Adobe® After Effects® 6.5: Studio Techniques

Chapter 3. Selections: The Key to Compositing

	I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in And stops my mind from wandering Where it will go.
	--John Lennon and Paul McCartney

A particle physicist works with atoms, a baker and a banker both work with dough, and a compositor works with selections—lots and lots of selections.

If compositing were simply a question of taking pristine, perfect foreground source A and overlaying it onto perfectly matching background plate B, there wouldn't even be a compositor in the effects process; an editor could accomplish the job before lunchtime.

Compositors break images apart and reassemble them, all in motion. Often, ...