In this screen cast of a recent Adobe E-seminar, learn how to incorporate Adobe Photoshop Extended into your Adobe After Effects workflow, by preparing video in After Effects, exporting to Photoshop and adding Filters, then reimporting back to After Effects for final compositing.
Watch Tutorial (17min, 40MB)
Check out the new super-short, punchy business series by my brother Robin over on businessofpassion.com
MILG 6 and 7 host Tim Clapham recently completed a beautiful animation for 3D World magazine, created using Cinema4D and Adobe After Effects. The even cooler news is Tim recorded a tutorial.
Prologue has posted a teaser for The Pacific, the sequel to the stunning Band of Brothers miniseries. My friend and ex-Foxtel colleague Clarissa Donlevy headed up Concept, Design and Direction. A beautiful piece of work indeed.
28 Responses to this post
September 19, 2009 at 3:37 am |
Really useful technique John.
Opens up a whole world of creative possiblities!
Funnily enough using the animation tools/timeline in Photoshop was what promted me to make the leap to After Effects, which I’m now loving!
Many thanks for the great tutorials!
September 19, 2009 at 3:02 pm |
Glad you found it useful Toby and good to hear you made the leap! Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 4:47 am |
Brilliant video, thank you.
would love to see some more real world workflow examples like this one!
September 19, 2009 at 3:03 pm |
Hi Glen, keep watching Motionworks because I do a lot of real-world stuff! Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 5:07 am |
Hey JD,
it´s really cool what you can do with Ae and Ps-filters in combination, you can make some really cool stuff out of it.
But to me that trouble with interlacing/deinterlacing between the apps is really anoying. I am happy you showed us how to do this but to be honest, I didn´t understand exactly whats going on. You switch 25 Frames to 50 Frames Playback and it still runs at the same speed? That will hurt my brainmuscle somehow. Thanks anyway.
September 19, 2009 at 3:05 pm |
Hi illd, as long as you only change the composition to 50fps and NOT the footage (interpret footage) you’ll see normal playback. So you set the comp to 50 (or 60 etc), separate the fields, then render back to 25 with fields. Note this is also a good technique when rotoscoping fast moving footage with fields. Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 8:04 am |
John,
When you bumped up the frame rate from 25 to 50, would I be correct that the math formula is universal?
ie: 29.97 = 59.94, 30 = 60, etc.?
I love what you did with the 4:3 video.
Very cool tut that I can use in my day to day projects.
Best,
J
September 19, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
Hi James, I’ve only worked at 50 but I’m sure it’s the same for those frame rates. Glad you enjoyed the tut! Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 10:32 am |
wow !! really great job in photoshop ! U really teach me thing ! One of the bests!!
September 19, 2009 at 10:36 am |
hey john,
i also use photoshop and after effects together for some things i do. it´s a very usefull and efficient workflow. it´s a nice way the temporarly “deinterlace” for PS.
thx for this.
maik from dresden / germany
September 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm |
Hi effektmaenchen, glad you found the deinterlace solution useful! Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 12:51 pm |
Cool, very useful and thanks.
September 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm |
You’re welcome Jim. Best, John.
September 19, 2009 at 10:14 pm |
Nice Tutorial.
Just one question to get it right:
The Raw footage was 25 fps interlaced.
In After Effetcs you switch 25fps to 50fps and AE automatically takes the upperfield and the lower field and separates them in each in one frame while using interpolation.
In the final render you switch back to 25 fps and AE takes the right field out of each frame and convert it to one frame?! Without loosing quality because in interpolated lines will be replaced by the actual lines from the frame after (or before)?
Nice workflow if I got it right.
September 19, 2009 at 10:23 pm |
Not quite Grischa, you need to separate the fields (upper or lower depending on your footage) using the Interpret Footage dialog (Command Option G/Control Alt G). Then set your comp to 50fps (Command K). Next render out at 50fps (the new comp frame rate) with no fields. Import that into Photoshop and add your filters. Then reimport back into AE, composite and render at 25fps plus upper or lower fields (same as you used to separate the fields. Best, John.
September 20, 2009 at 1:00 am |
Just missed the seperate field in my “workflow”. But AE interpolates the separated field (becauase each field has its own frame) and in the final step puts them back together because you render with 25 frames.
I think I get the workflow just interested how AE and Photoshop handle the fields.
Kind of hard to explain, even in another language.
September 19, 2009 at 10:39 pm |
Thanks for this tutorial, because I never thought it could be useful to do something inside PS. (Actually I thought it was only an option for those who don’t have AE)
But I use PS most for illustrations, and this makes me think PS still underused on this workflow.
So this tutorial moves me to try the paint tools on it and see what happens
September 20, 2009 at 2:32 am |
That’s great Telli. I’m always happy when I hear my tutorials have inspired! Best to you, John.
September 20, 2009 at 2:27 am |
Nice tutorial John.
BTW – You can bring PSD file into After Effects (even if it has a video inside) and After Effects will read it correctly with everything you add to it. No need to re-render for the back trip.
Even better: This will also make the filters editable, so if you change your mind in the future. Just select the PSD layers which contains the video and the PS filters and then press CTRL or CMD + E and it will open inside Photoshop, then you can make the necessary adjustments and hit Save – and your changes will be reflected in After Effects timeline.
September 20, 2009 at 2:30 am |
Thanks Eran. One problem with the workflow you mention is that AE doesn’t recognise Smart Objects and therefore Smart Filters. All the best, John.
October 4, 2009 at 10:20 pm |
Hey John,
That was great work! It actually opened some tips about AE&PS work flow.
Thanx man. Can we have another?
October 5, 2009 at 2:34 pm |
Hi Josh, I’ll be doing another Photoshop Extended e-seminar on October 27. I’ll post details closer to that date. Best wishes, John.
November 5, 2009 at 5:20 pm |
Hey John, you critiqued my tut and i tried your steps w/ concerting to a smart object. It works fine w/ all the filters but whenever i go to image-adjustments, everything is disabled. Can you help me out, I’m curious as to how i can create the cartoon effect w/out batch processing and action recording (which would be sweet
Thanks man,
-Lyndon
November 6, 2009 at 1:40 am |
Hi Lyndon, try adding an Adjustment layer above the video. You’ll get access to the image-adjustments that way. Best, John.
November 5, 2009 at 6:13 pm |
sorry…
also, when it comes to making a mask for the halftone effect i first make a selection by ctrl+clicking on the RGB image on the channels tab. i then create a new layer and fill it w/ black, creating a black and opaque image of the frame which allows me to create different dot sizes for the halftone effect. Basically how can i create this black and opaque image for every single frame using video in photoshop?
once again, sorry man. im just above all really curious. You’re one of the greats and your input is very important to me.
p.s. i use the color halftone effect. ive managed to use the other one w/ a black and white version and change the blending modes to make a similar effect but it just doesn’t look the same at all.
November 6, 2009 at 1:44 am |
That’s a good question, there seems to be no way to do this other than using your automation technique. Best, John.
November 7, 2009 at 4:22 pm |
ah well, thx anyways man. you’re awesome at what you do. i appreciate your website a lot.
-Lyndon
November 8, 2009 at 2:32 am |
You’re welcome Lyndon. Best, John.
Trackbacks