Setting Up PSD files in After Effects - Part II

Make Composition

1.  Click Cmnd-I (Mac) / Ctrl-I (PC) to import the PS file and logo vector file from the previous tutorial, Setting Up PSD Files Part 1. The folder should include the Film Grain file as well.
2. Choose Import As - Composition, Retain Layer Sizes.
3. Navigate to Composition > New.
4. Make the Composition 700 px by 700 px and name it Main Comp.
5. Drag and drop the Photo Collage file from the Project Window into the Main Comp.

Animating Path of Composition

1. With the Photo Collage Precomp selected within the layer stack, hit P for Position.
2. Hit the stopwatch next to Position to set a keyframe.
3. With the Playhead at the origin, set the Position at 20,505.
4. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;12.
5. Hit the diamond next to Position to set another keyframe.
6. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;00.
7. Set Position at 210,300.
8. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;12.
9. Hit the diamond next to Position to set another keyframe.
10. Move the Playhead to 0;00;02;00.
11. Set Position to 430,420.
12. Move the Playhead to 0;00;02;12.
13. Hit the diamond next to Position to set another keyframe.
14. Move the Playhead to 0;00;3;00.
15. Set Position at 700,175.
16. Move the Playhead to 0;00;03;12.
17. Hit the diamond next to Position to set another keyframe.
18. Move the Playhead to 0;00;4;00.
19. Set Position at 700,350.
20. Select all the keyframes.
21. Right-click on any selected keyframe and navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
22. If needed, adjust the animation’s length by selecting all keyframes and Option/Alt-clicking and dragging them out/in.

Animating Text

1. Double click on the Photo Collage Precomp to go inside of it.
2. Delete the Photograph Logo layer.
3. Double click inside the Family Photo Precomp.
4. Right-click on the words layer and navigate to Create > Convert to Editable Text
5. In the Effects & Presets panel, type in Fade Up Characters.
6. Drag and drop the effect onto the text layer.
7. Click on Photo Collage Precomp in the Project Window to return to that Precomp.
8. Repeat steps 3-6 with the other photo Precomps. Drag and drop the effect to line up with the Playhead on the Main Comp. This will ensure that the words fade in just as the photo slides onto the screen.

Film Grain

1. Back in the Main Comp, drag and drop the Film Grain asset from the Project Window onto the top of the layer stack.
2. Set the Layer Mode to Hard Light. If Layer Modes are not visible, click on Toggle Switches/Modes at the bottom of the layer stack.
3. Right-click on the Film Grain layer and navigate to Time > Time Stretch.
4. Set the duration to 0:00:10:00.

Animating the Logo

1. Drag and drop the Photography Logo from the Project Window onto the layer stack.
2. Right-click on the Photography Layer and navigate Create > Create Shapes from Vector Layer.
3. Select the new Shape Layer and hit Return (Mac) / Enter (PC) to rename it to Logo.
4. Delete the vector layer, keeping the new Logo layer.
5. Create a new white Solid using Layer > New > Solid.
6. Drag and drop the new Solid, so it’s underneath the logo layer.
7. Toggle open the Logo layer.
8. Click on Add, and navigate to Trim Paths.
9. Move the Playhead to 0;00;06;00, or wherever the photo animation ends.
10. Click the stopwatch next to Start to set a keyframe in the new Trim Paths.
11. Set Start to 100.
12. Select the White Solid.
13. Hit T for Opacity.
14. Hit the stopwatch next to Opacity to set a keyframe.
15. Set Opacity to 0.
16. Move the Playhead to 0;00;08;00.
17. Set Start on the Logo layer to 0.
18. Set Opacity on the White Solid to 100.

Video Transcription

Hi there. This is Tziporah Zions from Noble Desktop. This video is the second part of a pair of videos on how to use files in After Effects. This part deals with actually animating our files. So if you haven't watched the first video, what's seven files up? We'll go below the description so you can watch it. So starting off from where we left before, we're going to be importing our PSB file so if you have a Mac that's command.

