AE Beginner

B

Brickhouse Media

Well-known member
I need some serious wisdom. I'm a total beginner with AE and PS even. I've just been kind of limping along with third-rate software faking this and that but need to get real. Would it be better to get one then the other? I'm wanting to do comps, layers, etc. Maybe my question's not specific enough. I picked up the Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist and have reread the Stu Maschwitz book over and over. I'm over-thinking it, I guess.
 
Try reading Chris and Trish Meyer's After Effects Apprentice. That book helped me a great deal when I started using After Effects 3 years ago and they break down every step. You can also try videocopilot which is by far the most referenced AE site on the internet. There are also other people you can check out like John Dickinson, Harry Frank, Aharon Rabinowitz and Greyscale Gorilla. These guys are gurus with AE and provide various tutorials on how to create amazing motion graphics in AE. If you go to lynda.com, you can purchase a subscription to view expert tutorials on how to use Photoshop and After Effects from Chad Perkins and many more experts. When it comes to Adobe software they are many paths to learning the software but it's what you do with that knowledge which taking you further in your career. Hopefully, this helps.
 
Brickhouse Media said:
Would it be better to get one then the other?
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I think that this is what your question is. My suggestion would be to start with one (which ever one intrests you the most). After you have become efficient in one then check out the other. You will find that you will have learned a great deal in the other one because of the first. A lot of Adobe's editing software is built from the same format. I knew Photoshop very well before I ever picked up After Effects, but the transition wasn't so painful.

If you try to do both at the same time you could start to get mixed up with the tools between the programs, whereas if you get comfortable with one and move on to the other you will know instinctively that a particular tool works a certain way on the other program.
 
This is the kind of advice I'm looking for. I think I'm going to start with PS and while I hone it do reading on AE. Thanks. I'm late to this game but have plenty of experience in photography, video, animation and some graphics but my homework has shown me there's some serious power my imagination could be tapping into.
 
You make a valid point, Mr. Blue. However, after using both applications I came to the conclusion that After Effects and Photoshop share many of the same buttons and functions. In all essence, After Effects is Photoshop for video.
 
mmka1985 said:
In all essence, After Effects is Photoshop for video.
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I always said ae is ps on speed. The tools and functions are very similar for both apps. I think the big difference comes in the set up, after effects you can do so much on the set-up, nesting, scripting, keyframes, etc, the way you set-up your comp can really make or break you.

Actually thinking about it now, if you are interested in both programs, I would say learn ps first, learn the tools, how to use layers, effects etc. Then move to ae, the transition would be a lot easier.
 
Also, keep in mind you can do a lot of video work with PS. You can import image sequences and batch process them (even render 'em into QTs).

However, some things you'd think would work in PS really don't - say, retouching a blemish of 3 seconds of footage of a face. Stuff like that, you'll often see your work sort of "jumping around". But learning how to do something like that in PS (in the above example, working more globally than just a pin-point) often makes sense in AE.
 
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