making an Adjustment layer not effect a layer??

[Todd Kopriva]

Dave is right. Perhaps it will help to understand how adjustment layers work:

An adjustment layer works by rendering all of the layers beneath it into a single composite and then applying an effect to that composite.

So, from this, you can see that it doesn’t really make any sense to think of one of the layers beneath an adjustment layer being excluded. The adjustment layer doesn’t see individual layers at all; it just sees the one composite image that it’s operating on.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Rusty Shackleford]

It would be nice to have an adjustment layer not affect a specific layer beneath, like some footage for a key.

Brandon Morris
http://www.brandonmorris.com

Canon T2i
13″ Macbook Pro (Mid 09) 8GB RAM 10.6

[Stan Becker]

Just precompose the adjustment layer with all layers you want it to effect.

[John Drago]

I was looking for that exact solution. I needed the adjustment layer to affect only the layer beneath it (for hue color changes) and that worked perfectly – just pre-compose the adjustment layer along with the layer you need “adjusted” and it will work anywhere in the layer stack without affecting anything else.

[Sergei Venturinov]

For the record, this can be achieved by pre composing what you want to be affected in a separated Comp and then introducing it into the new one. This way you can include elements below your affected layers that stand unaffected.

[Santanu Bhattacharjee]

If we need to pre-compose anyway, we could apply all the filters to the pre-composed layer from outside. Then there is no difference between adjustment layer and a pre-composed layer. I still did not understand the advantages of adj layer over precomposed layer, expect for not having to go else where to edit. Hence a field/ parameter to avoid the layers to be affected should have been there in an adj layer.

[Brendon Murphy]

You could, of course, apply the effect directly to all desired layers. Then parent all of those effects to one on a “control layer” at the top of the comp so that you can make tweaks without needing to adjust each layer individually. The control layer can even be a null object, or solid with zero opacity, so it doesn’t mess anything up.