Earn Your Adobe After Effects Certification

Official guidelines

• 1.1 Identify the purpose, audience, and audience needs for preparing visual effects and motion graphics projects.
• a. Determine whether content is relevant to the purpose, the audience, and their needs.
  
• i. Key Terms: client goals, target audience, demographics, accessibility, etc.
  
• b. Identify requirements based on how the video will be delivered, distributed, and/or consumed.
  
• i. Key Terms: Email file size limits, compression, codec and architecture, input and output file formats, aspect ratio
  
• ii. Key Concepts: Select the correct codec and architecture based on format and delivery requirements
  

Resources & Tutorials

How to make a video commercial people won’t skip

Web Accessibility: Captions/Subtitles

Choosing the right video format.

Official guidelines

• 1.2 Communicate with colleagues and clients about project plans.
  
• a. Demonstrate knowledge of techniques for communicating ideas about project plans with peers and clients.
• i. Key Terms: Pre-production: planning, shot list, script writing, storyboarding, design compositions or sketches, style guides, and animatics
  
• b. Demonstrate knowledge of basic project management concepts. 
  
• i. Key Terms: project specifications, milestones, deadlines, deliverables, and file types
  

Resources & Tutorials

Project Management Basics

Animated video production: a step-by-step guide

An overview of video production

Official guidelines

• 1.3 Determine the type of intellectual property rights, permissions, and licensing required to use specific content.
• a. Identify legal and ethical considerations for using third-party content.
  
• i. Key Terms: Creative Commons, public domain, intellectual property, derivative work, commercial use, attribution, work for hire, fair use/fair dealing
• b. Identify when and how to obtain permissions to use images, audio, or footage.
  
• i. Key Terms: model release, location permitting, property release, rights, permissions, licensing
  
• ii. Key Concepts: permission to use an image is separate from permission to use a person’s face or a restricted location, etc.

Resources & Tutorials

Intellectual Property

About CC Licenses

What’s a model release, and when do you need one?

Official guidelines

• 1.4 Demonstrate an understanding of key terminology and tools related to digital audio and video.
  
• a. Demonstrate knowledge of digital video and audio terminology.
  
• i. Key Terms: frame rate, aspect ratio, title/action safe zone (areas), image and video resolution, file formats, video and audio codecs, pixels, rendering, monitoring audio
• b. Demonstrate knowledge of how color is represented in digital video. 
  
• i. Key Terms: white balance, bit depth, and working color spaces (RGB, CMYK, YUV, HLS).
  
• ii. Key Concepts: Choosing the right color space
  
• c. Understand and use key terms related to video and audio post-production.
  
• i. Key Terms: editing, transitions, audio levels, waveforms, effects, etc.
  

Resources & Tutorials

About video and audio encoding and compression

The Beginner’s Guide to Color Management with Adobe Creative Cloud Apps

The best audio format types for audiophiles

Official guidelines

• 1.5 Demonstrate knowledge of common animation, visual effects (VFX), and design principles.
  
• a. Demonstrate knowledge of common animation terms and principles.
  
• i. Key Terms: easing, squashing, stretching, anticipation, staging, straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose, follow through and overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arc, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, appeal, etc.
• b. Demonstrate knowledge of standard compositing techniques.
  
• i. Key Terms: lighting, color, scale and perspective, working in 3D space, rotoscoping, masking, blending modes, match moving, etc.
  
• c. Define common cinematic composition terms and principles.
  
• i. Key Terms: aspect ratio, rule of thirds, foreground, background, color, tone, contrast, cropping, depth of field, field of view, etc.
• d. Identify general design principles and guidelines for motion graphics.
  
• i. Key Terms: space, line, shape, form, color, texture, emphasis/focal point, unity/ harmony, variety, balance, alignment, proximity, repetition, rhythm, scale, movement, negative space, gestalt, etc.
  

Resources & Tutorials

Adding Motion to Your Toolkit: The Basics of Motion Design

Animate reality with rotoscoping

Learn From the Pros | Using Blending Modes with School of Motion

Official guidelines

• 2.1 Create and modify projects and compositions.
  
• a. Choose appropriate project settings to meet requirements.
  
• i. Key Concepts: project location on drive(s), folders with media assets, VideoRendering and Effects (GPU), etc.
• b. Create and modify compositions to match the delivery requirements.
  
