Adobe®


After Effects® CS3 Professional Read Me


Welcome to Adobe® After Effects® CS3 Professional. This document contains late-breaking product information, updates, and troubleshooting tips not covered in the After Effects CS3 Professional documentation.

Minimum system requirements
Install your software
Uninstall your software
Purchase from a trial
Electronic licensing
Registration information
Known issues
Customer care
Other resources

Minimum system requirements

Windows®

Mac OS

* Online services, including, but not limited to, Adobe® Stock Photos and Adobe® Acrobat® Connect™, may not be available in all countries, languages, and currencies. Availability of services is subject to change. Use of online services is governed by terms and conditions of a separate agreement and may be subject to additional fees. For details, visit www.adobe.com.

Install your software

  1. Before you install, close all applications currently running on your system—including other Adobe applications, Microsoft Office applications, and browser windows.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Windows:
    • Insert the DVD in your drive, and follow the on-screen instructions. If the installer does not launch automatically, navigate to the Adobe CS3 folder found at the root level on your disk and double-click Setup.exe to start the installation process.
    • If you downloaded the software from the web, open the folder, navigate to the Adobe CS3 folder, double-click Setup.exe, and then follow the on-screen instructions.

    • Mac:
    • Insert the DVD in your drive, and follow the on-screen instructions. If the installer does not launch automatically, navigate to the application folder found at the root level on your disk and double-click Setup Mac OS® to start the installation process.
    • If you downloaded the software from the web, open the folder, navigate to the application folder, double-click Setup, and then follow the on-screen instructions.

Note: In order to install additional components or reinstall your software after your original installation, you will need access to the original installer (CD, DVD or the download from the web). Before you begin additional installations or reinstallations, please make sure the installer is in the same drive or location it was during the original installation.

Uninstall your software

  1. Before you uninstall, close all applications currently running on your system—including other Adobe applications, Microsoft Office applications, and browser windows.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • In Windows XP, open the Windows Control Panel and double-click Add or Remove Programs. Select the product that you want to uninstall, click Change/Remove, and then follow the on-screen instructions.

    • In Windows Vista, open the Windows Control Panel and double-click Programs and Features. Select the product that you want to uninstall, click Uninstall/Change, and then follow the on-screen instructions.

    • IMPORTANT: Mac OS has new uninstall functionality. DO NOT drag applications to the trash to uninstall them. To safely uninstall on Mac OS X, double-click the product installer in Applications/Utilities/Adobe Installers. Authenticate as an administrator, then select Remove Components and follow the on-screen instructions.

Purchase from a trial

• Choose Activate from the Help menu and follow the on-screen instructions.

Note: If you decide to purchase a different product than you installed for the trial, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the software. For example, if you download and install a trial of Adobe® Creative® Suite 3 Design Premium, but you decide to purchase only Adobe® Illustrator®, you will need to uninstall the trial version of the Suite before installing the standalone version of Illustrator that you purchased. For more detailed information, visit www.adobe.com/go/tbinfo

Volume licensing customers cannot purchase from a trial directly. After evaluating a Creative Suite 3 product, you must uninstall the trial and install the product using the volume licensing media and serial number. Refer to the “Uninstall your software” section of this document for instructions.  Please contact your reseller or authorized Adobe licensing center to place an order for a volume license.  To find a reseller in your area, go to http://partners.adobe.com/resellerfinder/na/reseller.jsp.

Electronic licensing

Adobe software may include electronic license (e-license) management technology to ensure compliance with the Product License Agreement. When present, this technology prompts you to verify the license of your product within 30 days after you start it for the first time. If prompted, verification is mandatory.

The on-screen prompt may ask you to activate the software. This verification process does not collect, transmit, or use any personally identifiable information. To learn more, visit the Adobe web site at http://www.adobe.com/activation.

Activate software:
  1. If the Activation dialog box is not already open, choose Help > Activate.
  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.
    Note: If you want to install the product on a different computer, you must first deactivate the software on your computer. To deactivate, choose Help > Deactivate.

