To do this, you can use the Content Aware Fill in After Effects. Open Content Aware Fill, select your background image, then just click Generate Fill Layer. This will automatically create a new layer to fill in the hole on the background. Create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions. Start a fire or make it rain. Animate a logo or character. With After Effects, the industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects software, you can take any idea and make it move. Minimum System Requirements: Operating System: Windows 10, Mac OS X (All), 10.12 Sierra. Created by Adobe Inc., After Effects is streamlined to seamlessly make visual effects and motion graphics for film, TV, video, and web. Users can rely on After Effects to add spinning words, rolling credits, and twirling titles. With this free special effects video editor, you can build awesome effects by combining videos and images.

Cover image via

Learn about methods you can use to animate your own photographs in After Effects. Free project file included.

There are many different ways to animate a 2D photograph. So, instead of animating one specific photo, let’s learn about the techniques that go into animating a photograph. Hopefully, afterward you’ll have a better idea about which methods will work best for your own photos.

Let’s start animating! (If you want to follow along, download the free project file!)

Download the Free Project Files

Click the button below to download the free pack of 2D Photo Animation Project Files. In the download, you’ll find everything you need to try out the techniques in the tutorial.

DOWNLOAD FREE 2D PHOTO ANIMATION PROJECT FILES

By downloading, you agree not to resell or redistribute these free assets.

Masking Photographs

Once you’ve decided what you’d like to animate in your photograph, you will likely need to mask it out. Masking out our subject allows us to separate them from the background. You can mask out your subject using the Pen Tool and tracing an outline around them.

When you do this, I recommend turning on the RotoBezier function, which will smooth the tracing line between each mask point. This will give the mask a more natural appearance.

While masking, zoom in as close as you can on your image, and work in short segments. This will speed up the masking process and make it easy to follow the outline of the subject.

How to Fill in Backgrounds

Once you’ve masked out your subject, you’ll need to fill in the area on the background where you removed them. (Otherwise, you’re left with a hole in the background!)

To do this, you can use the Content Aware Fill in After Effects. Open Content Aware Fill, select your background image, then just click Generate Fill Layer. This will automatically create a new layer to fill in the hole on the background.

If the results from Content Aware Fill are not optimal, you can also try using the Clone Stamp Tool to paint in the background. I also recommend applying a Camera Lens Blur effect on the background, if needed.

Creating Depth and Parallax

To create some depth with our 2D photo animation, all we need to do is keyframe the Scale of our layers. Objects closer to the camera should scale more over time than objects further away. This creates parallax, giving the illusion of depth on our 2D layers. For example: Scale your subject up 10% during the animation, but only scale the background up 5%.

Using the Puppet Tool

You can also add subtle movements to your subject layer using the Puppet Tool. Select the Puppet Tool and add pin points to your subject. You can then keyframe animation on those points over time. This creates the look of super slow motion. Be sure to use the Puppet Tool sparingly—less is usually more!

Accenting with Footage

By far the easiest way to animate your 2D photos is by accenting them with footage elements. These can be things like dust, light rays, and fog. A lot of these assets are also available for free!

Rocketstock has two freebie packs that work great. The first is their free Prism Bokeh Overlays. These are perfect for accenting holiday, luxury, or wedding photos.

The second free pack from Rocketstock is their Volumetric Light and Dust Overlays. These are perfect for landscapes, portraits, or dramatic photographs.

Finally, PremiumBeat also has a free pack of 4K Fog Overlays. All of these assets help add secondary movement, which will go a long way with your photo animations.

Interested in the royalty-free tracks we used to make this video? Give them another listen:

• “Ocean Tranquility” by Cymatix
• “Lo Fi Waves” by Origami Pigeon
• “Chilling in the West Indies” by Mattijs Muller
• “Lo Fi Beach Dawn” by Trending Music
• “Influencers” by FASSounds

Cover image via Diego Cervo.

Whether you are a professional or a beginner video editor, you may have envisioned a time when you are able to create special effects videos that equate to the Hollywood standards. Video effects implies videos with better looks and are colorful, hence the term special effects. Adding effects to your videos is one of the most reliable method to take them to the next level. Animations, transitions, filters, and dynamic text animation are just some of the many useful effects to add that wow feeling to your videos. To do this, you need the right special effects video editor that can get the work done.

