Chapter List

Overview

Tips for managing multiple layers efficiently, including hot keying, markers, and the Layer Switches.

By now, you should know how to build a comp and how to animate layers, so let's step up to working with multiple layers efficiently. This chapter covers shortcuts and tips for managing and replacing layers, creating markers and snapshots, and editing images in their original application.

A large portion of using After Effects efficiently is to master some of the keyboard shortcuts. They may seem like brain twisters initially, but learning the most common shortcuts will mean you'll work faster and finish work earlier. After Effects usually presents more than one way to do any given task; as before, we'll concentrate on the shortcuts we use daily. Check out the Quick Reference Card, or check out the Keyboard Shortcuts (select Help>After Effects Help to open the Help system in your browser) for other useful shortcuts. If you wish to practice manipulating layers, open [Ex.01] in the accompanying project file, or create your own layered composition.

Selecting Layers

Many editing techniques in After Effects affect all selected layers, so let's start with a roundup of the most useful selection shortcuts. The shortcut for Mac is given first; the shortcut for Windows follows (in parentheses):