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Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects

Overview

What is Adobe After Effects?

Adobe After Effects allows users to create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions, remove an object from a clip, start a fire or make it rain, or animate a logo or character. The vendor states that with After Effects, users…

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Consumer Electronics Company, 1001-5000 employees
Miko Mikaela Garcia | TrustRadius Reviewer
Miko Mikaela Garcia
Graphics Video Editor Specialist
UCSC Silicon Valley Extension (Education Management, 11-50 employees)
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Pricing

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Annual Plan (Paid Monthly)

$20.99

On Premise
Per User Per Month

Monthly Plan

$31.49

On Premise
Per User Per Month

Annual Plan (Prepaid)

$239.88

On Premise
Per User Per Year

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

After Effects Demo Reel

YouTube

Adobe After Effects Lesson 8 - DEMO Sand Text (Blowing Sand Effect)

YouTube

New in Adobe After Effects! Remove Anything from Video with Content Aware Fill (April 2019)

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Adobe After Effects?

Adobe After Effects Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Adobe After Effects allows users to create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions, remove an object from a clip, start a fire or make it rain, or animate a logo or character. The vendor states that with After Effects, users can apply motion-graphics and animation to any digital object.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.9.

The most common users of Adobe After Effects are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(247)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-11 of 11)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
April 26, 2022

Professional Grade Visual Effects

Hannan Shahid | TrustRadius Reviewer
Hannan Shahid
Sales Team Lead
Axelliant (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Adobe After Effects to design and finish and enhance our videos with effects, intros, and outros. The amount of control we get in editing is not available in any other application in the market currently. The tools that Adobe After Effects offers also do the job very well and help our organization reduce expenditures by not having to separately purchase those tools.
Pros and Cons
  • VFX
  • Titles and outros
  • Motion Blur
  • Animations
  • Effects
  • Pricing
  • Learning Curve
  • Resource Intensivity
  • Proper utilization of CPU, RAM, and VRAM
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe After Effects is very well suited for detailed designs and editing where you can put in some time and effort and can reap the rewards of your efforts by having more than average output results. It does require a learning curve and is time-consuming to work on a project. Therefore, it is not very well suited for organizations that require doing multiple projects quickly and with some automation.
August 19, 2021

The sky's the limit with your imagination and After Effects!

IS
Isabel Sam
Owner
Isabel Azalia Portrait Design (Arts & Crafts, 1-10 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I've used it when making videos/commercials for my business. It makes it easier to inspire imagination with, for example, a rocket than actually being blown up by a rocket! JA! Okay in all seriousness, I make fantastical family portraits and sometimes I need to help these adults who've lost their imagination see what children see every day in their minds to be able to sell the amazing portraits that I make.
Pros and Cons
  • If you know Photoshop, you can use this.
  • You can integrate this with Photoshop and basically all the other products in the Adobe suite.
  • There's audio editing, because, well, I stink at audio and have needed my audio saved before!
  • You absolutely need a higher end computer like a gaming computer to use this.
  • It uses a ton of RAM and then your computer complains about it.
  • Sometimes extra plugins, plus the RAM getting hung up, and not having enough of a high end computer can create the perfect storm of everything crashing and then you curse everything out that you were working on.
Likelihood to Recommend
This is the best software for adding effects, audio, animations, post production, there's already some animation in it that you can just use and it all can integrate with any other adobe product out there. It's seriously robust and amazing. I think the only reason I'm giving it a nine instead of a ten is because After Effects will crash if you don't have a better computing computer and if you don't know how adobe uses layers, etc...then there is a big learning curve to this (they do have tutorials to help you).
July 30, 2021

