Integration
Adobe® After Effects® CS4 Professional features unmatched integration with other Adobe products. Enjoy a streamlined workflow with support for importing Adobe Photoshop® images that include video layers as well as Adobe Illustrator® graphics while preserving image integrity. Move easily between After Effects and Adobe Premiere® Pro or Adobe Encore® without rendering, and share animations easily with Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional. Within After Effects itself, Adobe Bridge CS4 allows you to work more efficiently via a single interface to search and access to your project files, preview and apply presets, run batch processes, and tag assets with XMP metadata.
Key integration features of Adobe After Effects CS4 Professional
Photoshop CS4 Extended integration
Save 32-bit HDR and 16-bit color values in Photoshop files. Text remains editable, and layers, layer styles, blending modes, masks, transparency, and color profiles are all preserved when Photoshop files are imported as compositions. Use Photoshop paths as masks or animation paths.
Photoshop layer style support
Vastly expand possibilities for adding texture and shading to even the most basic layer instantly. Animate style characteristics in After Effects freely, going beyond what's possible in Photoshop.
Photoshop CS4 Vanishing Point import
Import images from Photoshop with Vanishing Point data and After Effects will automatically create a composition and position the layers in 3D space.
Photoshop file creation
Create a new Photoshop file from within your After Effects project. Photoshop automatically opens a blank file using composition settings — including title-safe and action-safe guides — ready for editing. Changes appear in After Effects when you save the file.
Tight integration with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
Work more efficiently to create and edit animations created in Flash. Preserve vectors from animations created in After Effects for lean and clean delivery, and create FLV content more easily. Import SWF files as vectors with alpha channel preserved and batch render FLV files with embedded cue points.
After Effects and Flash CS4 Professional (PDF, 288k)
Import animations from Flash as vectors
SWF files are imported as continuously rasterized vectors with alpha channels preserved, allowing you to scale them without any loss in quality.
Batch render FLV files with cue points
Use markers to create cue points that can be added to your FLV output. Automatically convert any layer's keyframes to cue points to make it easier to trigger events in Flash based on motion or elements changing over time.
Adobe Premiere Pro project import
Save time and preserve project organization when working with Adobe Premiere Pro projects. Preserve bins, edits, markers, keyframed effects, nested sequences, transitions, and more from Adobe Premiere Pro. Drag and drop or copy and paste clips from one application to the other.
Adobe Premiere Pro project export
Export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project, streamlining work that involves editing as well as motion graphics and effects.
After Effects and Premiere Pro (PDF, 1.1M)
Adobe Encore CS4 integration
Create elements such as motion menus and interactive buttons for your DVDs. Export movies from After Effects with markers that Encore CS4 reads as chapters.
Audition integration
For more flexibility when editing audio in your production, you can select any audio clip — regardless of its source — and send it to Adobe Audition® for editing, using the Edit in Adobe Audition command.
Illustrator CS4 integration
Copy vectors from Illustrator to use as After Effects masks or motion paths. Illustrator layers and blend modes are preserved, and vector shapes can be continuously rasterized (and output as compact SWF files), preserving smooth edge detail.
