What is Adobe After Effects?

So, break out your reading glasses, grab a cup of coffee, or your favorite box of apple juice, and let's jump down the rabbit hole!

Adobe After Effects is a 2.5D animation software used for animation, visual effects, and motion picture compositing. After Effects is used in film, TV, and web video creation.

This software is used in the post-production phase, and has hundreds of effects that can be used to manipulate imagery. This allows you to combine layers of video and images into the same scene.

After Effects is known for it's versatility, and work created using this program is everywhere. You may recognize some of the following examples, but didn't realize they were created using After Effects, or even how they were created.

After Effects was developed in 1993 and since then has been acquired a hand full of times. The original developers, Company of Science and Art (CoSA), created two versions with a few functions that allowed you to composite layers and transform various properties of a layer. Fact of the Article: The first version was actually only available on the Macintosh computer, built by Apple.

Acquired in 1994 by Aldus, just one year after launching the program, the program gained amazing new features like multi-machine rendering and motion blur. But, before the year of 1994 came to a close, Adobe came in and acquired the technology, and is still the owner of After Effects today.

Since the conception of After Effects, Adobe has released 50 different versions of its industry leading software, each time gaining new functionality. Some versions are bigger than others, but they all showcase that Adobe has created an extraordinary piece of software.

In fact, in 2019, the program won an Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement; a testament to how well integrated and powerful After Effects is.