• i. Key Concepts: frame rate, resolution, duration, dimensions, aspect ratio, presets, adjusting the work area, background color, naming compositions, composition from footage, etc.

Resources & Tutorials

Planning and setup

Projects

After Effects Composition basics

Official guidelines

• 2.2 Navigate, organize, and customize the application workspace.
  
• a. Identify, navigate, and manipulate elements of the After Effects interface.
  
• i. Key Concepts: menus, toolbars, panels, navigating, and zooming, search within panels, etc.
  
• ii. Key Panels: Project panel, Timeline panel, Composition panel, Preview panel, Effects & Presets panel, Effect Controls panel, Layer panel, etc.
  
• b. Customize and manage workspaces.
  
• i. Key Concepts: using/switching workspaces; showing, hiding, nesting, and docking panels; Workspace panel, shortcuts, menus; customizing, saving, and resetting workspaces
• c. Configure application preferences.
  
• i. Key Settings: Appearance, Auto-Save, Grids & Guides, Media & Disk Cache, Memory, Previews, etc.

Resources & Tutorials

Get to know the After Effects interface

Learn From the Pros: Getting Started - The After Effects Interface

Create and customize workspaces

Official guidelines

• 2.3 Use non-visible design tools in the interface to aid in video workflow.
  
• a. Controlling and working with the timeline and media.
  
• i. Key Concepts: panning, zooming, playing, pausing, keyboard shortcuts (spacebar, mouse wheel, etc.), timecodes, current time indicators (playhead), etc.
• b. Use markers.
  
• i. Key Concepts: composition (timeline) and layer (clip) markers
  
• c. Use guides and grids.
  
• i. Key Concepts: title/action safe zones (areas); adding, removing, locking, and unlocking guides; setting color; hiding and showing guides and grids; using snap or align options; rulers

Resources & Tutorials

Learn From the Pros: Timeline Tips with School of Motion

Layer markers and composition markers

Keyboard shortcuts in After Effects

Official guidelines

• 2.4 Import assets into a project.
  
• a. Import media from various sources.
  
• i. Key Concepts: compatible files, importing layers from Photoshop (.psd) and Illustrator (.ai) files, Adobe Dynamic Link, understanding that all files are linked, dragging and dropping, image sequences
• b. Manage assets/footage in an After Effects project.
  
• i. Key Concepts: finding, replacing, and reloading linked media files; interpretingfootage; organizing assets using folders, placeholders, metadata, etc.

Resources & Tutorials

Organize your project assets

Elemental Motion: Turn Photoshop layers into After Effects animations

Video Masterclass: How Dynamic Link Works with After Effects and Premiere

Official guidelines

• 3.1 Use the Timeline panel.
  
• a. Recognize the different types of layers in the Timeline panel.
  
• i. Key Layer Types: footage, text, solid, shape, camera, adjustment, light, null object, and pre-comp
  
• b. Use the Timeline panel to manage layers.
  
• i. Key Concepts: quality and sample; adding, deleting, locking, unlocking, renaming,and reordering layers; managing labels; using switches and modes; etc.
  
• c. Manage multiple layers in a complex composition.
  
• i. Key Concepts: pre-composing, parenting, null objects, render order, synchronizing/aligning audio with visual effects, etc.
  

Resources & Tutorials

Creating layers

Layer foundations course

Learn From the Pros: The Basics of Parenting and Null Objects

Official guidelines

• 3.2 Modify layer visibility using opacity, blending modes, track mattes, and masks.
  
• a. Adjust a layer’s visibility.
  
• i. Key Concepts: hiding and showing layers; solo, shy, and mute layers; blending modes, opacity
• b. Create, apply, and manipulate masks and track mattes.
  
• i. Key Concepts: layer masks, track mattes, tools for creating masks

Resources & Tutorials

Create masks

Learn From the Pros: Using Track Mattes with School of Motion

Alpha channels, masks, and mattes

Official guidelines

• 4.1 Use core tools and features to create content.
  
• a. Create visual elements using a variety of tools.
  
• i. Key Concepts: solids, shape layers, and creating shapes from vector layers
• ii. Key Tools: Shape (e.g. Rectangle, etc.), Pen, and vector editing (e.g. Add Vertex, etc.) tools
  
• b. Place assets into a composition.
  