I see. So it's Control Eye and I'm going to import our file that we set up before. So photo collage import as composition or tailor sizes. Import. Yes, yes. Edit all your styles, all right. And before we do anything with that, we're going to be making a new composition. So we're going to make a new composition and I'm going to make sure that my new composition is actually smaller than the file that we're working with because I want to be able to slide our composition around on the screen.

Like so you see in fact, I think I even want this composition to be smaller than that. So it gives me more room to slide our big composition around on it. So I'm just going to shrink it a bit all right. It shrunk to 500. All right. The Playhead at the origin. I'm going to hit people position to open up my position property and I'm going to keyframe to get it started and I'm going to hold it there for like maybe one second.

I'll put another keyframe there and then probably at 3 seconds and I want it to go over to the dog. So there we go. And now I'm going to move over. I think I wanted to hold it like one second for each and then I'm going to move it over here to the summer one. And then basically what I'm doing is having the keyframe hold for like about a second on each frame and then having it slide over to another image.

So whenever I set over to a new image, it just hit the, the diamond over here to see the keyframe. And then I let it sit for about a second and then I'm going to move it over to the next one. This is the order I'm going in. You don't have to necessarily follow it. I'm going to hold it for a second.

And then again, I want about one second later for it to move up here. Right? So this is what we've got so far. And then I'm going to hit and little past my last keyframe in order to have it and the animation and over there. So playing it back so far, I want to just a little bit so what I'm going to be doing is one of these keyframes and yeah, I'm going to just be moving them over a little bit.

So that's about like a gap of 2 seconds in between each keyframe a little a little bit about. But you can adjust it as you see fit. So we're going to skip ahead after the just thing. But basically, yeah, you're moving your keyframes a bit to adjust to speed that you like. All right. After all that adjusting is what we have so far.

So basically two key frames per picture and then move to the next one. And I know that mind, you know, capping it about around 10 seconds. But again, you can address grids however you see fit. And now we're going to select all these keyframes. We're going to right click to keep. And since then is is that I'll give you a nice bit of organic motion to all these keyframes and yeah, so that's the first part of this done all right.

Next part we're going to be going into this by double clicking on it. And for now, let's hide this photography logo. We're going to lock this with background so you don't suck with it. And we're going to be going through each of these pre comps. Let's start with the family one double click, go inside. And so now you see that this family part is considered a restorations layer, but we actually made it a text layer.

So I got to do is right click on this. The text layer right now is Photoshop layer and you go to create convert to editable text. That's really important because now we can go to text and presets and we can look at our animation, our text presets over here. So text animate in and we're just going to have up.

I think maybe like fade up upwards. So double click that and that should have it. Yeah, that's what we want like feet up like that. See that? And you can see how long this animation takes. So if we head back to our main comp over here come one and we start the animation, you know, it fades on and then you know it'll go on to the next one.

So I'll show you again with this one, the dog photo, we go over to the, the word layer right click go to create convert to editable text and then we create up words and then, you know, let's see, they go on yes. And then if we put you on this small layer, we can see how long it takes and where it goes.

Go back to me and we can see where it appears in our top. There we go. Sleepy. There we go. And like I said, there might be a bit of adjusting of keyframes and stuff. But you get the basic idea. So if it doesn't appear exactly where you want it in the, in the timeline, you know, you could go back to that pre comp and like maybe move it over a little bit or have it take a little longer.

But you get the basic idea. So that's basically rinse, repeat, for all of these text layers. So skip ahead. All right. So now that we're in this pre comp, we're going to be going to the we're going to start with like the family group over here. And as you can see, since we imported it from CSS as a group, it made it all pre top.

It's a double click to go and say that. And you see that the words here are actually imported as restaurant layers despite us making text layers. So when if fix that is right, click on that word layer and go to create convert to editable text. And that's really important because what we want to do next is apply a text preset to it.

So we go over to effects and presets animation presets we go over to text animate in and we're going to be doing straight up characters, double click that. And if you play that you'll see trees on just like that. And if you go on to our main comp and play it back, there we go. That's the fact that we want to get so we're going to move her playhead to where the dog photo comes in and we're going to head into photo collage, double click dog photo once again, see what I did, you know, create edible text on that word layer and double click for feed of characters.

