While After Effects can seem intimidating at first, the reality is that many of the amazing things it can do are just a few clicks away. From opening up Photoshop files to compositing graphics and video — the Effects & Presets panel offers hundreds of effects that are just waiting to bring your graphics to life. Creating the movement below is as simple to do as it is powerful to see.

Import that Photoshop (PSD) file into After Effects

While importing native Photoshop files into Premiere Pro to help brand and style your videos, this same functionality exists in After Effects and includes the additional supports for layers. This means that you don’t need to rebuild layouts in After Effects, and your layers are ready to be animated.

Find looping video assets on Adobe Stock

Search Adobe Stock for videos specifically for creative motion graphics and special effects. Many of these videos feature black-and-white footage (smoke, snow, clouds, etc.) that are perfect for use with effects like Blend Modes, masks, and distortions. In this example, we’ll search for “smoke,” and apply search filters for ‘looping,’ lower duration times, and a frame rate of at least 30.

Placing and masking a video

Import the Adobe Stock video into After Effects and place it as the top-most layer in the Timeline panel. Scale, rotate and position the smoke video to match the location of the grill and to overlap the text with the top of the smoke. Apply a rounded feathered mask to the video that hides the straight bottom edge — making the smoke appear to be coming from the grill.

Remove the background with a Blend Mode

Remove the black background from the video by applying the screen blend mode to the video layer. The Screen blend mode masks out the black pixels from the video, allowing only the lighter pixels to show. This technique can be used with a range of special effect videos, including fog, snow, rain, etc.

Adding a Displacement Effect

For the final touch, we’ll use the video to affect the typography. Select the top text layer and apply the Displacement Map effect from the Effects & Presets panel. Choose the smoke video layer for the Displacement Map Layer, then set Max Horizontal Displacement value to 5, and the Max Vertical Displacement to 3. This will create a warping effect on the text layers that matches the lightness values in the video, creating the added illusion of heat coming from he grill. Copy this effect to the second text layer to complete the project.

Watch a demo of this technique from Adobe MAX.

Watch the free On-Demand recording of Chris Converse as he demonstrates this technique, along with many others in his After Effects session at the Adobe MAX conference.

Adding Motion to your Mix with Photoshop and After Effects

https://www.adobe.com/max/2024/sessions/adding-motion-to-your-mix-with-photoshop-and-after-s6309.html

(Skip to 32:34 on the timeline for the above example)