Adobe After Effects CS5 delivers more of the creative control you crave, while making it faster to work on high-resolution projects. Native 64-bit support means you can tap all the RAM on your system to work more efficiently with HD, 2K, and 4K projects. The new Roto Brush tool delivers rotoscoping results in a fraction of the time. Plus, dozens of user-requested features make everyday tasks easier.
After Effects CS5 Features
Native 64-bit OS support (new)
Work fluidly on high-resolution projects — even at 32-bit-per-channel color inside HD, 2K, and 4K compositions. Use all of your system’s RAM.
Roto Brush (new)
Isolate foreground elements from backgrounds in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take using this revolutionary new tool.
AVC-Intra and enhanced RED support (new)
Work natively with tapeless footage from the newest high-quality Panasonic cameras thanks to AVC-Intra 50 and AVC-Intra 100 support. Take advantage of improved support for RED R3D formats, and gain additional controls for working with raw footage.
Dozens of enhancements (new)
Benefit from dozens of customer-requested refinements that yield big productivity gains — such as the ability to align layers to comps.
Color Finesse (enhanced)
Enjoy an enhanced color correction workflow with the new features, finer control over hue and saturation, and ability to export settings as color lookup tables (LUTs) in Color Finesse LE 3.
Digieffects FreeForm (new)
Turn flat objects into virtually any 3D shape using this popular 3D mesh warp plug-in.
mocha for After Effects v2 (enhanced)
Apply motion tracking to hand-drawn masks and import variable-width mask feathers. The powerful mocha shape plug-in is also included.
Auto-Keyframe mode (new)
Animate quickly by setting starting keyframes automatically.
Color LUT support (new)
Get consistent color in your workflow by using industry-standard 3DL and CUBE lookup tables.
Refine Matte effect (new)
Apply intelligent edge tracking, dechattering, and motion blurring capabilities to any layer with a problematic alpha channel, such as keyed footage.
Master modern media: Deliver your final result to the widest range of formats, from mobile media to feature films, at maximum bit depth and resolution, using color management to ensure accurate results.
Professional results for every media type
Extensive support for industry-standard formats
Import and output files in QuickTime, FLV and SWF, AVI, MPEG-2, Windows Media (Windows only), native Photoshop (PSD), Camera Raw, OpenEXR, ProEXR, Cineon, SGI, TIFF, TGA, Maya IFF, JPEG, PDF, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and many other formats, including Panasonic P2 and Sony XDCAM EX and HD. After Effects CS5 adds support for the AVC-Intra 50 and AVC-Intra 100 formats, as well as multichannel DPX files. Continue reading →
Combine layers into new, visually rich alternate realities. Mask, key, motion track, color correct, paint, and perform a variety of visual effects magic with powerful, efficient, and precise tools.
Powerful keying, masking, and rotoscoping tools for fluid compositing
Roto Brush (new)
Isolate moving foreground elements from their backgrounds dramatically faster using a revolutionary approach. Just identify foreground and background elements, and let After Effects CS5 do most of the work in creating transparency around your foreground elements. Fine-tuning selection edges is fast and easy, even when you need precise results. The Roto Brush tool is ideal for projects that don’t have a budget for rotoscoping, or to get high-quality preliminary results that you can refine further. Continue reading →
Menu of preset commands
Reduce keystrokes and eliminate the need to memorize code with an extensive library of functions and commands available in a convenient contextual menu.
Debug menu
Isolate specific functions and statements in complex scripts by interactively managing breakpoints. Continue reading →
Multiformat support
Write compressed audio formats such as AAC and MP3 for Flash and H.264 video using Adobe Media Encoder. After Effects reads and writes multiple audio formats at multiple sample rates and bit depths (up to 32 bit).
Advanced audio effects
Mix, equalize, echo, reverberate, modulate, and otherwise process your audio for sweetening and sound effect applications with 32-bit effects. After Effects CS5 includes a flexible Tone generator. Continue reading →
Built-in creative tools
Produce cool animations from scratch right in After Effects CS5 by creating layers, adding masks, and applying effects.
Text animation presets
Use Adobe Bridge to quickly preview and apply more than 250 professionally designed, fully editable text animation presets, or create and save your own. Continue reading →
Color correction effects
Manipulate color information with a wide variety of effects, including Color Finesse LE 3, Auto Color, Auto Contrast, and Auto Levels; simple and advanced tinting effects; broadcast colors and gamma/pedestal/gain; and the ability to target specific colors to discard or change.
Distortion effects
Warp and distort the full frame of your footage — as well as selected areas — in specific, realistic ways with effects like Bezier Warp, Wave Warp, Corner Pin, Reshape, and Displacement Map. Paint distortions directly onto imagery with Liquify. Precisely simulate the fish-eye lens distortion of images taken with a real camera using a wide-angle lens. Continue reading →
Intuitive text creation and versatile text animation with per-character 3D text
Type, edit, and format characters, words, and paragraphs. Mix and match fonts and other attributes on a layer. Animate text along any path, transform words or lines of text over time, blur individual characters or words, randomize the order in which characters animate, wiggle your text, and more. Add depth to your text by making individual characters — or an entire phrase — move, rotate, and cast shadows. After Effects CS5 adds an option that allows each character to orient toward the camera around its own anchor point. Continue reading →
Express your creative ideas with freedom and flexibility using After Effects CS5. Employ innovative 2D, 3D, text, and vector graphic compositing and animation tools; choose from an extensive selection of effects; and add high-quality audio. Explore a large library of creative building blocks to get you started, and take advantage of command line automation and scripting for advanced applications. Continue reading →
Quick arrangement of multiple layers
Use convenient tools to quickly align layers with each other or with the overall composition.
Custom workspaces
Arrange workspace panels and frames to suit a particular task or your own style.
User-modifiable interface
Easily rearrange workspace panels to suit the task at hand and adjust UI brightness. After Effects CS5 adds the option for panel tabs to be tinted using the composition, footage item, or layer’s label color, making it easier to track their elements. Continue reading →
Enhanced Adobe Premiere Pro integration with Dynamic Link (Production Premium only)
Edit an After Effects CS5 composition and have your changes appear automatically in Adobe Premiere Pro, or edit a timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro and see After Effects CS5 update — both without rendering, thanks to Dynamic Link. Native 64-bit OS support dramatically improves Dynamic Link performance.
Photoshop Extended 3D workflow and video layer support
Create, import, and paint on 3D models in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, export the result as layered PSD files, and animate camera moves around them inside After Effects CS5. Define the planes present in a still image in Photoshop, export it as a Vanishing Point file, and animate the result 3D in After Effects, adding cameras and lights.
Integration with Flash Professional
Export After Effects CS5 compositions as layered XFL format rich media projects for Adobe Flash Professional. Import FLV files directly into After Effects CS5, and work more efficiently to create and edit animations for playback in Adobe Flash Player. You can also preserve vectors from animations created in After Effects CS5 for lean and clean delivery, and encode FLV files more easily. Import SWF files as vectors with alpha channels preserved, and batch render FLV files with embedded cue points. Continue reading →