Layer styles are a totally valid approach in Photoshop, but
they do complicate interchange with Ae. I'd love to see
Photoshop take a more�procedural, less destructive approach,
but I wonder how much a big conceptual redesign like that
would upset existing users.
If the Ae team promoted layer styles in the render order
(though who knows what this would break), or if they added
effects for each layer style and provided translation upon PSD
import, that might help -- but I think Ae and Ps have
sometimes subtly different approaches that are just plain hard
to bridge.
When animating PSDs designed elsewhere, I invariably end up
doing a bit of prep work in Ps: at a minimum, re-organizing
elements in Ps, collapsing groups into smart objects.
Sometimes, I do a lot of prep work: larger-scale
re-organizatoin, more extensive use of smart objects to
contain layer styles, masks, etc., renaming the layers to
contain blending or positioning information, using the Export
Layers to Files script, and re-compositing the outputs in Ae.
Personally, I vastly prefer to do design work in Ae
rather than Ps, even for stills. In my view, Ae's
parametric/procedural approach trumps Ps's destructive
approach (smart objects, smart filters, and layer styles
notwithstanding), and I find it vastly easier to generate
new design elements from scratch in Ae. Sometimes this makes
extra work for me at the end if I need to deliver a layered
PSD, but I like the flexibility upfront.
Basically, my rule of thumb is Ps for heavy paint work
(or when mandated by the client) and Ae for everything else,
but note that I'm posting on an After Effects list and not a
Photoshop list :)
--
Walter Soyka
