- Viewing Footage
- Cueing Motion Footage
- Magnifying an Image
- Viewing Safe Zones and Grids
- Displaying Rulers and Guides
- Viewing Snapshots
- Viewing Channels
- Viewing Transparency
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Displaying Rulers and Guides
Like its sister products Photoshop and Illustrator, After Effects lets you view rulers as well as set guides to help you arrange and align images.
To toggle rulers on and off, open the Grid and Guides pop-up menu in a Footage, Composition, or Layer panel, and choose Rulers (see Figure 16). Alternatively, with a Footage, Composition, or Layer panel active, press Command-R (Windows: Ctrl-R).
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Figure 16 The Grids and Guides pop-up menu also lets you toggle rulers.
To set the zero point of the rulers, follow these steps:
- Position the pointer at the crosshair at the intersection of the rulers in the upper-left corner of the Footage, Composition, or Layer panel. The pointer becomes a crosshair, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17 When you position the pointer at the intersection of the rulers, it becomes a crosshair icon.
- Drag the crosshair into the image area. Horizontal and vertical lines indicate the position of the mouse, as shown in Figure 18.
- Release the mouse to set the zero point. The rulers use the zero point you selected.
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Figure 18 Drag the crosshair at the intersection of the rulers into the image area.
To reset the zero point of the rulers, double-click the crosshair at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical rulers. The rulers' zero point will be reset to the upper-left corner of the image.
Follow these steps to set guides:
- If the rulers aren't visible, make them visible by pressing Command-R (Windows: Ctrl-R).
- Position the pointer inside the horizontal or vertical ruler. The pointer changes into a Move Guide icon.
- Drag the mouse into the image area (see Figure 19). A line indicates the position of the new guide.
- Release the mouse to set the guide.
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Figure 19 Click and drag from a ruler into the image area to add a guide.
To reposition a guide, just drag it to a new position. To remove a guide completely, drag it off the image area.