audio-only files to a compo-
sition, they appear as layers in the Timeline panel. You can adjust the audio preview settings, such as sample rate, in
the Previews section of the Preferences dialog box. These settings change the quality of audio playback when you
preview the composition, not when you render it.
See also
"About placeholders and proxies" on page 128
"To edit footage in its original application" on page 124
"Previewing audio" on page 136
"To create a new Photoshop layer" on page 152