There is a reason why After Effects is the Industry standard

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Marketing & Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Adobe After Effects primarily to design short animations for marketing email. After Effects is the best solution for this since we can design the assets in other Adobe programs such as Photoshop, XD and illustrator. Additionally, we use After Effects to create online display ads and even short (one minute or less) videos for broadcast.
Pros and Cons
  • After Effects is great for creating motion content once and easily exporting it to various formats such as web, broadcast, GIF, etc.
  • After Effects is the industry standard for motion graphics. While I’m an Apple user and have used Motion in the past it is not as feature rich and most clients will expect you to use After Effects.
  • After Effects is great for complex UI animation. Tools like principle and Flinto are great but are quite cumbersome for complex UI animations.
  • Developer handoff. Competing UI design tools allow designers to share CSS and C+/Swift code for developers to recreate animations. After Effects requires third party plugins to do so.
  • Functions like GIF export have been removed and moved to Media Encoder. Media Encoder can be launched directly from After Effects but the reasoning behind the decision is unclear. Similar features have not been removed and it creates a unneeded learning curve for new users.
  • Resizing is done form the center of an object where as CSS always originates from top left. By not being able to toggle the origin point the user has to do a lot of math on their end.
Likelihood to Recommend
After Effects is the best tool for motion graphics due to it’s tight integration with the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. It should be your go to for film and video. I use the tool primarily for web animation and UI mock-up and it works great in most instances but requires the user to have a good understanding of the requirements of designing for the web. Also, After Effects is a resource hog. It’s highly CPU dependent and ram dependant if you want to do lots of previews. Its inclusion in the Creative Cloud subscription is great. If you are an Adobe PhotoShop/Illustrator user your most likely already paying for it.
July 08, 2021

The top-of-the-line video animation software keeps getting better

Verified User
Director in Marketing
Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use video clips in our online marketing and advertising efforts, from webinars to produced videos and tutorials. Often we need to have an animated video intro or outro to go along with the content, so we turn to Adobe After Effects. Using Adobe After Effects, we can create these animated segments that highlight our logo and text in our brand colors. It works perfectly.
Pros and Cons
  • Extremely powerful platform
  • 3D animation and rendering
  • Multi-layer compositions
  • Text warping
  • Steep learning curve
  • Huge resource hog
  • Takes several GB for installation
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe After Effects is not for the beginner; it's the top-end software program for video animations. With so many complex settings and capabilities, it has a huge learning curve that can take years to master. Luckily, through YouTube videos and just pure ingenuity, one can learn how to use Adobe After Effects even if they are more of a hobbyist. It's well suited for complex animation needs.
June 25, 2021

A great product not easy to start but wonderful when you learn how to use it

Verified User
Director in Other
Hospital & Health Care Company, 11-50 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use it to make classes for EAD. Use to make some special effects on the movies for training or for publicity. As a small company, I'm the only user of it. A slide with movement always attracts more the attention of the viewer and this is why I start learning and using it.
Pros and Cons
  • Add movement to a static image
  • Capture the attention of the viewer with effects and plug ins
  • Fast rendering
  • Integrate it more easily with Audition would be a nice improvement
Likelihood to Recommend
It is suited to small portions of a movie edition. That's not the program for long editions, it is to provide some tools at the edition and used together with Adobe Premiere Pro. Also is not ideal for track[ing] the sound edition, this works better with help of Audition and pasted at Premiere Pro.
June 05, 2021

After Effects is the one for me

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Retail Company, 51-200 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Adobe After Effects to edit and create videos for several social media platforms. Our marketing department uses After Effects to create compelling video for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok & YouTube ads among others. Since video is king on social media right now, After Effects has been essential to building our current ad campaigns.
Pros and Cons
  • It is extremely efficient at creating videos with the best effects.
  • It is easy to use once you learn how the program functions.
  • It offers more ways to edit video than other software I've used.
  • There are plugins that don't work with After Effects at times.
  • There is definitely a learning curve. It is not very intuitive.
Likelihood to Recommend
After Effects is best suited for those who are experienced in video editing software as there is definitely a learning curve. That being said, After Effects is great for large productions or small, quick videos that you want to look professional. You are able to fine-tune your video much better in After Effects than most other software. After Effects is less appropriate in situations where minimal editing is needed.
May 13, 2021

Best for those wanting to create complex videos & animations AND willing to learn!

