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Need lower thirds help – created in photoshop
Hi all,
I was reading Richard Harrington’s book on Photoshop for NLE. I went to page 109 to read about creating a lower third. I followed the process step by step but am still coming up with crappy results.
I created a new project, made it 720×480 with a transparent background, created a new layer, drew the lower third and then tried to apply the gradient. The problem here is the gradient covered the entire work area and wasn’t just confined to the rectangle I just drew. So then I trashed that started over, drew a new rectangle, created a new layer and applied the gradient. This time everything worked and looked great. I tweaked the gradient to where I was completely satisfied with it and then tried to output to After Effects. I created an Alpha Channel for both layers but I when I imported it into AE only the solid color imported.
What am I doing wrong here or what have I overlooked. Can someone please simplify this for me as I have grasped the concept but can’t seem to be able to export as well as I would like. Thanks.
Seth
wordtoyomutha
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5 Replies
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Photoshop gradient overlays won’t come over to AE (AE’s abilities to re-create PS layer styles are limited to say it mildly). You need to flatten/ rasterize/ create a separate effect layer.
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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Can you just keep the section you want in photohsop transparent… and just save as a photoshop PSD. Then import that file into after Effects. The transparencies should come across as well. No need to create an alpha channel if it’s still a photoshop file.
(unless I’m missing something)
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I got some info from the man himself (Richard Harrington). And, yes, I forgot to rasterize/flatten. Everything worked fine then. Thanks for the replies. I LOVE THE COW!
Seth
wordtoyomutha
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I’ve done this before — MANY times — and never had a problem. You have a few options — either merge the layers you want as your lower 3rd, with the transparency (to whatever degree) in place, or you can import the photoshop file into AE as a composition and overlay that as a pre-composed graphic. I have not had the bad experiences that Myleneum has had with AE interacting with .psd layers.
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Yeah,
I forgot to merge the layers and the gradient was not coming over into AE. I had not done this before and should have read a little further in Richard Harrington’s book about flattening layers. That did the trick. I have since completed this three more times without any issues. Also, I think I made the assumption there would be a better, easier, more fluid integration b/n Photoshop and AE. But, there I go thinking again….
Seth
wordtoyomutha
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