Registration information

When you install your software, be sure to register to get up-to-date product information, training, newsletters and invitations to Adobe events and seminars. You will also receive a complimentary benefit such as the Hypatia Sans font and great discounts on training.

Known issues

Please refer to Adobe Support for additional late-breaking information and known issues for all Creative Suite 3 applications.

Audio
Changing the sample frequency of a project may cause MP3 audio to become garbled or play back as silence. If this occurs, delete the .cfa files in your media cache location. The media cache location is specified in the After Effects preferences.

Color Management
If you used DPX Scene and DPX Theater color profiles in the color profile converter in AE 7.0, they will not update to the new equivalent profiles in After Effects CS3 (Kodak 5218/7218 Printing Density and Kodak 2383 Theater Preview) automatically. Instead, they will be listed as Embedded. You can specify the new profiles manually. However, this will result in a slight rendering change in After Effects CS3 relative to the old profiles. If, in After Effects 7.0, you assigned the DPX Theater and DPX Scene profiles to footage in the Interpret Footage dialog box or specified these profiles in Proof Setup in the View menu, they will be updated to the new profiles in AE CS3 automatically. Also, please note that Proof Colors + Proof Setup in AE 7.0 have been changed to Output Simulation in AE CS3.

Expressions
After Effects 7.0 projects that use the random() expression may render differently in CS3. If this is a problem for you, open the project in 7.0 and use Convert Expression to Keyframes.

File Formats and Codecs
HDV files rendered from After Effects to Apple HDV QuickTime codecs drop frames when played back in Final Cut Pro. Render using the Lossless codec to work around this QuickTime issue.

The Blackmagic MJPEG AVI codec reverses the field order when imported on Mac. To work around, reverse the field order or check with Blackmagic Design for an update.

Some footage (.aif, .wav, and .wma) now plays back in the After Effects Footage viewer rather than the native viewer.

MP4 import and export is not working properly. Please check for an update to After Effects CS3 to address these issues.

After Effects CS3 will convert certain file types to improve performance. These converted files are stored in the media cache. By default, the media cache is located on the boot drive and it can get rather large. If the boot drive has limited free space, you should specify an alternate drive. See the After Effects Help for information about changing the location of your media cache.

Flash
After Effects cannot import audio in .swf files.

In order to import text, glyphs must be embedded in the .swf file. Device text is not imported.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Easy Ease (F9) and Easy Ease Out (Cmd+Shift+F9) do not work on the Mac unless Exposé has been turned off. On MacBook systems, you must also turn on Use the F1-F12 keys to control software features in the Keyboard system preferences.

Layer Styles
If OpenGL interactive mode is on, layer styles will not update until the mouse button is released when changing properties or scrubbing the timeline. Layer styles are never visible when in OpenGL-Always On mode.

Layer styles do not work properly on adjustment layers.

Layers with layer styles applied do not cast 3D shadows.

Layer styles do not animate smoothly in some situations. In those situations, use effects instead.

OpenGL
On Mac OS, OpenGL is not supported at this time. Please see http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_openglsupport for current information about OpenGL support.

Plug-in Support
After Effects can not run PowerPC plug-ins on Intel-based Macs. The workaround is to run After Effects under Rosetta. Also, check with the plug-in vendor to see if they have an updated version of the plug-in.

Customer care

Customer Service
Adobe Customer Service provides assistance with product information, sales, registration, and other non-technical issues. To find out how to contact Adobe Customer Service, please visit Adobe.com for your region or country and click on Contact.

Support Plan Options and Technical Resources
If you require technical assistance for your product, including information on free and paid support options and troubleshooting resources, more information is available at http://www.adobe.com/go/support/. Outside of North America, go to http://www.adobe.com/go/intlsupport/. Free troubleshooting resources include the Adobe support knowledgebase, Adobe user-to-user forums and more.

If you are having any issues with installing or uninstalling any of your Creative Suite 3 applications, please try rebooting your system prior to contacting Support.

Other resources

Documentation
Order printed documentation at www.adobe.com/go/buy_books.

Online Resources
Adobe Design Center
Developer Center
User Forums
Training
Adobe Certification Program




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