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Adobe After Effects CS4 review

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Verdict

A selection of powerful improvements - but you won't get the most out of this upgrade unless it's used alongside other Adobe apps.

Review Date: 11 Nov 2008

Reviewed By: James Morris

Price when reviewed: £880 (£1,012 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
4 stars out of 6

Ease of Use
4 stars out of 6

Interoperation

We have already mentioned how After Effects can now export layers to Flash Professional. This is achieved by exporting to XFL, with options to use FLV or PNG rasterisation. With FLV, the advantage is that the footage isn't recompressed when output from Flash. Basic positional transformations are also preserved, and can be edited further in Flash Professional.

It's this interoperation with the other Adobe CS4 applications that's key to the CS4 upgrade of After Effects and it marks a major step forward, but it's a double-edged sword. The improvements are impressive - particularly the inclusion of Mocha - and ensure it remains the king of compositors, but many of the most significant new abilities will be lost on those buying it on its own or simply upgrading from a previous version. It's just as well the upgrade price is relatively cheap.

Author: James Morris

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