After Effects is a powerful video compositing, effects and motion graphics program that’s part of Adobe Creative Cloud. The problem for those coming from a video editing application like Final Cut or Premiere Pro is that the learning curve is steep.
Once you’ve spent some time in the program, you learn some of its nuances and start wrapping your mind around the different workflow that it presents. Then, you change a setting or apply an effect and nothing works the way you expect it to.
It can be maddening as you confusingly dig your way through the controls or frantically Google your problem to see if someone else has posted a solution to your problem.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdmXn7YH7VA&w=700&showinfo=0&rel=0]This video from Surfaced Studio shows some of the common problems and mistakes that new After Effects users experience.
For those skimming, the common mistakes address in the video are as follows:
- Location of Mode / Switches Buttons
- Creating Shapes Instead of Masks on a Layer
- Layer Preview Problems
- Masking and Effects
- Expressions are Case Sensitive
- Huge Video Files on Export from After Effects
[via No Film School]