Verified User
Executive in Marketing
Graphic Design Company, 1-10 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Adobe After Effects is being used by our organization for the creation of animations utilizing vector illustrations. It's mainly only used for one particular client but it's used on a monthly basis and is essential in being able to create the animations that they request as it has the capability of making professional and complex animations.
Pros and Cons
  • Creating complex animations
  • Creating professional and creative animations
  • Learning curve is steep
  • Interface is intimidating
  • Keyboard shortcuts don't always align with the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
I would only recommend using Adobe After Effects to someone who is willing to spend a significant amount of time to learn the ins and outs of how to use the software. However, if it was someone who was already familiar with using another animation/video software and has some experience in using the Adobe Creative Suite then I might be more inclined to recommend it to them.
May 10, 2021

My take with Adobe After Effects :)

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Design Company, 1-10 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I am a designer who creates motion graphics as well as gifs. [Adobe After Effects] is being used by the design dept. We do not currently address any business problems, we are growing thanks to hard work and passion for design.

Pros and Cons
  • Responsive
  • Easy and friendly interface
  • Highly easy and solid
  • The timeline for videos should be updated
  • More intuitive
  • Speed load
Likelihood to Recommend
To generate visually stunning work for film, TV, video, and web. [Adobe] After Effects brings “life” and motion to graphics. [Adobe] After Effects is built for animation. That's one of its main purposes. It can be great for certain styles of character animation, but in other areas, it's just not designed with those capabilities in mind.
May 06, 2021

Fast and reliable animation software, been a trusted user for 15 years!

ANDREW TOUTANT | TrustRadius Reviewer
ANDREW TOUTANT
Sr. Designer / Art Direction
Rip Media Group (Animation, 11-50 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It is a great animation and design program for videos from small to large clients. It’s been fast, reliable, and I like their updates and customer support. I use it for motion graphics in the advertising field and for movie and tv promos. It always meets the needs of the agency and those needs of the client for revisions and changes.
Pros and Cons
  • Fast animation
  • Copying and repurposing template files
  • Reliable renders
  • Easy interface
  • Some of the scripts can be difficult.
  • Some plugins could work more reliably.
  • More free trials for plugins would be good.
Likelihood to Recommend
It’s great for text animations and character and explainer videos. It's fast when there's a deadline
that may be faster than was anticipated. I can always count on After Effects for speed and reliable renders.
I've been a user for more than 15 years and always like their new features and updates.
February 24, 2021

Powerhouse Content Creator!

RT
Ryan Treleven
Technology Trainer
New Ulm Public Schools (Education Management, 201-500 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
As social media manager for our platforms, I use After Effects to spice up the intros and add titles and captions to some of our social media videos. Occasionally I add some fun visual effects to make holiday-themed videos, as well. It’s only being used by our technology department. It adds some fun appeal to the videos that we put out through our schools.
Pros and Cons
  • Video Intros.
  • Excellent set of presets.
  • Transitions.
  • The price can be hard for some small businesses to overcome.
  • Learning curve is high.
  • Files can take up a lot of space.
Likelihood to Recommend
After Effects is really useful for green screen editing. It is pretty easy to start using and make some cool 2D and 3D graphics. There are a lot of great user-made tutorials online that can provide some great direction for beginners to the program. It can be a bit daunting at first, but once you are able to navigate through the menus and perform some of the basic functions it’s much easier to use.
April 14, 2020

Adobe After Effects helps you make your final footage look amazing!

Bradley Gill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Bradley Gill
co-founder
360 Labs (Media Production, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Adobe After Effects throughout our entire company. We are a small team where everyone is involved in every step of the post production process. It really helps us do some of the more complicated tasks that Adobe Premiere Pro cannot handle. We utilize many plugins that help accomplish those difficult tasks.
Pros and Cons
  • Very easy to set up and get started.
  • There are many tutorials provided from Adobe and other users.
  • After Effects is perfect for creating animated movement in our final videos.
  • It easily integrates with the other Adobe software.
  • The workflow is a little more difficult than learning Premiere workflow.
  • Sometimes our plugins take a lot of processing power.
  • Some of the features we have to buy plugins for should be integrated.
Likelihood to Recommend
We use Adobe After Effects to do many things like tracking for rotoscoping, rig removal, cloning, and text animation. It is definitely the best tool to help finish any footage you might be working on. Even though you can set up a timeline to render a final video, it isn't really suited to do so.
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