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Animation solution designed for designers, animators, and compositors. It helps with creating motion graphics, animations, and visual effects for films. Features of the platform include collaboration tools, motion tracking, visual effects, motion graphics, text animations, rotoscoping, and 3D design.
Provider
Adobe
Located In
United States
Foundation
1967
Deployment
Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
Training
Documentation, Webinars, Live Online, In Person
Support
Chat, Phone Support, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base
Content Source: Adobe After Effects
Green rating bars show the winning product based on the average rating and number of reviews.
Reviewers praise Adobe After Effects for its comprehensive suite of tools and options for creating stunning visual effects. They find the user interface intuitive and well-designed, making it easier to navigate and utilize the software's vast array of effects and plugins. Additionally, users benefit from the availability of tutorials and learning resources, which help them master the software and enhance their creative projects with sophisticated visual and special effects.
Users appreciate the variety of rendering options in Adobe After Effects, including the ability to render videos in 4K and 8K, as well as transparent videos for use in other projects. They find the video tutorials helpful for learning how to use the software effectively. However, some users experience long rendering times and occasional crashes, which can be frustrating, and they also report issues with video compression resulting in large file sizes.
Pros
I liked that the software was easy to use and had an intuitive user interface. I also liked that it was very reliable and had a lot of features that made it easy to customize.
Adobe After Effects is an extremely powerful and versatile software which provides users with a comprehensive suite of tools for creating stunning visual effects.
I absolutely love After Effects been using it since version 6.5, wow, almost 16 years ago and still is one of my favorite pieces of software to create motion graphics and animations.
I am excited to use after effects for my upcoming projects, just so I can have the best effects going for my projects.
Cons
It was too difficult for me to learn when I am in such a high demand of editing- it took up way to much time of my editing process.
Very tricky to use, can behave in confusing ways at times.
That's why, after using it and staying subscribed for four years, I eventually cancelled my subscription and stopped using it.
The most disadvantage of Adobe After Effects is that it requires high requirements in the host device for the program, and its price is considered relatively high compared to other programs.
"This is amazing… with patience. "
Pros: I LOVE the possibilities. Pretty much anything you imagine can be brought to live in living color.
Cons: Ease of use. I understand that this is a technical program with a serious learning curve but I do feel like some features could be a little easier to execute.
"Adobe After Effects: A Powerful Tool for Motion Graphics and Visual Effects"
Overall: Overall, Adobe After Effects is a powerful and versatile motion graphics and visual effects software that is a brilliant choice for anyone who wants to create professional-quality content. It is a complex piece of software, but it offers a wide range of features and tools to help you get the job done.If you are looking for powerful motion graphics and visual effects software, then Adobe After Effects is a great option. It is a complex piece of software, but it offers a wide range of features and tools to help you get the job done.
Pros: It's a powerful software with a wide range variety of features like powerful motion graphics and visual effects software, a Wide range of features and tools, and integration with other Adobe software.
Cons: It also has some cons that you should consider if your computer isn't high config. It's a Complex software, Steep learning curve, Can be resource intensive.
"Once a worthy king, now a bloated tyrant on its way to the guillotine."
Overall: buggier every year, you are legally not allowed to use old versions, and having adobe threaten you with litigation for using a version you have a license for... it's upsetting and abusive. They raised prices on my 3 years in a row after going subscription, from 200 a month, to 400, and now 600 a month. I was able to stop them by complaining... which is just as insulting, because if the moment I threaten to stop using it, they give me a better price, means they're intentionally price-gouging. the poor teams, I've talked to them. they say "we're just a small team, we can't refactor the codebase or make a new program" meanwhile their company is raking in 15 billion a year. Now it's 1000 a month so I quit. some might say it's less... but to that I say, all their programs are 1000 yearly, as a bundle. let's say you just need photo editing, video editing, and visual effects? that's 1300 a month. it's a shameless upsell, where the programs are now so expensive, it costs your team a month or more of profits every year... for the "best value" offered (that same value used to be a perpetual license, which they revoked)
Pros: After effects is like an old friend to me... which makes me sad to say it's the last major effects program that uses layers. it's a digital version of film editing and effects, from overlays, to blending and merging and cutouts and transparent layers... it was great... those days are past now. still, if you can manage to get an old pre-subscription version, like CS6 or CS5, it'll do you just fine. yar har and a bottle of rum.
Cons: this poor, poor thing. it's like seeing an old friend with dementia. Now there are over 470 addons in this bloated mess, they hacked in multithreading, then removed it, then added it back worse 5 years later and acted like it was the first time, same with MP4 export, they advertise GPU usage, like it's special, but it has all of 5 effects that use the GPU.now, it can't even playback 1080p video reliably. it stores all previews uncompressed in RAM, so if you're editing 4k footage, 64 gigs of RAM will get you 2-5 seconds of playback at 10fps. absolute trash tier, because that's what you get when you take a program that only works on one core, then duplicate it to every core in an attempt to make it faster, while forgetting the UI shares a rendering core, so the UI now stutters and lags uncontrollably at anything above 2K footage (even phones these days can make 4K footage)TL;DR- every version is worse, post 2013, minus a single version in late 2014/early 2015, where the devs implemented many performance hacks. sadly, adobe has threatened users who use that version, and disallow use of any version except the newest, buggiest, slowest versions. a classic case of en****ification- when it came time to make money, all development and new features ceased, and now the great new feature of this version is colored outlines on keyframes. yaaay. the shareholders clapped, at least.
"Extremely Powerful But Poor Performance Stiffles Creativity"
Overall: Overall, despite the horrific performance, it's my go to for video editing as there simply isn't a better tool.
Pros: The pros are numerous. It might be the most powerful video editing tool available. There are many add-ons and mods available to simplify daily routine tasks and take animations to the next level. The user interface could use some work, but overall it's not that complicated once you get used to it.
Cons: The biggest problem is pre-renders in the timeline. One tiny adjustment and the entire timeline has to re-render and each time long form content has to re-render can take as long as an hour. Imagine waiting an hour for every edit to pre-render so you can see the result. Yeah, that makes After Effects almost unusable. It's so bad that I have to structure how I film and often break up renders into multiple projects otherwise I would never get anything done.
"Best Compositing, Video Editing and Effects Software so far. Except..."
Overall: Superb! I Have lots of profitable and memorable projects done with Adobe After Effects. If there is one software you need who can do Effects and Video Editing, After Effects is one whole package to root from. Highly recommended software for enthusiasts and aspirants.
Pros: - Major major pros for after effects is I guess it is one of a kind compositing software in the world that can act as effects composer and video editor as well. - Just think of it, it can do it - from MoGraph, to fairy dust effects, to 3D and 2D Animations.- It allegiance with Cimema 4D is one of my most coveted feature here. You won't be banging your head on the wall for simple to complex 3D effects, right there you have it.- Media support support and compatibility specially with Illustrator and Photoshop - seamless!
Cons: - Customer support. This software needs to be an American Company again. Customer support are just terrible. They lack product knowledge, lack empathy and they lack the right customer communication.- Steep learning curve. Which is understandable. Beautifully composed effects comes with a price to pay - learning-wise. So pay it!- Expensive. I don't agree with there subscription basis. They should bring back perpetual ownership of the software.