After Effects cs4 note

Import and Organize Source

Getting a source fi le from a disk or server into After Effects
is no big deal. You can use File > Import > File (or Multiple
Files), or just drag footage directly from the Finder or Windows
Explorer into the Project panel. You can also doubleclick
in an empty area of the Project panel.
Image sequences have a couple of specifi c extra rules.
I strongly advocate working with a sequence instead of
QuickTime in production for the following reasons:

• . An image sequence is less fragile than a QuickTime

          movie; if there is a bad frame in a sequence, it can be
          replaced, but it will corrupt an entire movie.

•   You can interrupt and restart an image sequence

           render without then having to splice together multiple
           movies.

• . QuickTime in particular has its own form of color

            management that isn’t entirely compatible even
            with Apple’s own applications, let alone the Adobe
            color management pipeline
Unfortunately, none of the Adobe applications (in particular,
Bridge, which should know better) has ever become
smart about recognizing sequences.
If you have a single sequence in a folder, just drag it in,
but if it’s the fi rst one for this project, leave it selected for
a moment in the Project panel and check its fps setting at
the top; if it’s not correct, see “Project, Footage, and Composition
Settings” later in this chapter for how to fi x this,
both for that clip and for others just like it. If you really
meant to bring in that folder’s contents as individual fi les,
hold down the Option/Alt key as you drag it in.