After Effects basic questions

[Blade_Jones]

I am thinking about buying After Effects. I am told that the learning curve is steeper than other types of software like Final Cut Pro (which I learned very quickly). I am already proficient in PhotoShop and Illustrator.

I ONLY want to do very simple tasks like create text (credit rolls) for a High Def movie, do touch up work on a movie (example touch up a little bit of debris that was floating in the air in one scene, remove objects in the background of some shots). That's it.

 

[Shaw]

Hey Blade

After Effects definitely has a steeper learning curve than FCP. If you're familiar with Photoshop, layers, and the general Adobe layout then the learning curve is definitely lessened as many of the ideas are the same.

For what it is worth though, credit rolls should be entirely possible to achieve in FCP. No need to go to AE for this. I think there is a tool for doing this in FCP but the easiest way I can see is to create a long image file in photoshop (or similar) and then keyframe its position vertically in FCP.

For retouching you might want to look into the open source software Cinepaint (http://www.cinepaint.org). It's, well, free first of all and was designed for dirt removal, wire removal (stunt work etc), and general retouching of film footage. Because it was designed for film it processes each frame much more accurately than most software (32bit floating point vs 8bit is the technical info). It was recently used on 'The Last Samurai' to paint flying arrows into various scenes so it's certainly up to the task.

So, I don't see an immediate need to spend hard earned cash on AE. Unless you need powerful motion graphics and effects tools you should be fine with Cinepaint, FCP, and Photoshop (or whatever image editing software you use - you could even create the image to be scrolled in Cinepaint).

 

[Blade_Jones]

Thanks.

For retouching you might want to look into the open source software Cinepaint

But I assume PhotoShop does the same thing? Or perhaps Cinepaint lets you jump from frame to frame easier? Can you work in HD (at 1920 X 1080) in either program?

I see on CinePaint's site they acknowledge Photo Shop as #1. Do filmmakers in fact use PhotoShop to do touching up??? BTW I still have the 4.0 version of PhotoSHop.

 

[Shaw]

I am not aware of Photoshop being used for touchup. Cinepaint has been used on all sorts of Hollywood films because it of several things:

1) It does indeed let you jump from frame to frame easier. It was created was this sort of work in mind so its workflow is built specifically for moving image sequences.

and

2) It processes images much more accurately than most other software. It works in what is known as 32bits per channel compared to the more common 8bits per channel. The more bits the better - especially for fillm.