Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is motion graphics and compositing software for video, used to build title sequences, animated graphics and visual effects shots.

Adobe After Effects takes over where a timeline editor stops: a shot that needs an element added, removed or invented, or a graphic that has to move with intent. It is a layered composition tool, where titles, animated graphics and effects shots are built rather than cut together. Adobe develops and sells it as a Creative Cloud desktop application, on its own or inside the wider Creative Cloud Pro subscription. The work happens in compositions, where footage, type, artwork and 3D models stack as layers and animate over time. The Graph Editor shapes the speed and value curves between keyframes, and expressions drive one property from another so repeated motion is not keyed by hand. Text animators set type moving over time. A true 3D workspace places layers in depth with cameras and lights, and GLB and glTF models import straight into a composition. Roto Brush isolates a moving subject from its background, Content-Aware Fill takes an unwanted object out of a shot, and the Puppet tool pins and deforms flat artwork. More than 400 partner plugins extend the effect set beyond what ships in the box. The people it is built for are motion designers, broadcast and social graphics teams, and visual effects artists finishing shots for film, television and web. It is at home in studios already working in Adobe's other applications, because artwork arrives from Illustrator and Photoshop and finished comps go back into an edit. Licensing runs by subscription: the app alone, the full Creative Cloud Pro bundle, or a per-licence seat for teams under a business admin console, with education rates for students and teachers. Day to day the output is title sequences, lower thirds, logo idents, explainer graphics and the effects shots a cut cannot deliver. Adobe Premiere, the timeline editor, assembles and finishes that cut. Motion Graphics templates are the seam between the two. A template is authored here with its text left editable, then changed by the editor inside Premiere without opening After Effects. Photoshop and Illustrator supply artwork, Cinema 4D and Adobe Substance 3D supply 3D elements, Adobe Stock supplies footage and audio, and Creative Cloud Libraries keeps shared assets within reach of all of them.