Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book for Windows and Mac OS

Chapter 7. Working with Masks

When working in After Effects, there will be times when you won’t need (or want) everything in the shot to be included in the final composite. Use masks to control what appears.

Lesson overview

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• Create a mask using the Pen tool.

• Change a mask’s mode.

• Edit a mask shape by controlling vertices and direction handles.

• Feather a mask edge.

• Replace the contents of a mask shape.

• Adjust the position of a layer in 3D space to blend it with the rest of the shot.

• Create a reflection effect.

• Create a vignette.

• Use Auto Levels to correct the color of the shot.

In this lesson, you will create ...