Adobe After Effects Beginner (2023): Using Effects and Presets

Name: Adobe After Effects Beginner (2023): Using Effects and Presets
Author: Calvin Gaunce

Learn how to utilize the Effects and Presets Panel to apply and customize visual effects in your creations

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 5 lessons.

Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Calvin Gauntz and in these lessons you will learn how to work with effects and presets. We'll experiment with various effects, explore features like adjustment layers and pre-compositions, and learn to save custom animations as presets. After Effects comes stocked with a ton of effects and presets which are easily available from the effects and presets panel. There's no way we can go through all of these in a reasonable amount of time so I'm going to quickly skim through the categories available. 3D Channel Effects work on 2D layers but read and manipulate additional channels of 3D information. We have audio effects available, personally I like to do my audio work in Audition or Premiere but we can work with audio in After Effects, blur and sharpen effects with a variety of blur tools available here, forest effects mocha which is a tracking and masking plugin that Adobe licenses and is included with After Effects, Channel Effects which allow you to manipulate individual channels on footage, Cinema 4D for C4D integration, a lot of color correction effects and tools here along with many distortion effects as well, expression controls which use programmatic functions and code to perform complex tasks, generate effects for generating specific visuals, immersive video for virtual reality effects, various key-ing tools here and matte effects for cleaning up that key, several noise and grain effects, some obsolete effects that Adobe keeps around for us for historical compatibility purposes, perspective effects for altering the view or perspective of an element, simulation effects for generating or simulating scenes, many effects for stylizing footage, a couple text based effects and some time based effects as well, some effects for transitioning elements and footage, and finally utility which include various effects that perform a specific utility based function, as you can see there's tons of effects here and just covering the categories alone is a little bit overwhelming, you don't need to learn all of the effects here but be sure to explore what's available and when you have a request or need come up in your project, take that opportunity to learn a new effect, most likely what you want to accomplish in your project can be done using one or a combination of these effects, and also take advantage of the animation presets, we skipped over these at the beginning of the lesson but these provide us pre-built animations for effects that are extremely useful, I often find myself using the text animation presets, they're convenient and powerful, stay tuned for the next lesson where I'll show you how to apply and modify effects on layers, thanks for watching!

Beginner Provider : Calvin Gaunce 5 Lessons · 20m in English

Course Description

In this course, Adobe After Effects Beginner (2023): Using Effects and Presets, you will learn how to access available effects and presets in After Effects, apply those effects to composition layers, use adjustment layers, pre-compose layers in compositions, and save custom presets based on effects you’ve animated. By the end of this course, you will be able to employ Effects and Presets across a wide range of uses.

This course will go over some of the visual effects available in After Effects and showcase the ease and accessibility of those effects. You’ll explore the various parameters and controls available for effects and presets and learn to utilize keyframes to customize those effects in your own compositions. You’ll also learn how to incorporate adjustment layers and pre-compositions into your projects to efficiently build compositions as your animations get more complex. We wrap up the course by covering how to create a custom preset using a combination of keyframed effects.

What You'll Learn

Access available effects and presets in After Effects through the Effects and Presets panel
Apply and modify effects on composition layers using parameters, controls, and keyframes
Use adjustment layers to apply effects across compositions
Pre-compose layers into a pre-composition to manage more complex animations
Create a custom preset based on a combination of keyframed effects

Key Takeaways

The course covers accessing the visual effects and presets available in After Effects and showcases their ease and accessibility.
Learners explore the various parameters and controls available for effects and presets and use keyframes to customize them in their own compositions.
Adjustment layers and pre-compositions are used to efficiently build compositions as animations become more complex.
The course concludes by showing how to create a custom preset using a combination of keyframed effects.
By the end, learners are able to employ effects and presets across a wide range of uses.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this After Effects course?

You will learn how to access effects and presets, apply them to composition layers, use adjustment layers, pre-compose layers, and save custom presets based on effects you've animated.

Who is this course for?

It is an Adobe After Effects Beginner (2023) course focused on using effects and presets, so it is suited to those starting out with After Effects effects and presets.

What topics do the lessons cover?

The lessons cover exploring the Effects and Presets panel, applying and modifying effects on layers, using adjustment layers, precomposing layers in compositions, and keyframing effects and saving custom presets.

What will I be able to do after completing this course?

By the end of the course, you will be able to employ effects and presets across a wide range of uses, including incorporating adjustment layers and pre-compositions and creating a custom preset from keyframed effects.

What skills does this course build?

The course builds skills in abstraction layers, custom fields, pre-production, and special effects.