[Jeff Hinkle]

Need some more information on this to properly troubleshoot. What size/resolution are you working on in Photoshop? How are you exporting the logo, and what are you importing it into? What’s the size and resolution of your final output movie? And how is the logo distorting? If you could give some more info on your workflow, maybe some screenshots of your project, we’ll see if we can’t pinpoint the issue.

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It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

Since you said you were saving out a sequence, I assumed you’d broken the movie into separate stills. If you’re working with a video file, why not just export it out as a movie with alpha? Photoshop will generate an alpha channel for the movie file based on the layer transparency. You could even export it as a Photoshop sequence if you’d rather go that route

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It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

If you’ve got your roto’d footage on a layer and the background is transparent, Command/Ctl-click on the layer’s thumbnail in the Layer palette to make a selection of the opaque pixels of that layer. Switch to the Channels palette and click the “Save selection as channel” button at the bottom (looks like a little dark circle inside a white rectangle). That will make an alpha channel the exact size and shape of your roto’d image. If you’ve got a lot to do, you might want to set up an Action to use in an automated batch process.

But again, AE will read transparency from Photoshop layers. I’m not sure how your project is set up, or what your final goal is, but you might be able to do this faster and simpler with just your PSD file.

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It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

Alpha channels need to be in the Channel palette, not the Layers palette.

But building a bunch of alpha channels seems like a lot of extra work. After Effects will honor Photoshop layers, so if you have everything saved as separate PSD files already, you can just bring it in as a Photoshop sequence. Or if you’re working with a video file and have Photoshop Extended, you can simply export the footage out of Photoshop as a self-contained movie file. And if you haven’t done the roto work yet, you could always do that in After Effects and skip Photoshop all together.

—
It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

Provided everything is consistent, size-wise, you could add a step to your Action to add guides in your newly opened source file, and turn on snapping. I’d also recommend setting the Marquee tool to a fixed size to keep that consistent as well. Then as you’re recording the action, Photoshop should track the moves accurately. Might take a little pre-Action math, but it should work. If you want to post one of your source images, I could try to put together a starter Action for you.

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It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

Whoops. Correct procedure, just in the Keyboard Shortcuts window, twirl down Layer, then Video Layer, not Timeline. You should see a line item in there for Duplicate Frame.

—
It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

I’m imagining this is the same on Windows as the Mac, but some of the fine details might be a little different. Go to Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts… (Ctl_Alt-Shift-K on Windows, I think?) and set the popup menu to Application Menus. Twirl down the Layer line and scroll down to Timeline. There you should see a line for Duplicate Frame. Click on it and add whatever keyboard shortcut you would like. Click Accept, hit OK, and you should have your custom keyboard shortcut.

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It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

It’s not drive space, it’s the file format. .PSD files top out at 2GB, I believe. If you need to save larger files than that, use Large Document Format (.PSB), but be aware that many applications won’t be able to open a file larger than 2GB in size.

—
It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

Can you post a screenshot of your timeline(s)? Might help to see what’s layered where.

—
It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.

[Jeff Hinkle]

I’m assuming both your 16X9 and 4X3 are maintaining a square pixel aspect ratio? Instead of moving the 16×9 to a new image, just set up an action that opens the 16×9 and makes a layer out of it. Then create a new layer, fill with black, and move it below the image layer. Select the 16×9 layer, scale uniformly 57%, then set canvas size to 720×534. Add in a Save As… to your new folder in the batch process and you should be good to go.

—
It is easier to destroy than to create.
More fun, too.