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Rating: 
Summary: The Gold Standard For Desktop Video Manipulation
Review: The amount of thought that has gone into After-Effects is astounding. It is, at once, both easily grasped and deeply potent--a difficult poise to achieve with any invention.The user-model is thorough and obviously has been arrived at through meticulous research and user-testing amongst professionals engaged in real-world post-production situations. The feature set is balanced and the user-interface metaphors finely tailored to the art of multi-layered, concurrent, motion-image production. Be it expressive motion graphics for a corporate video, undetectable compositing for broadcast, or sublime title sequences for feature films, in caring hands there is little in the video arts that cannot be achieved with After-Effects. Alas, there are some shortcomings, one is that the color-space model is limited to 8-bit color (rather than the 16-bit that feature film work often demands). Another is the really unfortunate lack of 3D space (which means that objects can not be translated, or "moved," along the Z-axis but instead must be scaled to simulate this important element of composition--a poor substitute). Finally, some sort of, even rudimentary, content-management system would be very welcome, especially in work where many files are involved. I would pay another $1000 extra for the addition of these three things (heck, I might pay that just for the addition of 3D space alone). These few deficiencies aside, After-Effects really stands out there on its own, and anyone engaged in serious desktop video owes it to themselves to add it to their bag of tricks.
Rating:
Summary: The Gold Standard For Desktop Video Manipulation
Review: The amount of thought that has gone into After-Effects is astounding. It is, at once, both easily grasped and deeply potent--a difficult poise to achieve with any invention. The user-model is thorough and obviously has been arrived at through meticulous research and user-testing amongst professionals engaged in real-world post-production situations. The feature set is balanced and the user-interface metaphors finely tailored to the art of multi-layered, concurrent, motion-image production. Be it expressive motion graphics for a corporate video, undetectable compositing for broadcast, or sublime title sequences for feature films, in caring hands there is little in the video arts that cannot be achieved with After-Effects. Alas, there are some shortcomings, one is that the color-space model is limited to 8-bit color (rather than the 16-bit that feature film work often demands). Another is the really unfortunate lack of 3D space (which means that objects can not be translated, or "moved," along the Z-axis but instead must be scaled to simulate this important element of composition--a poor substitute). Finally, some sort of, even rudimentary, content-management system would be very welcome, especially in work where many files are involved. I would pay another $1000 extra for the addition of these three things (heck, I might pay that just for the addition of 3D space alone). These few deficiencies aside, After-Effects really stands out there on its own, and anyone engaged in serious desktop video owes it to themselves to add it to their bag of tricks.
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