• Adobe After Effects

  PS Layer Masks in AE?

  Posted by Jeff O’brien on April 5, 2005 at 5:19 pm

  Hi,

  I thought we were supposed to be able to use Photoshop Layer Masks within AE? It’s not working for me, what am I doing wrong, if this is possible? I import the file as a comp, both cropped and not cropped, neither works. Any help?

  thanks,
  Jeff O’Brien

  Michael Szalapski replied 21 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Michael Szalapski

  April 5, 2005 at 7:27 pm

  Photoshop layer masks are not the same thing as an AE mask; they’re more like Alpha channels.

  It works for me. When I import it into AE I get the trasparency. If, for some reason it’s not working for you then I would just merge the layer with its mask and save it into a seperate file for importing into AE.

  Unless you want to have a changeable mask in AE, in which case… hang on, I’ll think of it.
  Ah, I’ve got it: On a PC ctrl-click on your layer in the layer pallette (I’m not sure the mac keys, you’ll have to figure it out yourself if you’re using one) you should see those lovely little marching ants around your layer. Then go to the paths tab (probably on your layers pallette) click that little arrow on it. Select Make Work Path. You can then double-click it to make it a proper path. You can copy it and paste it into After Effects then and apply it to your layer.

  I hope that made sense and didn’t confuse you.

  – The Great Szalam
  (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

  No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up