PHOTOSHOP CS3
User Guide
554
Before you export a layered Photoshop file for use in After Effects, do the following to reduce preview and rendering
time and to avoid problems with importing and updating Photoshop layers.
•
Organize and name layers. If you change a layer name or delete a layer in a Photoshop document after you import
it into After Effects, After Effects won’t be able to find the renamed or deleted layer. The After Effects Project panel
lists that layer as missing. (You can also group layers into Smart Objects. For example: If you used a set of layers
to make a foreground object and a set of layers to make a background, you can group them as one Smart Object
each, and easily animate one to fly in front of the other).
•
Make sure that each layer has a unique name. Duplicate layer names can cause confusion.
•
Choose Always from the Maximize PSD And PSB File Compatibility menu in the File Handling Preferences dialog box.
•
Use the appropriate pixel dimension preset for video and film in the New Document dialog box.
•
Do any required color correction, scaling, cropping, or other edits in Photoshop so that After Effects doesn’t have
to do extra image-processing work. (You can also assign a color profile to the image that corresponds to the
intended output type, such as Rec. 601 NTSC or Rec. 709. After Effects can read embedded color profiles and
interpret the image's colors accordingly. For more information on color profiles, see “Working with color profiles”
on page 141
Import video files and image sequences (Photoshop
Extended)
Open or import a video file (Photoshop Extended)
In Photoshop Extended, you can open a video file directly or add video to an open document. When you import
video, the image frames are referenced in a video layer.
1
Do one of the following:
•
To open a video file directly, choose File > Open.
•
To import video into an open document, choose Layer > Video Layers > New Video Layer From File.
2
In the Open dialog box, for Files Of Type (Windows) or Enable (Mac OS), choose either All Readable Documents
or QuickTime Movie.
3
Select a video file and then click Open.
You can also open video directly from Bridge: select a video file and then choose File > Open With > Adobe
Photoshop CS3.
See also
“Supported video and image sequence formats (Photoshop Extended)” on page 545
“About missing and mismatched color profiles” on page 147
Import image sequences (Photoshop Extended)
When you import a folder of sequenced image files, each image becomes a frame in a video layer.
1
Make sure that the image files are in one folder and are named sequentially.