• 1. Best Free Special Effects Video Editor for Everyone

Best Free Special Effects Video Editor for Everyone

iMyFone Filme is a free video editor with special effects that works well for both beginners and professionals. Explore the many features available for stunning creations. Freely download iMyFone Filme on Windows 10, 8, 8.1, and 7. Explore the many features available to edit your precious memories in a captivating manner.

iMyFone Filme Key Features:

• Rediscover your story in a whole new way and with minimal effort. You do not need any technical skills.

• Take advantage of a host of resources that allow you to add effects, transitions, text options, and audio.

• The fast video mode allows you to create magnetic videos for your events, from birthdays to weddings, fitness videos, and more.

• Keep in touch with the progress of your work with instant previews. Check out the effect of any new edit and whether you should keep it or undo.

Best Visual Effects Software for Compositing for Professionals

1 Nuke

The Nuke family comprises of an ecosystem of tools that are accessible globally and can be used by both large-scale and small-scale users. Whether you want to use it from a personal perspective or on a blockbuster project, Nuke can be relied on as one of the best free video editors for beginners to add special effects.

Speical Effects of Nuke:

• 2D visual effects

Nuke has over 200 creative nodes to effectively deliver on digital compositing. It features color correction, vector paint, rotoscope, keyers, and much more. The inclusion of a 2D tracker helps with the tracking and correction of difficult objects with ease.

• 3D visual effects

Nuke Studio has an integrated camera that replicates 2D camera motion using an animated 3D camera in order to accurately composite 2D/3D elements while keeping in touch with the original camera footage.

Pros of Nuke:

• Being part of the Nuke family gives it access to the powerful node-based pipelinet

• Well-designed interface for fast and easy workflow

• Can deliver as high as 4K quality

• Supports up to 200 creative nodesw

Cons of Nuke:

• Access to some functions is cost-based

2 After Effects

Created by Adobe Inc., After Effects is streamlined to seamlessly make visual effects and motion graphics for film, TV, video, and web. Users can rely on After Effects to add spinning words, rolling credits, and twirling titles. With this free special effects video editor, you can build awesome effects by combining videos and images.

Speical Effects of After Effects:

• 2D image into a 3D video

The parallax effect is popular After Effects feature that fakes 3D. With this feature, a 2D image layers are separated and moved independent of one another.

• Pull someone in a picture

When you first see this effect, you are sure to doubt whether you can do it. Luckily, After Effects provides an easy way to implement it, with a step by step guide on how to do it, you will be surprised by what you can do. The fact that it requires rotoscoping and careful selection of parameters, only professionals are able to pull this off.

• Frozen action scene

Anyone who sees a frozen action scene can have their mind blown. You can create this if you know the right tricks to use. Start by shooting several individual scenes, then mask some of the clips using After Effects and include them in the scene.

• Lightning effects

Create an incredible and dynamic electricity effect that is more real than fake using the built-in Advanced Lightning feature.

Pros of After Effects:

• Can be used for composition, visual effects, and motion graphics in a more robust manner

• Seamlessly add visual effects

• Helps with making 2D animations and titles

• Layer multiple visual footages over each other and blend them with ease

Free After Effects Video Editing Software

Cons of After Effects:

• Not a true 3D animation program

• Consumes a lot of RAM and may freeze slower computers

3 HitFilm Pro

An industry-leading software that features the powerful chroma key alongside text and particle tools. Explore the wide variety of specialized effects to enhance your film’s visuals to come up with memorable and awesome scenes.

Speical Effects of HitFilm Pro:

• Lightning and electricity

The program’s lightning generator can create the likes of Harry Potter wand effects, exploding starship systems, and give actors the ability to throw electric bolts.

• Procedural fire

Would you like to build your own Towering Inferno? HitFilm Pro is the right tool for that. It augments stock footage with as many small bonfires as you want to yield a massive fire. Perfectly adds to your production value.

• 3D muzzle flashes

Designed to complement any action scene, the 3D muzzle flash engine is enriched with customizable effects that you will find useful.

• Distortion effects

The distortion effect is built around four concepts: Energy, Heat, Fluid, and Smoke Distortion. Compliment your props and environment by adding industrial grit of hot proton beams, burning fires, and jet exhausts.

