How to crop in After Effects
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There are two easy ways to crop in After Effects—we’ll take you through the steps below. There are also one or two other ways to apply cropping, but these are high-effort and require many steps. So, we won’t cover them here.
We tried some of these other methods but couldn’t get them to work. For example, the Track Matte feature. It worked for cropping out one layer above or below a Shape layer we drew, but it applied an Alpha mask effect to that layer. This means it completely altered the image (which can be useful in some cases, but not if you want to reveal the element with a mask animation).
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In this quick tutorial we’ll take you through the steps to crop an entire composition within a selection and cropping a single layer with a mask in After Effects. We’ll also show you how easy it is to crop your videos in Linearity Move using masking and image cropping.
Learn more about masking in After Effects.
Crop entire composition within a selection
We used After Effects CC on a desktop for this tutorial.
Open your After Effects Project and make sure you have your Composition selected.
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Click on the Region of Interest tool at the bottom of the Composition panel. It looks like a box within a box.
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Click and drag to create your area selection. If you’d like to start over, press Alt or Option on your keyboard and click on the Region of Interest icon again—this will reset the current selection.
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You can also move your selection (just make sure you’ve locked all your Layers in the Timeline, so you don’t accidentally move elements around).
You can check the Info section in the Properties panel on the right to set your exact sizing. But it’s quite tricky to create a pixel-perfect crop using the Region of Interest tool.
Once you’re happy with the crop area, go to Composition > Crop Comp to Region of Interest in the main menu. This will change your composition’s size.
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Crop layer within a mask shape
You may want to crop a section in your Composition layer to conceal or reveal certain elements. To do this, you can draw a mask shape.
Select the layer in the Timeline. Select the Pen tool from the toolbar at the top and draw a custom shape. You can also use the Shape tool to draw a defined shape, such as an ellipse or rectangle.
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Drawing a shape inside a layer automatically creates a mask you can adjust and animate to crop elements from your composition.
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There’s no easy way to mask several layers inside one shape in After Effects. If you draw a mask shape within a particular element layer, it will only work as a mask on that layer.
How to crop in Linearity Move
Cropping in After Effects is a complex and unintuitive process. And yet, the ability to crop animations and footage into different shapes is an essential feature set for motion graphics.
With Linearity Move, this process is way more intuitive and feels more like using design software —with powerful animation tools built in.
If you haven’t tried Linearity Move yet, get started for free below:
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Step 1
Draw a shape
We used Linearity Move on an iPad for this tutorial. We love animating on the go!
Switch to Design Mode and select the Shape Tool in the Toolbar on the left. Draw your crop shape.
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Step 2
Turn your shape into a mask
In the Layers Panel next to the Scene Timeline, move your Shape layer underneath all the other layers you’d like to crop.
Long-press your Shape layer and select Use as Mask.
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You can use the Node Tool to edit the shape’s paths and create interesting crop shapes for your animation.
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Now you can animate your video crop or keep animating your scene inside the mask area.
How to crop video footage in Linearity Move
You can enjoy the same ease of use when cropping imported video footage in your Linearity Move Projects.
Step 3
Select any video footage that you’ve added from the Library Tab. Tap on the Crop function under the Image section in the Style Tab. Crop your video footage by dragging the crop marks.
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Check out our full video cropping tutorial.
Animation made easy
In this tutorial, you learned two ways to crop in After Effects using the Region of Interest tool and masking. We also showed you how easy it is to do masking and cropping in Linearity Move.
Are you ready to switch over to powerful and easy-to-use animation software? If you haven’t tried Linearity Move yet—don’t miss out. Another benefit of signing up to Linearity Move is that it's seamlessly integrated with our design software Linearity Curve.
You can get started for free below or check out our special pricing for education, pros, and teams.
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Jumpstart your creative ideas with Linearity Curve and Linearity Move
Jumpstart your creative ideas with Linearity Curve and Linearity Move
You can also check out how Linearity Move compares to other After Effects alternatives.
Frequently asked questions
Sharné McDonald
Contributing Writer
Sharné is a contributing writer to the Linearity Blog. She has 10+ years' experience in graphic design and marketing and holds a Master's degree in Art Education.
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