How to Animate a Still Image in AfterEffects

Animate a still image in After Effects by using keyframes to change the location, size or orientation of a still image you load with the program's Import command. Keyframes are the frames at the beginning and end of an animation sequence. Defining these frames lets After Effects calculate the frames in between the keyframes to complete your animation. For documentaries and other films that rely on still images, animation can potentially create much greater visual interest than that of static images.

Instructions

1. Click the "Import" command from the File menu, and then navigate to and double-click a still image you'd like to animate with After Effects. The program will load the image and a thumbnail of the image will appear in the Project panel.

2. Drag the thumbnail of the loaded image from the Project panel onto the canvas at the center of the screen. After Effects will display a bounding box around the image so you can rotate, size or reposition it.

3. Press and hold "Shift" to indicate you want to maintain the image's original aspect ratio, which is the ratio of the image's height to its width.

4. Drag any of the handles of the bounding box to size the image to fit onto the canvas.

5. Click the "Timeline" item on the Window menu to display the Timeline panel, which has an item with the name of the still image you loaded. Click that item to display parameters for the image, including the Transform parameter.

6. Click the "Transform" parameter to display its parts, which include attributes representing your still image's position, size and orientation. To the left of each part is a stopwatch graphic, which represents the keyframe button for the part.

7. Click the "stopwatch" icon next to the Scale item to create a keyframe on frame one, and then drag the vertical bar in the Timeline panel to somewhere between frame 20 and 50. This action will make your animation play for 20 to 50 frames.

8. Drag a handle on the bounding box surrounding the still image to resize the image, and then play the animation by clicking the ">" button in the Preview panel. You'll see the image grow larger or smaller, depending on how you have resized it.

References

• "Adobe After Effects CS5 Classroom in a Book"; Adobe Creative Team; 2010