Loading image pixel-ish

[Inorash]

So I got the trial version of AE and it's quite unfair since the images I load to it look like their 8 bit.

And I wasted a couple of hours trying to fix this problem while my trial time wasted on nothing.

I'm loading perfectly normal (and even high) quality pictures, And all I see inside AE is pixeled low quality photos.

The only time AE worked without any problem is at the first 30 minutes I got the trial and that's it, No idea what happened.

My computer is very expensive and new so don't tell me it's a problem in the computer.

I tried restarting my computer, reinstalling AE, using other pictures / formats, reading guides online, deleting plugins and changing RAM.

Literally EVERYTHING.

[Szalam]

Can we please see a screenshot of your full interface?

[Inorash]

for example I took one of my images:

http://i.imgur.com/eqdshnl.png

As you can see, It's a regular quality picture.

As soon as I just load it into AE it starts to look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/dahUVEA.png

All pixel-ish and blurry.

So a couple of guides told me to press a button in the render options down to the left:

http://i.imgur.com/XP6euol.png

But unfortunately, that button does not appear for me...

[Rick Gerard]

Have you gone through any training for AE...

AE does not work as most people expect it to, the UI is very complex and most folks don't understand how to use it. Please start here: Basic AE

[Inorash]

I'll be completely honest I've gone through really basic guides on YouTube explaining only the field of animating that I'm interested in and nothing more.

I just did not expect something like this to occur, I would have watched professional guides instead

[Mylenium]

Sorry, but you are not giving us any sensible and useful information. Rather than run off with your mouth and complain it would be much better to provide exact system info, details about the compositions and images preview settings and whatnot, including screenshots. To me it simply sounds like you set your comp resolution to a manual value rather than Auto, so naturally it doesn't adapt as you zoom your comp. With that being said, it might help you tremendously to actually read the help rather than muddling through. AE is by no means intuitive and it's all about those little things...

Mylenium

[Inorash]

I apologize Mr. Mylenium, that I complained and "ran my mouth" and "muddled through" your dear precious christian forum.

People with less experience than you come to this forum for help and advice.

So don't get high and mighty on me JUST BECAUSE I need help.

Yes, I am pissed because I wasted so much time and because my trial ends soon,

And I'm a working man I don't have much time for those things like other people.

Once again, Don't judge me for not knowing this, But how do I make my comp Adjust to the zoom?

And where is this help you speak of?

I was looking all over the internet for answers and some smarty pants comes along and says:

"It might help you tremendously to actually read the help".

By all means, Thank you Mr. Mylenium! you saved the world. What would I have done without you?

[Rick Gerard]

The most likely problems are in the Composition Panel:

1. Magnification factor not set to Auto
2. Resolution not set to Auto
3. Not understanding what the Magnification factor does

Potential problems in the Timeline Panel

1. Layer quality set to draft
2. Layer Scale set above 100%
3. 3D layer closer to the camera than the Zoom value of the Composition Camera

Problems viewing your images:

1. The links are empty, there are no images. To post an image to this forum first, select the layers in the timeline that are giving you problems and press the U key twice to reveal the modified properties, then use print screen on a Windows machine to grab a screenshot of the entire AE UI and paste to the reply field on this forum. If you are on a Mac then use Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + 3 to grab a screenshot of the entire screen and then drag it from the desktop to the reply field.
2. Screenshots of just the composition panel or just an image without details are useless in diagnosing problems.

Problems relying on YouTube for training:

1. There are so many tutorials being posted by folks that do not understand how AE, compositing or motion graphics work that about half of them give either bad advice or propose inefficient solutions that teach poor techniques that yield poor results and lead to dead ends or create other problems. You have to vet your trainers. Sadly, many of them don't know what they are talking about.
2. There is no 15 minute tutorial that will explain enough of the UI or the compositing or motion graphics workflow to give someone enough of an understanding of how AE works and solve the potential problems. There is a search help field at the top right corner of AE that will lead you to the help files and community resources that have at least been partially vetted and you'll find better information on solving problems there.

If you have an image or a video and you import it and you create a comp from that image and it does not display properly then you either have a preview, comp settings or timeline problem with the image. If you modify the image in any way by moving it around, changing the size or fiddling with other controls without taking the time to figure out what those controls and you get unexpected results then you are experiencing user errors and need to do some studying to figure out how to use the application. If you created a new composition and there is the word custom in the settings and you do not possess a really good understanding of video formats, frame sizes, pixel aspect ratios and frame rates then you are headed for trouble with you try and render your video.

When you have a question we need details down to the last decimal point and an adequate description of exactly what you are trying to accomplish. It is helpful to know what kind of media you are using and how you plan to use your video. Almost everyone that just jumps into using AE without taking the time to go through at least a couple of hours of training fails. Almost every new user to AE tries to edit movies in AE. After Effects is properly used for creating shots that you cannot create in any other way. Almost all AE comps created by folks that know what they are doing are one shot. If you are creating an animated movie then each shot in that animation is probably handled better as a separate composition. More than 90% of my AE work is under seven seconds long. Many of my composites contain dozens of layers, but there is only one shot. Comps that contain more than one shot, like slide shows or explainer videos, are divided up into sections where the comp is only as long as a single phrase of music or a single sentence or at most paragraph of narration.

I hope this helps. If you let us know exactly what you are trying to accomplish and post screenshots of the entire UI with the modified properties of the layers you are having problems with maybe we can help. Mylenium may be a little direct but he is completely right in one thing. Without knowing what you are trying to do and how you are doing it it's impossible to get some help. if you are going to work in a creative field you need to grow a little thicker skin. Very few people are going to go easy on you.

[Inorash]

You can view those pictures by Rightclick > Open in new tab.. Works for me.

Thank you, Rick Gerard, You're the only one who gave me a useful answer.

For all the folks who share the same problem as I do have a look at this:

[Inorash · Accepted solution]

http://imgur.com/727d6333-5d40-4721-a6e8-c09bd56c75ca

[Rick Gerard]

I don't go to links to sites that I don't know because of spammers and hackers. Sorry... Besides that you'll get more respect for your questions if you take the time to use tools on this forum and post your images here. Uploading the images to another site and creating links takes a lot more time than just using print screen and pasting to this forum.

I took a look chance after researching the URL and looked at your screenshot. As I expected you have the comp panel resolution set to half and the magnification factor set to 100%. That explains everything. Also, your comp is non standard size (505 X 686) which means that you cannot turn that composition into video that other folks can watch. Video has standards that must be followed.

As I said before, you need to do some studying. Producing video requires some knowledge of the restrictions inherent in the format. Your comp will not properly render or show in a media player unless you use a lossless format, but lossless formats are not designed for real time playback so you loose again. If you plan to produce videos you need to spend about a week studying the basics and learning the software. Just poking around and experimenting is pretty much a waste of your time.