after effects tutorial

How to Remove Color Banding

In a nutshell, the trick is to give some color variation to those subtle yet tricky gradients. The techniques can also work in other programs as well. Here’s how to approach it inside After Effects: Make sure you’re working in at least 16 bit color. Blur things a tiny bit. Add some noise/grain. Watch the video to see the…

After Effects Disk Cache

When Adobe released CS6 in 2012, I was more exited for the addition of the Global Performance Cache than anything else. I was in love instantly. No really, instantly. The first time I toggled a layer off and back on again without having to re-RAM Preview was a spectacular moment. I’ve been using After Effects since…

after effects tutorial displacement map

After Effects Cloth

There are two versions of this one sorry. The original isn’t really a tutorial, it’s more of an overview/afterthought. I originally built it as a test then recorded myself walking through the project, making it a nice sneak peek for advanced users but nigh impossible to follow along and create from scratch. So I eventually got around…

lightsabers in adobe photoshop

A Long Time Ago…

It has been more than 10 years since my cousins and I shot our first movie. Who would have guessed that what began as boys, bathrobes, and broomsticks bolting around with a camera, making movies during summer vacation; would become so much more than a hobby. None of us knew what we were doing, but…