- Displaying Information in the Project Panel
- Finding Items in a Project
- Sorting Footage in the Project Panel
- Organizing Footage in Folders
- Renaming and Removing Items
- Proxies and Placeholders
- Viewing Footage
- Opening Footage in the Original Application
- The Footage Panel
- Cueing Motion Footage
- Magnifying an Image
- Viewing Safe Zones and Grids
- Rulers and Guides
- Snapshots
- Channels
- Viewing Transparency
- Correcting for Pixel Aspect Ratios
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Opening Footage in the Original Application
As you know, After Effects works with references to source files, not with the files themselves. Sometimes, however, you'll want to make a permanent change to a source file after you've imported it into After Effects. Luckily, you don't have to quit After Effects to do so. After Effects provides an easy way to open the file in the application in which it was created. Of course, the application must be present on your hard drive, and you must have enough available RAM to open both applications simultaneously. After you edit the footage in the original application, every instance of the footage in your After Effects project will reflect your changes.
To open a footage item in the original application:
- In the Project panel, Composition panel, or Timeline panel, select the footage item or layer containing the footage you want to edit (
Figure 3.47
).
To open an image in a still-image sequence, select the footage in the Composition or Timeline panel, and position the current time indicator at the frame that displays the still image you want to use ( Figure 3.48 ).
Figure 3.47 Select the footage you want to edit in the Project, Composition, or Timeline panel…
Figure 3.48 …or set the current time to the frame of the still image sequence.
- Choose Edit > Edit Original, or press Command-E (Mac) or Ctrl-E (Windows) (
Figure 3.49
).
After Effects launches the application in which the file was created.
Figure 3.49 Choose Edit > Edit Original, or press Command-E (Mac) or Ctrl-E (Windows) to open the file in its original application.
- Edit the file in the original application, and save the changes. If you don't plan to make further changes, quit the application.
- Return to After Effects, and continue working on your project. Every instance of the footage in your project reflects the changes you saved in the original application.
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