Add a classy film look to your footage by creating a Shutter Streak effect as seen in Red Giant Software’s amazing plugin – Magic Bullet Looks. Switch given features of the streak on and off for quick and easy adjustments.

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Some time ago I wrote a note on my Facebook Fan Page about upcoming tutorials. I’m happy to announce that the day has come – the tutorials are recorded and all will be released soon. This is the forth and the last tutorial (at least from the ones I announced so far) that will be focused on recreating some of my favorite filters from a great color correction tool – Magic Bullet Looks.

It’s really hard to say how Shutter Streak works, so what I did is I applied it to a couple of different images in Magic Bullet Looks and tried to analyse it to really capture the essence. Then I did my best to recreate the effect using standard plugins that come with After Effects. I hope this tutorial will not only show you how to create a great looking light streak, but also that it will broaden your understanding of some very simple yet powerful filters. Enjoy!

Download: Shutter Streak preset (After Effects CS3)

Recreate the Edge Softness filter as seen in Red Giant Software’s amazing plugin – Magic Bullet Looks. Animate your focus area, change it’s width and softness, and save it as a preset for later use. Quick and easy.

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Some time ago I wrote a note on my Facebook Fan Page about upcoming tutorials. I’m happy to announce that the day has come – the tutorials are recorded and all will be released soon. This is the third out of four tutorials that will be focused on recreating some of my favorite filters from a great color correction tool – Magic Bullet Looks.

In this very short tutorial you will see how to take the technique from the previous tutorial and modify it to create a circular spot focus instead of a linear swing tilt. Make sure to check out the Uses of the Circle tutorial. This technique comes directly from there. Enjoy!

Download: Spot Focus Preset (After Effects CS3)

Create an awesome Tilt Shift effect as seen in Red Giant Software’s amazing plugin – Magic Bullet Looks. Change the look on the fly and save it as a preset for later use. Quick and easy.

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Some time ago I wrote a note on my Facebook Fan Page about upcoming tutorials. I’m happy to announce that the day has come – the tutorials are recorded and all will be released soon. This is the second out of four tutorials that will be focused on recreating some of my favorite filters from a great color correction tool – Magic Bullet Looks.

In this video I will show you how to recreate one of the filters found in Magic Bullet Looks called Swing Tilt. It allows you to easily add Depth of field (DOF) to you footage. The technique I’m showing uses only one layer so it can be saved as a preset for later use. Theres also something extra. You can also animate the your focus area unlike in Magic Bullet Looks. You can even add additional effects to the blurred area to make your subject really pop – simple color correction for example. I forgot to mention that in the tutorial however, so if you want to do that you need to add your additional effects instead or along with the Fast Blur effect before applying the second copy of CC Composite. Enjoy!

Download: Tilt Shift preset (After Effects CS3)

I tried it out on my own. I created a Solid and applied some Layer Styles to it. Dragging the Layer Styles from the timeline to the Effects & Presets palette didn’t work. So I tried dragging it along with some dummy Slider I’ve put on the Effects Palette. I added the Slider to a layer and then in the Timeline selected the Slider and the Layer Styles. That allowed me to drag the content to the Effects & Presets palette. And guess what… it worked.

But I thought that adding an additional Slider just to save the preset is kind of stupid, so I tried old-school solution: Animation menu > Save Animation Preset… and guess what… It also worked without adding or selecting any additional Sliders.

So there you go. If you want to save your Layer Styles as presets simply select the Layer Styles in your Timeline and go to: Animation > Save Animation Preset.

Hope that helps. Happy AfterEffecting.

Have you ever missed Photoshop blending options like stroke, drop shadow, or gradient overlay when working with After Effects?

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Many Photoshop users who just switched to After Effects complain about lack of blending options, especially the lack of stroke effect. Of course there is a Stroke effects in After Effects, but it works in different way than they’re used to.

To help all you Photoshopers out there I’ve prepared few presets, than will enable you to work in After Effects the same way you work in Photoshop.

Just go ahead and download the preset. After downloading make sure to unpack it to your After Effects preset directory, that by default is: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 7.0\Support Files\Presets.These presets include:

• Stroke effect
• Drop shadow (with Spread parameter)
• Gradient overlay

I wanted to put there Bevel and Emboss effect also, but there’s no need to make a preset for that, because all you have to do is to apply Alpha Bevel on a layer and you’ll get the same effect you’d get in Photoshop.

Download: Photoshoping presets (After Effects CS2)