And if we head back to the main comp, there we go. That's exactly what I want. Now, of course, if you want, you can adjust my you go back to, you know, whatever time you're working with hit you to see all the animated keyframes and maybe we can slide them back a little bit if you want. You can make them go a little quicker, but it's fun together.

Well, that's a basic idea. So you just honestly just rinse and repeat for all of these three columns. So let's skip ahead. All right. Now we have all the text out of the way. This is what it looks like so far. So the next thing that we're going to be doing is dropping in our logo file, in our texture file, and we're going to be animating the logo.

And then now we're pretty much done. So let's get to that. All right. So back into importing. So command all your control depending on your machine. And we want to drop in film grain, the video and also the photography logo. So guys, a composition or ten layer sizes import, please. So we drag and drop it into our layer stack.

We're going to scale to shrink it down there we go. So this that looks more pronounced. We're going to put it on overlay for our modes. If you don't see modes, by the way, just hit toggles, which is in modes and then if we play it, you'll see like this nice film Gran Effect happening and slight for you.

You can change the, you know, the layer mode like maybe like hard light or something like that. So it's a little more obvious. I ended up settling on linear light. So as you can see, it's like too short for a whole animation. So look right click on that. Go to time, time stretch. Let's have this thing last maybe like 15 seconds.

So it's long enough for our animation and yeah, you can see that we've now got this nice soft long term effect. So now the next thing and last thing is to have our photography logo animated. So let's drag and drop our photography logo top and we have a position in here and let's actually in order to have it send out was put a new layer solid.

Oh, let's make it white and drop it in below the photography logo and we're going to have this whole thing animate on all together. So don't worry about like the white solid covering it up just yet. So let's double click to go inside the photography logo so as you can see, we now have this file as a vector, which is really important because we're going to be right clicking and go to create shapes from vector layer and then we toggle open our new layer.

Let's actually rename it, I'm going to hit Enter Turn Your Machine Photography logo and I'm going to click Add and I'm going to click Trim Paths and basically what the stance is that we made from a vector file basically it is instructing the program to when I just start and end of these keyframes, it's telling me when to cut off.

Oh, I'm telling you when to cut off this image. And again, it only works with anything that's a vector. So basically around 6 seconds in I think should do it. Let's click start and have it 100%. So we're going to have this thing kind of like slide on like right itself on here and then about 2 seconds later, you know, maybe like, you know, each seconds in let's have the start, go back to zero.

And if you play that you can see that it kind of writes itself on. It's pretty cool effect. So now that we've animated that, I'm actually going to forget that starting in like 6 seconds, it actually brings it back to the origin so we're going to head back to our main comp. Let's try this solid so we can preview our animation.

And when we get to this last photo over here, the generations one, let's slide our logo over here so it starts coming in just as generations like right dissolve on those four ends over there and then the logo comes on. Let's actually put on the timeline a little bit and let's turn on this white solid over here and we're going to have this white solid like fade on right after.

So for trying to be transparency. My white solid now selected, I'm going to hit that stopwatch to set a keyframe. It's at 100%. And I'm going to actually shift that over a little bit to just when, you know, the logo starts appearing on, you can see it lines up with that pre comp over there and then I'm going to take it back down to zero and I'm going to extend it out a little bit.

So, you know, as you can see just this generations and you know, the white fades on and that's not logo, that logo appears on. So let's preview that whole thing. All right. So we've got it going exactly how we wanted to put the words right and so on. It's moving from picture to picture. We've got that nice simmering going on and there we go.

And then if it's a white and then the logo appears on and that's our animation so that's it. Knowing how to organize a Photoshop file is super useful for every motion graphics artist. Oftentimes we get handed files to be animated that have layers or unnamed layers of facts that can't be translated, all sorts of things. You can use this technique to help you with animating still images like portraits and magic animating smart object logos that were part of Photoshop file animating your own products that you make in Photoshop, for instance.

You know, it's super, super important, super versatile. So yeah, that's all for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed learning how to set up your own Photoshop files and Adobe After Effects. And yeah, if you have any questions or suggestions for future tutorials like some of us know in the comments, you know, let us know if you have any like any motion graphics projects that you're working on for work.

Now, personally, we'd love to help you out. So this has been Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop.