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When working with After Effects It is very important to have a clear understanding of how it interacts with other applications. The two applications which I use most often in conjunction with After Effects are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, the three applications work seamlessly together as long as you are aware of how to get the best from them. In this chapter we will focus on Adobe Photoshop. If you do not have a copy of Adobe Photoshop you can download a demo version from the Adobe website (http://www.adobe.com) that you can install for these exercises. The demo version works in the same way as the full version except for the fact you cannot copy, paste or save your final image. There are saved versions of all the images we will be working on, in the Training folder that you can open later if you are using the demo version. If you havent done so already, install Photoshop now.

The program is of a documentary style and the titles need to convey thought, visualization, inventions, ideas. The program will be broadcast in the late evening so the audience will be mainly adults. It is important, when creating a design for any medium, that you attempt to think through the viewers eyes, imagine what would inspire them. Originally trained as a fine artist, I was encouraged to explore my own thoughts and ideas and to create intensely personal pieces of artwork which would give the viewer an insight into my view of the universe. Since becoming more interested in design, I have had to learn a new approach to creating artwork.

Open Photoshop and then go to File > Open, (or hit Command + O) go to the Training > Source Images > Angie Images folder, and open Ideas.psd. This is a file that I have started to prepare for a television opening title, the program is called Great Ideas Of Our Time.

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As a designer you must think about who is communicating the message, you are being paid to communicate somebody elses ideas. Of course your own style will come through, it wouldnt be right if it didnt but you have to learn to sympathize with other individuals views of the same universe. In my opinion, this is the main difference between fine art and design. As well as considering the person who is communicating the message e.g. The director and/or the producer, you must also consider the target audience, what age are they? What social group do they belong to? Its sometimes hard for a fine artist to switch to this way of thinking as there are a lot of rules and stereotypes to adhere to. It is important, however to learn these rules, once you have learned them and know how to control them, then you can break them in a controlled way, creating your own unique style. For this particular job, Ive chosen some images from my footage libraries. There are several very good footage libraries available now, details of some of my favorites are included on the CD-ROM. I have looked for images that will communicate my message clearly, the close up of the eye conveys thought and concentration, the lightbulb is an old, cliched symbol for inspiration or ideas. In the design world you have to remember that cliches are often considered as good things, unlike in fine art where a cliche is generally avoided for not being original or unique. You can see that I have used a template here, with preset guides, there are two folders in the CD > AE_templates folder which contain templates for both Photoshop and Illustrator in the common 4:3 aspect ratios. The guides mark out the 5% action safe area and the 10% title safe area. Designers should always design for the lowest common denominator. In television design this means designing for people who still use old television sets. Because of the convex shape of older television sets, images can appear to distort near the edges. Often on these old sets more of the picture is cut off at the edge of the screen than on new flat screen televisions. These safe zones are there to ensure your design will stay within the live area of the screen. Any title within the title safe area will be easily readable. Any footage within the action safe area is guaranteed to be seen on a regular television set. There are also guides marking the central axes of the screen, very useful for positioning elements precisely. Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard image manipulation tool. It was originally designed for print work but more consideration is now given by the programmers to designers of screen based mediums and although Photoshop is not built specifically for this purpose, more and more people are using Photoshop for TV design. Ill show you some of my favorite features which work very nicely with After Effects. If you now look at the Layers palette, on the right hand side of your screen, you will see that this image is composited from several individual layers. Working with layers makes it easy for me to alter the design at any time.

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Switch the layers visibility on and off, one at a time, by clicking the eye icons for each layer. To quickly switch them all back on again simply click and drag the mouse/pen over the eyes.

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To access the Tracking controls, click on the Palettes button in the tool options bar to open up the Character palette, this palette provides you with even more control over your type.

Double click the type icon on the top layer named Ideas, this will select any existing text and make the Type tool active. Type remains live in Photoshop until you decide to render it as a regular layer. This means that you can alter settings such as tracking, leading, color, font size etc. all the way through your design process. You can tell when a text layer is still live, as it will have a text layer icon (pictured above) on it. At the top of the screen you should now see the Tool Options bar (pictured below). This options bar is context sensitive and changes according to whichever tool is selected. With the Type tool selected, it contains some of the most commonly used type controls including ones for font, size and color.

Make sure all the letters are selected in the main window and then click once in the Tracking text field (circled below). Hit the Up and Down arrow keys on your keyboard to scale the Tracking up and down in increments of 20, make sure that the value ends on 110.

Click on the color swatch in the Tool Options bar and change the color to white. Because television screens use light to display images, the color tends to bleed a little from the edge of the letter forms, making them appear to be fatter than they actually are and visibly reducing the space between them. It is always a good idea, when designing text which is to be viewed on screen (especially light text on a dark background), to give it a little extra tracking. Tracking is a typographic term referring to the space between letters. Adjusting the tracking value alters the space equally between each letter in the word (or words) selected.

Kerning is another typographic term, adjusting the Kerning value will alter spacing between individual letter pairs, allowing you to create a different amount of space between each of the letters. If you look at the text through half shut eyes, you will see that the E and the A are too close together when compared to the other letter pairs.

Place the cursor so that it lies between the E and the A and then click once in the Kerning text field to make it active. Hit the Up arrow key repeatedly till the Kerning value reads 0.

Use the Right and Left Arrows to move the insertion point between the letter pairs, checking the Kerning values as you go. Adjust them if you feel it is necessary, using the same technique.

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Select the letter I and change the Font Size to 186, then retype it as a lowercase letter i.

14 Select the Move tool again (V) and then click

and drag the text so that the left edge sits up against the central, vertical guide and then use this or the arrow keys on the keyboard to nudge your text into position, lying on the horizontal guide.

10 Select the Move Tool (V) and then, in the main

window, click and drag the text to the same position as pictured in the diagram below. The left edge of the D should be up against the central, vertical axis.

15 Double click the Hand tool in the toolbar. 11 Hit the T key on the keyboard to select the Type
tool again and then create a new layer by Alt-clicking on the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layer palette. Holding down the Alt key will bring up the New Layer dialog box where you can name your layer Great. Doing this will expand your view to the maximum display size possible for your monitor resolution.

16 Double click the Zoom tool, this will resize

your image to 100%, notice that the text is now much smoother and the image quality is much improved, it is always best to view your images at 100% wherever possible. If the palettes are getting in your way you can toggle them on and off by hitting the Tab key. Shift + Tab key will hide all palettes but keep the Toolbar visible.

17 Hit Command + R or go to View > Show Rulers 12 Place the cursor so that it sits on the intersection of the two central axis and click once to create a new line of text. if your rulers are not already showing. Notice that the rulers (as default) measure the image in centimeters.

13 In the Type Options bar, change the Font to

Arial, the Font Size to 41 and the color to white. Type in the word Great and then change the alignment to Right.

18 Go to Edit > Preferences > Units and Rulers.

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19 In the Preferences dialog box, change the Units
to Percent and notice, in your original image, that the guides have been placed exactly in the center of each axis using percentage measurements.

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24 Double click the Hand tool to optimize your

work area again and then hit Command + T or go to Edit > Free Transform to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. The Free Transform tool allows you to use one bounding box for various different types of layer distortion. You can resize, rotate or reposition your layer, as well as alter its skew, distortion and perspective values, all by using one tool.

20 Change the Units to pixels and then click OK.

I find that I usually prefer to work in either pixels or percentages, depending on the situation.

21 Go to File > Open and open up the file named

Bits_bobs.psd from the Training > Source Images > Art Explosion folder. Make sure that you can see both images simultaneously. This is another image chosen from the 750,000 images which make up the Art Explosion collection.

25 Click and drag the left, middle handle of the

bounding box towards the right. You can use the rulers for a guide, move to the 250 pixel mark on the top ruler. If you watch the Info palette as you drag it will give you a reading for the new size of your layer which should now read W:520, H:576.

22 With the Move tool selected, click on the

Bits_bobs.psd image and then hold down shift key whilst dragging it onto Ideas.psd, then release. Holding down the shift key will snap the new footage to the centre of the existing footage.

26 Double click inside the bounding box or hit

Return to accept the Transformation. You should now be able to see the eye layer beneath.

23 Go to Window > Show Info to display the Info

palette if it is not already showing. The Info Palette is an indispensable source of information for you. If you watch the Info palette whilst moving your cursor over the image, it will tell you the RGB value of each pixel plus its X and Y coordinates. You can change the display options for units and color values in the options pull out menu, you can even use the Info palette to preview color changes and log sampled colors for comparisons. The Info palette should be explored fully, see the online help menu for more details about it.

27 Go back to your Layers palette and look at the

Blending Mode drop down menu which, at the moment reads Normal. Click and hold this menu to see its contents. You will see a list of blending modes, these modes determine how one layer blends with another layer when they are composited together.

28 Choose Difference from the menu and notice that

the way that the layers combine has now changed. In its default mode (Normal) Photoshop will paint the top layers pixel color over the bottom layers pixel color, completely obscuring the underlying layers. Using any of the other blending modes will blend the layers together in different ways.

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Difference mode looks at the two images and subtracts whichever are the brighter pixels from the darker pixels, regardless of which layer is on top, the resulting effect is similar to that of a photographic negative. You can find out more about the various layer modes in the Technical.pdf document in the CD > Extras folder. Theres also plenty of information regarding these modes in the online help system.

32 Click on the New Layer Mask button

at the bottom of the Layers palette, this will create a completely white layer mask, allowing the whole image to show through, nothing will appear to have changed at this point but by painting directly into the layer mask we can determine the transparent areas.

33 Hit the G key to bring up the Gradient tool

(this may be hidden behind the Paint Bucket tool).

29 With the Ideas.psd image active, look in the

Layers palette you will see an Opacity slider next to the Blending modes drop down menu, this effects the opacity for each individual layer. With the new layer still selected move this slider down to 35%.

34 In the Gradient tool options bar, make sure

you have the default black and white gradient selected and then uncheck the Reverse checkbox.

35 Click and drag from the bottom left of the

letter i in ideas to the point where the key hits the action safe guide and then release the mouse. If you are not happy with the results you can undo the last stage by hitting Command + Z. The end result should look similar to the one pictured in the diagram below.

30 Alt + double click the layer to bring up the

Layer Options dialog box and type in Bits & Bobs as the new name for the layer.

31 Still in the Layer palette, click and drag the

Bits and bobs layer down till it sits directly above the Eyemask layer. Well now use a layer mask to gradually fade the layer into the Eyemask layer. Notice that the Eyemask layer already has a layer mask attached to it. A layer mask is a matte which uses grayscale pixel information to determine which areas of an image are opaque and which are transparent. White areas will be made transparent and will allow the image underneath to show; black areas will be opaque and will obscure the underlying images; 50% gray areas will be 50% transparent. The nice thing about working with Layer masks is that the changes you make are always reversible. Rather than erasing part of an image, by using a layer mask to remove parts of the image, you will still have your original image intact, in case the image needs to be altered at a later date.

Notice that the Layer Mask is now filled with a gradient. If you solo this layer youll see that the areas that are 100% black are transparent and that the areas that are white are opaque. If you want to, you can adjust the opacity of the layer to make this more obvious but make sure that you finish with the opacity back at 35% and all layers visible.

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OK, lets take a look at Adjustment Layers. Adjustment Layers carry color or tonal changes for a layer (or layers) without affecting the layer itself. Think of it as placing a filter over the layer which will apply the settings you specify. Adjustment layers will affect any layers situated underneath them in the Layer palette. You can also choose to apply them to single layers by creating Clipping Groups. As well as leaving your original image unaltered, Adjustment Layers have the added bonus of applying adjustments globally, apply the changes to one adjustment layer and it will affect all the layers in your image without having to merge the layers together.

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Hit the G key to select the Gradient tool again. In the Gradient tool options bar, select the Radial gradient tool and make sure that the Reverse checkbox is unchecked.

With the Hue/Saturation layer still selected, click and drag from the centre of the eye (the pupil) to the title safe guide to the left of the eye. If you look in the Layers palette at the Adjustment layer you will see that you have created a white radial gradient on a black background. If you look at your image you will see that only the eye is now affected by the Adjustment layer. As well as using the Gradient tool to define areas, you can also paint areas onto the mask by hand.

In the Layer palette, click on the New Fill or Adjustment Layer button and choose Hue/Saturation from the drop down menu.

Hit the B key on the keyboard to bring up the Brush tool. From the Brushes palette, select a large feathered brush (second row, far right).

The usual Hue/Saturation dialog box will appear. Bring the Hue slider down to 180 and the Saturation slider up to +30 and then click OK.

Make sure that you have white selected as your foreground color by hitting the D key on the keyboard to select default colors.

Notice that all layers under the adjustment layer have a blue hue applied to them. Try toggling the Hue/Saturation layer on and off to see for yourself that the adjustment is carried on a separate layer from your other layers.

Begin to paint around the lightbulb, notice that as you paint it changes to blue rather than painting on solid white, this is because the white is revealing the Adjustment layer.

Click and drag the Adjustment Layer above the Bulb layer so that it also affects it. The bulb will also turn blue. You can also select areas of your image to apply Adjustment layers to in the same way as you would create a layer mask, by painting on with grayscale information.

10 Lets take a closer look at this Layer Mask.

Click on the Channels tab in the Layers palette.

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Interestingly in an RGB image, the red channel tends to contain most of the contrast information, the green contains most of the detail information and the blue channel contains most of the noise. This is useful information when correcting images, if your image is noisy then either blur only the blue channel or substitute the blue channel with a copy of the green to remove noise without losing contrast and clarity. RGB colors are also known as additive colors. Each channel ranges from 0 (black) to 255 (white). When all three channels are at 255, pure white will be the product, hence the name additive colors. When all three channels have a value of 0, pure black will be the result. If you find it useful, you can also choose to have the individual channels displayed in their own color, this may help you to understand how the colors are mixed.

When designing for broadcast you will work in RGB mode. There is more information about mattes and channels in the Technical.pdf in the CD > Extras folder but basically; RGB images are made up from three, eight bit, grayscale images, called channels. Each image consists of a red channel, a green channel and a blue channel. Each grayscale channel determines how much of each color will be used in the final image. Where there is white, the color will show at 100%. Where there is black, there will be none of the color. Where the image is 50% grey, there will be 50% of the color. When these three grayscale channels are blended together they make up a full color image.

12 To do this go to Edit > Preferences > Display and

Cursors and check the box next to Color Channels in Color and then click OK. Solo the individual channels again to see the difference. Try switching them on and off two at a time to see how the channels mix together.

13 When you have finished looking at the color

channels, go back to the Preferences and un-check the Color Channels to Color box and click OK.

11 Switch off visibility for the Green and Blue

channels so that only the red channel is visible. As you can see it is just a grayscale image but it represents all of the red information for that image. Where the grayscale image is at its lightest there is a lot of red in the image, where it is black there is none. If you solo the Green and Blue channels you will see similar results. Notice that with the blue channel soloed the eye is very dark, this is because there is very little blue in the eye.

14 Switch the RGB channel back on so that you can

see a full color image again.

15 Switch visibility on for the Hue/Saturation layer.

Youll now see your mask represented by a rubylith overlay. This works in a very similar way as working in Quick Mask mode. Painting with black will add to the mask, painting with white will take away from it. The rubylith represents the black area.

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For anyone who hasnt used Quick Mask mode (shame on you!) you really should check it out in the online help system. This allows you to continue painting your mask whilst still being able to see the original layer underneath the best of both worlds! The term Rubylith comes from traditional photography. It was a semi transparent material which was painted onto negatives to mask away areas of the photograph. There is a fourth channel available to you when you save out certain file types in Photoshop. These files are 32-bit files and they contain one, extra 8-bit grayscale channel called an alpha channel. Think of an alpha channel as a matte which is embedded into your image. It contains information about which areas of an image you want to be transparent and which you want to be opaque. White represents opacity while black represents transparency. Fifty percent gray will be fifty percent transparent and so forth. Think of it as a way of selecting areas to be invisible without losing the original information.

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19 Switch the RGB channel back on and the

Hue Saturation mask off for final adjustments to the mask. As well as using the tools to manipulate the Adjustment Layers, you can also use filters to change the way they look. After finishing this tutorial you can try experimenting with some of them. At any time you can go back to the Adjustment Layer to make changes to your settings, this is perfect for situations when you have an awkward client who keeps changing their mind about color schemes etc. (a very rare occurrence of course!) Adjustment Layers keep their settings live so you can go and change them at any time without losing the original image information. Imagine that a client has said to you; Mmm, not bad but could you just change this, this and this? after youve spent hours working out the perfect design solution, well its no problem if you use Adjustment Layers, Ill show you why . . .

20 Go back to the Layer palette and

double click the Hue/saturation icon on the Adjustment layer itself, doing this will open up the Hue Saturation dialog box again, notice that the settings have remained live.

16 If you now switch off the RGB channel you will

see your mask in solid black and white. By viewing the mask in this way, you can easily check for any holes in it.

21 Change all of the sliders back to 0 to return

your settings to their original position and then click OK.

17 Use the Paintbrush to paint out any holes

that exist in your mask. Hitting the X key on the keyboard will toggle between the foreground and background colours.

22 You can also add multiple Adjustment Layers

to your image, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer. Well use the Channel mixer to create a rich, grayscale image.

18 Hit the O key to select the Dodge tool, drag

this over the radial gradient you created for the eye to brighten up the mask and therefore, increase the effect of the adjustment layer.

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23 In the Channel Mixer dialog box check the
checkbox next to the word Monochrome and then change the Red slider to +200%; the Green slider to 150% and the Blue slider to +100%. Click OK when you are finished. Clipping Groups are most commonly used for displaying images through text or other shapes, you can use the bottom layer of an image as a sort of stencil (or mask) for the rest of the layers in the group. If you are unfamiliar with Clipping Groups and how to use them please look in the online help for more information. I am going to show you how to use Clipping Groups to change the way that Adjustment Layers work.

24 The order in which you place Adjustment

Layers is very important too, double click the Hue/Saturation icon on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to open up its dialog box again. Click once on the Colorize checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box.

27 Hold down the Alt key and move the cursor

between the Hue/Saturation layer and the Bulb layer, the cursor will change to two overlapping circles, when it does this, click with your mouse or pen to create a clipping group containing these two layers. Now the Adjustment layer will only affect the Bulb layer. You can tell that it is now a Clipping Group by the little arrow on the Adjustment layer and the underlined layer name for the Bulb layer. Notice that the lightbulb is still affected by the Adjustment layer but the Eye is not, this is because the eye is not in the same Clipping Group as the Adjustment Layer.

25 Change the Hue to 250, Saturation to 50 and leave

the Lightness at 0, hit Return to accept changes. The Adjustment doesnt seem to have much effect on the image but if you click and drag the Hue/ Saturation layer so that it sits directly above the Channel Mixer layer, you will see that by changing the order of the layers you are changing how they affect each other. The Hue Saturation changes are now happening after the Channel Mixer has made the image monochrome. When using Adjustment Layers, adjustments will be applied from the bottom up. You can try toggling on and off visibility for the two Adjustment Layers to see the different combinations of effects that you can achieve by combining only two Adjustment Layers. Imagine the fun youd have with more than two!

26 Click and drag the Channel Mixer Adjustment

Layer down and on to the trash can icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, this will delete the layer. What if you want an Adjustment Layer to affect only one layer instead of all the layers beneath it? You can easily do this by creating a Clipping Group.

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28 Switch the Clipping Group off again by
Alt-clicking on the layers again. Ok, so youve made several changes to your original file, youve altered the Hue/Saturation, Channel mixer as well as the order in which everything is applied. Remember the awkward client we spoke of earlier? Well, imagine he/she came back, after demanding that you make all of these alterations and said to you; Actually, I preferred it the way you had it in the first place. I dont know about you but in my experience this is the most common phrase used by clients in a tight deadline situation, if you are still a student, take this as a warning!

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Change the Angle to 135; Depth to 4 and Soften value to 3. Make sure that the Use Global Light checkbox is checked.

Click on the Drop Shadow section from the list on the left of the dialog box to bring up the Drop Shadow controls.

29 Double click the Hue Saturation layer to open

up its dialog box, notice again that all the settings are as they were last time you visited.

Change the Drop Shadows Distance to 10, and Spread value to 6. Because you have the Global Light checkbox activated, the layer effects will use the same angle throughout, no need to change the angle again. If you wanted the shadow and the bevel to have different angles you would uncheck this box.

30 Uncheck the Colorize checkbox and then put

all the sliders back to 0 to quickly reset your image to its original settings. Why not just delete the Adjustment Layer? I hear you cry. Well, from past experience I have a funny feeling that client may change his/her mind again so its more flexible to keep the Adjustment Layer with its hand painted matte, just in case they change their mind again - you never know!

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Click OK to leave the Layer Style dialog box.

Go to Layer > Layer Style > Copy Layer Style to copy all of the Layer Effects to the clipboard.

Layer Styles
OK, finally, lets take a look at Layer Styles. These are groups of Layer Effects which can be saved, copied and pasted from layer to layer. Their settings remain live, allowing you to make changes to the settings whenever necessary.

Select the Great layer in the Layers palette and then go to Layer > Layer Style > Paste Layer Style to paste the same effect settings onto the other type layer. Layer effects are great because they remain live. When you apply an effect using the Filters menu it is destructive i.e. it alters the pixels in your image permanently.

Select the Ideas layer and then go to Layer > Layer Style > Bevel and Emboss.

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To remove or change the filter settings using the Filters menu, you would have to go back to a previous state either by undoing the effect, using the History palette or Reverting the file to its original state. Using Layer Styles is a much more flexible way of working and saves you from having to save several different versions of the same image.

10 Go to the View menu and check that your

guides are not locked (so that they stay in proportion to your image) and then go to Image > Image Size and type in 320 for the Width, making sure first that the Constrain Proportions checkbox is checked. Click OK. Notice that resizing the image has changed the appearance of the bevel on the text. Dont worry about this for now, well take a look at how to fix this in the Import Chapter (starting on Page 65).

Double click on the little f symbol on the Great layer to re-open the Effects dialg box. Notice that the settings have remained the same. Select the Bevel and Emboss effect. Change the Depth to 2 and the Soften value to 1 and then click OK. OK, so lets recap on what youve done here. Youve made color adjustments, added effects, added text, composited bits of images together and all of it remains live. Your original files are still there, unaltered if you should need to get back to them. To demonstrate the difference between live layers and rendered layers you will render one of the type layers.

TIP: Another way of resizing your image is to go

to File > Automate > Fit Image and then type in a new size. Try using this method to save an NTSC version of your file.

11 Go to File > Save as, save the file as

Ideas320.psd to your own Creative After Effects > Extras folder. If you are working with the save disabled demo version of Photoshop, there is a version of this file saved for you in Training > Source Images > Angie Images. If you want to see how these Photoshop features are supported by After Effects go straight to the Import Chapter (starting on Page 65) of the book and follow the tutorials from there.

Select the Great layer and go to Layer>Rasterize > type. This will render the text as bitmap information on the layer, you will no longer be able to edit the type with the Type Tool dialog box. Notice that the T has disappeared from the layer. Although the type is no longer editable, the Layer effects still are.

TIP: Before you render a type layer, create a

duplicate of the file or the layer, you never know when you might want to go back and edit the text again. To create a duplicate of the file, go to Image > Duplicate. To create a duplicate of the layer, first select the layer, click on the little black triangle, on the right hand side of the Layers palette and from the pull out menu, choose Duplicate Layer. This file has been created using PAL resolution. For the After Effects exercise that follows in the Import Chapter we will save a smaller version.