The Naked Truth About Adjustment Layers

The Naked Truth About Adjustment Layers

on May 11th 2011 with 28 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: Just After Effects... enjoy
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 14:35 min
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Naked Truth About

Naked Truth About

Do you REALLY know what Adjustment Layer is? This video may surprise some of you. When I noticed some strange behavior of Adjustment Layers – I found out that I didn’t understand what they really are. After some research I figured out that trusting the well known definitions of some things may be misleading in some cases. This video will not teach you any new sophisticated ways of using Adjustment Layers, but may help to better understand the way they work. Have fun.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mp4

File size: 46.7 MB

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Co-owner of Lemon Film Studio Warsaw, Poland Self-taught After Effects artist, 3D animator, editor.  

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  • http://splaszfx.pl SPL

    Great video – thank you for that. I wish that more of videos here were so informative and not only about next sar wars-explosion-avatar effects.

  • http://www.cgmotionbox.com CG motionbox

    Cool Thanks for this Nice Tut.

    Thank you once again :)

  • ExtremRaym

    I love that kind of tutorial !
    +1 ! ^^

  • http://dbitmusic.com Dbit

    Awesome, thanks for your clarification on the subject. I hope adobe gets the memo! :P

  • Julian Moser

    thank you very much, cool tutorial. this makes many things clearer :)

  • Jimmylee

    Dude this guy rocks, he should be a teacher… I love his style

  • Awesome man

    Really great!

  • Andreas

    Nice music (what is it?) and tutorial.

    • http://www.bartekskorupa.com Bartek Skorupa
      Author

      The music is one of the tracks that comes with Final Cut Studio. The name of it is very romantic… It’s called: “Orchestral String Section 38″ :-)

  • jink

    very interesting, thanks

  • http://videohive.net/user/adintermedia?ref=adintermedia adintermedia

    very nice tut. thanks! :)

  • zuza

    nice explanation!

  • Chad

    Great Job. Lots of clear cut information. I am new to the site. Is there a general forum to post questions. I remember seeing in the advertisement column, pre-keyed war footage with soldiers firing guns and tanks. The link is gone and I can’t find it anywhere any suggestions. My apologizes as I realize that it isn’t the best way to find out by posting at the end of a great tutorial. Any help would be appreciated.

  • Rich

    Sorry, still confused.

    • Ryan

      I agree with the After Effects definition it says it affects all layers beneath it. And his says it (the adjustment layer) basically says it precomps all of the layers beneath it. I think this basically says hey you can do the same thing multiple ways.

  • ShoeToad

    Redefining the world…

    As it should be!

    Great research B)

  • http://www.bartekskorupa.com Bartek Skorupa
    Author

    Thank you all for very nice comments. I’m glad that you find this kind of tutorials useful. I’m planning to create more tuts like this one. Let’s say that this is “part one” of the series titled: “The naked truth about…”.
    There is so much basic stuff in After Effects that seems pretty easy and obvious, but sometimes even advanced AE artists are surprised how strangely some options behave. Finding all those little things, trying to understand them and sharing what I come up with is my hobby, so please stay tuned… More stuff is coming :-)

  • Andrew

    No, You’re Wrong Cuz Adjustment Layer Affect All The Layers Below As A Whole Not Separately.

  • http://www.bartekskorupa.com Bartek Skorupa
    Author

    Did I say anywhere that Adjustment Layers affect all layers below separately?

  • illd

    very well explained. That explains a lot. Thanks Bartek!

  • smiler

    I would say isn’t that obvious ? but in fact it its very good video for beginners

  • AntoxaGray

    I discovered this myself, when tried to use corner pin on adjustment layer: I wanted to apply effect on cornered pin area only — instead it warped my video.

  • Martin

    thank you very much, its great to have this kind of tuts that explain how things work on ae.

    greeting from argentina!

  • http://antiart.com.br Antiart

    More a discussion about the “not so clear”documentation, it’s easy to get those things by doing. anyway, it’s very well explained, good for the newcomers in AE, congratz.

  • bert

    Now this is what I call a tutorial. And please make more.

  • http://www.cubica.ec A3

    Great video. There is a way to make an adjustment layer just affect a layer without affecting the other ones (or at least affect only one portion of the screen).

    If the layer you want to affect, has an alpha channel (for example a layer with a mask applied) you can duplicate that layer, put it above the adjustment layer and use it as a track matte for the adjustment layer itself. That way the adjustment layer will only affect whats inside the alpha of the mask shape of the layer above it

  • http://vimeo.com/elliottower Elliot

    Thank you so much! You are a great teacher!
    Very interesting concept… I would have never thought that having an adjustment layer with a slider control set to add would do anything!

    =D

    One thing though, you said “what is adjustment layer?”. You should say “what is AN adjustment layer”.

  • http://www.crozer.me Christopher

    I can only tell you: Thank you, thank you, thank you, and please never stop these series.