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After Effects version 5.5 – can’t find text button/tool on tools panel
Hi,
I am an AE beginner and I am using version 5.5.
I want to animate a title for my DVD. i know there are a variety of ways to do that and i know there is a write-on facility in AE.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a way to at least start by writing text, before trying to animate it, but haven’t been able to find the text button/tool. The little tools panel that I have has no Text button on it. In a book that I have on a newer version of After Effects there is a tools panel with a text button, but my tools panel is smaller with no text button. There is no text button or text facility in sight in AE from what I can find.
I don’t have Illustrator, but should I import the text from Photoshop? – I should be able to create it in After Effects..?
It’s been really frustrating…
Any help appreciated,
Thank you,
Deva -
5 Replies
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There is no Text tool in AE 5.5. That was added with AE 6.0. You can either create your text in Photoshop, or use the Basic Text effect.
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Hi Timothy,
Thanks for your response. I created a .psd file in Photoshop 5 and then
also in Photoshop 7 (which I’m much less familiar with and it handles
text differently than what Pshop 5 does).I import it into AE, specifically saying i want to import the text layer, which
i call “title”. When I look at it in AE, it’s black. I don’t see the text.
Do you know what’s happening there?Thanks,
Devahttps://ourworld.cs.com/devaom1/
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Is your comp background black? AE is probably importing the text as black, and you can’t see black on a black background, of course. Turn on AE’s transparency grid, change the background color of the comp, or apply an effect to change the color of the text.
I would recommend you use Photoshop 7 for text, btw. It just works with text so much better than Photoshop 5.
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THanks for your help!
I will use Pshop V7 as you recommend. But I am used to V5 where I could
easily go back and edit the text if I want to. How can I do that in Pshop 7?
Or does it immediately rasterize it?Also, looking ahead in my usage of Adobe After Effects. In the footage of my
scene there is a mic and camera carraige on the edge of a few of the frames (not most,
thankfully!). What is the
general approach to editing/cutting that out?Thanks again,
Debra Cohenhttps://ourworld.cs.com/devaom1/
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No, Photoshop 7 doesn’t rasterize the text. You just need to select it with the text tool again and you can edit it.
There are a few ways to get rid of the mic in your shots.
1. If it’s only at the edge, you could scale up and/or reposition the footage to push it off the comp.
2. Mask out the mic using the masking tools, though that will leave a hole in the footage. If you have footage from the same shot, you can place that behind the layer and fill in the hole and it should look fairly seamless. I’ve done this successfully with people walking through the background of a tripod shot.
3. Cover up the mic with a title or graphic of some sort.
4. Export the problem frames to a still image sequence or Filmstrip file, bring them into Photoshop, and use the clone stamp to get rid of the mic. Newer versions of AE (6.0 and up) have a clone tool right in the program, which makes this process a little easier.
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