The short answer is no – layered Photoshop is it. When that fails, you have to manually mimic this with single TIFF file exports of layers from Photoshop and rebuild and layer in AE.

 

This is a huge failing and the number one frustration of AE (for me, obviously not that many people are trying to photoanimation with gigapixel images) -  and frankly, I’ve given up on feature request and bug reports.

 

My film’s workflow depends on this and I have huge 2 to 50 GB Photoshop files with layers to bring in. Obviously, all sorts of problems from performance (lots of RAM per thread and SSD cache helps somewhat to ease the pain) and the fact AE does not import PSB files.

And even if it did, the damn frame buffer, long may I curse its name, means I have to tile everything (manually as no one has ever managed to write a script to do this) manually and reassemble.

 

Right now I have 6 GB layer PSB file that I have tile 8 layers, reassemble and re blend mode in AE just to get around AE’s limitations. I lay awake in bed at night dreaming of just be able to import a file without two to three days of work.

 

Of course, I do realize it’s not a common workflow, but I’m still amazed that in a 4K/8K world, the core engine for processing large bitmap layers -  frame buffer, Photoshop Engine, PSB support – it basically stuck at CS5. Evidently beyond me, no one else really must complain/feature request/bug report this.

 

On the flipside, if it were easy, then I might have more competition in the 6K/8K space photoanimation film biz J

 

stephen van vuuren

336.202.4777

 

http://www.insaturnsrings.com/

http://www.sv2dcp.com/

http://www.sv2studios.com/

 

A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

–Stanley Kubrick

 

From: After Effects Mail List [mailto:AE-List@media-motion.tv]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2014 12:49 PM
To: After Effects Mail List
Subject: [AE] Alternative to layered .psd import?

 

Bringing up a point from Roei's thread - I'm currently working on a project importing lots of layered drawings from artrage 4. I export them from artrage as .psd's and can import them ok, but the performance overhead of multiple layered .psds isn't great. Are there any other files that can be imported to AE with layers as a composition? Why doesn't AE support layered .tifs? I tried converting them in photoshop but no luck. It seems like a no brainer, as the performance demands of layered .psds are pretty high. I just want a basic, layered high quality image file to work with, that doesn't need its own rendering translation engine per layer. That being said is there any advice or alternative from folks who routinely work with lots of .psds? 
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VFX & Motion Graphic Artist
teddygage dot com