After Effects and Premiere?

[Gary W]

I am a little new to after effects and am wondering what you use it for. I know you add visual effects, but can you combine it with premiere? how do you usually go about using after effects and premiere?

[Rob Lohman]

Edit first in Premiere and when done export that to AE for futher
work. Sometimes you can also work on a specific sequence if that
is needed, ofcourse. AE has more professional tools for things like
rotoscoping, matting and things like color correction and effects.
It takes it futher than Premiere does. But it is a complicated package!

[Pat Engh]

Indeed it is... I use After Effects mainly for my intro's.

[Pete Bauer]

Hi Gary,

I'm fairly new to AE also and found it daunting, but very glad I took the time to learn it (at least to the grade school level!).

As Rob wrote, the programs are complimentary to each other. It is sort of like if you owned a Hummer and a Prius; both do the basic function of going down the road, but if you're off-road in a mountain pass, you want the Hummer. On the other hand, if you're just toddling along to work in the morning, the Prius is more efficient.

PPro makes assembling your overall timeline, and final tweaking, simple and efficient. But if certain scenes need sophisticated effects or corrections, AE is the tool.

Put more directly, PPro is project-centric software, and AE is clip-centric. Generally, you'll export a clip from PPro that "needs work", do the compositing or rotoscoping or whatever in AE, then export the clip back to PPro for incorporation into the timeline.

BTW, if one's budget allows, even as a novice I recommend springing for AE Pro rather than Standard. I agonized over my upgrade path when the Adobe Video Collection 1.5 upgrades came out but decided to go all the way. I IMMEDIATELY had uses for features like Motion Tracking that are only in the Pro version. Very glad I did go with the AE Pro.

Best wishes,