• i. Key Concepts: asset placement, temporal (timeline) position, spatial (coordinates)position, layer stacking order
  

Resources & Tutorials

Creating shapes

Learn from the Pros: Using the Pen Tool and Paths with Notian Sans

How to Make a Write-On Effect in After Effects

Find more Trainings and resources for similar topics on helpx.adobe.com or at the Adobe Education Exchange

Official guidelines

• 4.2 Create, manipulate, and animate text.
  
• a. Create text in a composition.
  
• i. Key Concepts: point text, paragraph text, adding a path to text
• b. Adjust character settings.
  
• i. Key Settings: font, size, style, kerning, tracking, leading, horizontal and vertical scale, etc.
  
• c. Adjust paragraph settings.
  
• i. Key Settings: alignment, indentation (e.g. Indent left margin, etc.), paragraph spacing, and left-to-right text direction.
• d. Animate text.
  
• i. Key Concepts: apply and adjust preset animations.
  

Resources & Tutorials

Creating and editing text layers

Create and animate text

Learn From the Pros: Text Animation Basics with Sergei Prokhnevskiy

Official guidelines

• 4.3 Adjust footage for use in compositions.
  
• a. Adjust layers using a variety of tools.
  
• i. Key Concepts: moving, sequencing, trimming, and splitting layers; setting In and Out points in the Footage panel

Resources & Tutorials

Selecting and arranging layers

About imported files and footage items

Working with footage items

Official guidelines

• 4.4 Modify digital media within a project.
  
• a. Transform visual elements in the composition. 
  
• i. Key Terms: scaling, rotating, flipping, moving, fitting to, etc.
  
• b. Change the speed of a video clip.
• i. Key Concepts: time remapping, time stretching, creating freeze frames. changing speed, time reverse

Resources & Tutorials

Layer properties

Learn from the Pros: Using Time Stretching with Notian Sans

Time-stretching and time-remapping

Official guidelines

• 4.5 Manipulate digital video.
• a. Use basic auto-correction methods and tools. 
  
• i. Key Tools: stabilization and color correction.

Resources & Tutorials

Color basics

Adjust for shaky camerawork

Repair video

Official guidelines

• 4.6 Add and modify effects and presets.
  
• a. Apply and adjust a video effect or preset to a layer.
  
• i. Key Concepts: adding and adjusting video effect properties in the Effect Controls panel and timeline
  
• b. Use 3D space to modify composition elements.
  
• i. Key Concepts: X,Y, and Z axes; two-dimensional objects in three-dimensional space; cameras; lighting; animating objects
  
• c. Create composites.
  
• i. Key Concepts: keying, opacity, masking effects, mattes and alpha channels
  
• d. Apply and modify effects and presets on multiple layers.
  
• i. Key Concepts: adjustment layers and animation presets
  

Resources & Tutorials

Effects and animation presets overview

Alpha channels, masks, and mattes

Position 2D layers in 3D space

Official guidelines

• 4.7 Create and modify keyframes for motion graphics.
  
• a. Apply and adjust transformations using keyframes.
  
• i. Key Concepts: keyframing the transform properties, motion paths, spatial and temporal interpolation, using the Graph Editor
  
• b. Animate effects using keyframes.
  
• i. Key Concepts: keyframing in the Effect Controls panel and timeline
  

Resources & Tutorials

Animation essentials course

Learn From the Pros: Basic Keyframe Types with Sergei Prokhnevskiy

How to Make Space Aliens Invade in After Effects

Official guidelines

• 5.1 Prepare a composition for publishing and archiving.
  
• a. Check a composition for errors and verify specifications.
  
• i. Key Concepts: hidden layers, animation timing, audio levels, resolution, title safe area, work area, etc.

Resources & Tutorials

Organize, relink, and replace assets

Dynamic Link and After Effects

Rendering and exporting still images and still-image sequences

Official guidelines

• 5.2 Export digital video to various file formats.
  
• a. Export frames.
  
• i. Key Concepts: exporting one or multiple frames, file formats, file names, exportlocations, layered Photoshop files, etc.
  
• b. Export a composition.
  
• i. Key Concepts: exporting to Premiere Pro, file formats, video codecs, file locations, exporting for more than one target screen size or playback device, exporting in multiple formats, etc.
• ii. Key Tools: Render Queue, Adobe Media Encoder, etc.
  

Resources & Tutorials

Render your work

Export broadcast-quality video projects

Working with After Effects and other applications