Adobe After Effects is one of the most popular visual effects software used by movie producers, advertisement agencies, media companies, and personal videographers for post-production visual and motion effects. Key features include motion graphics creation, text animation, visual effects, compositing, animation, 3D creation, and integration with other Adobe services and products. Adobe After Effects is commonly used to complete post-production videos for social media content, advertisements, title sequences, broadcast graphics, film, and other general video post-production.
Adobe After Effects, due to its extensive features and capabilities, tends to be more difficult to learn compared to other creative software. Still, with the listed preferences, panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows keyboard shortcuts shown below, you will be up and running with Adobe After Effects in no time.
Preferences
- Open Preferences dialog box Ctrl + Alt + ; (semicolon)
- Restore default preferences settings Hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift while starting After Effects
Panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows
- Open or close Project panel Ctrl + 0
- Open or close Render Queue panel Ctrl + Alt + 0
- Open or close Tools panel Ctrl + 1
- Open or close Info panel Ctrl + 2
- Open or close Preview panel Ctrl + 3
- Open or close Audio panel Ctrl + 4
- Open or close Effects & Presets panel Ctrl + 5
- Open or close Character panel Ctrl + 6
- Open or close Paragraph panel Ctrl + 7
- Open or close Paint panel Ctrl + 8
- Open or close Brushes pane Ctrl + 9
- Open or close Effect Controls panel for selected layer F3 or Ctrl + Shift + T
- Open Flowchart panel for project flowchart Ctrl + F11
- Switch to workspace Shift + F10, Shift + F11, or Shift + F12
- Close active viewer or panel (closes content first) Ctrl + W
- Close active panel or all viewers of type of active viewer (closes content first). For example, if a Timeline panel is active, this command closes all Timeline panels. Ctrl + Shift + W
- Split the frame containing the active viewer and create a viewer with opposite locked/unlocked state Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N
- Maximize or restore panel under pointer ` (accent grave)
- Resize application window or floating window to fit screen. (Press again to resize window so that contents fill the screen.) Ctrl + \ (backslash)
- Move application window or floating window to main monitor; resize window to fit screen. (Press again to resize window so that contents fill the screen.) Ctrl + Alt + \ (backslash)
- Toggle activation between Composition panel and Timeline panel for current composition \ (backslash)
- Cycle to previous or next item in active viewer (for example, cycle through open compositions) Shift + , (comma) or Shift + . (period)
- Cycle to previous or next panel in active frame (for example, cycle through open Timeline panels) Alt + Shift + , (comma) or Alt + Shift + . (period)
- Activate a view in a multi-view layout in the Composition panel without affecting layer selection Select with the middle mouse button