Pros of HitFilm Pro:

• User-friendly interface for excellent editing

• Creates powerful special effects for professional results

• A host of learning resources on how best to make the most of the programs

Cons of HitFilm Pro:

• Non-existent workflow

• Does not support standard formats such as Final Cut XML

4 Fusion

The Fusion model of operation is such free special effects video editors who have had their hands on After Effects can seamlessly use this program. Whereas both are often contrasted against each other, each is effective in its own domain. Fusion 3D node is a dependable interface for importing 3D scenes and models. The free video editor software has many effects, tools, and filters that yield lifelike visual effects.

Speical Effects of Fusion:

• Compositing

Fusion supports the most basic step in visual effects, that is, adding one image on top of another the blending them. You can easily do this in the program because only two tools are involved – Merge tool and Merge 3D tool.

• Keying and Mattes

With Fusion, you are able to remove green, blue, and other colors from the background. Its Keyers help with this task.

• Rotoscoping

Brilliantly isolate objects or actors from other elements in clips. The B-spline and Bezier tools help in drawing, tracking, and animating custom shapes.

• 3D Particles

The 3D particle generator introduces you to a whole new world of sparkling, swirling, and magnetic effects.

Pros of Fusion:

• Works just as promised

• Usable on the go without requiring any complicated setup

• Completes VFX and Film at a professional level

Cons of Fusion:

• Lacks advanced tracking features

• The connection with Resolve sometimes feels a bit weak

Best Visual Effects Software for 3D Modeling

1 Blender

When working on a 3D project like the development of a 3D game, you will definitely require to build 3D assets for successful completion. That involves creating everything from trash cans, fences, buildings, and many others. Blender presents itself as one of the many applications available for this purpose. The free and open-source 3D suite for your project.

Speical Effects of Blender:

• Compositing

The built-in compositor is an effective way to post-produce renders while still on Blender. The compositor includes: render-layer support, multi-threading, compositing images, and videos, and rendering OpenEXR files.

• Motion tracking

The production-ready camera included in Blender and the object tracking feature facilitates the importing of raw clips, tracking it, masking areas, and reconstructing camera movements. With this, you accomplish everything in-house instead of switching programs.

• Modeling

Blender has an array of tools to create, transform, edit, and sculpt your models. The tools include N-Gon support, fast workflow, python scripting, and grid and bridge fill.

• Rendering and beyond

The unbiased rendering engine yields powerful and ultra-realistic rendering. Thanks to Cycles, the program’s production render engine, you receive multi-GPU support, multi-core CPU, and unidirectional path tracing.

• Animation and rigging

Turn your characters into impressive animations using blender's animation features like sound synchronization, Non-Linear Animation faster poses, and character animation pose editor.

Pros of Blender:

• Incorporates all relevant tools for in-house project completion

• Shortcuts for streamlined workflow

• Huge community of enthusiasts, hence, readily available support

Cons of Blender:

• It has a steep learning curve as you relearn and get accustomed to a new interface.

2 Maya

Maya is an industry-standard 3D program created by Autodesk. It is one of the most popular programs in this area, with its first version having come out in 1998 before getting acquired by Autodesk in 2005. It is known to have played a role in the creation of the 2000 film Dinosaur, Harry Potter, and Transformers.

Speical Effects of Maya:

• Fire effect

With the Fire effect, you are able to emit fire from several objects: NURBS curve, Lattice points, polygonal surface, nParticle object, and Number of CVs.

• Fluid effect

The Fluid effect helps to simulate and render fluid motion. It is required for creating 3D atmospheric, space, pyrotechnic, and liquid effects. You have the option to use Fluid Effectssolvers or fluid animated textures in Maya.

• Fireworks

Easily and quickly create Fireworks effects. With this effect, all that you need to do is to build several rockets that fly up, leaving a trail behind. Whereas the effect randomly chooses the colors to use, you can customize these according to your needs.

• Lightning

Create a bolt of lightning between locators or between two or more objects. The lightning bolt has soft body curves and extruded surfaces to be rendered. One thing about this lighting is that after it is created, it cannot be changed.

Pros of Maya:

• Generally accepted as a leading software at animation

• Motion-capture handling

• Applies modelling layers to its 3D modelling

• Paint Effects to create 3D effects when drawing freehand

Cons of Maya:

• Has one of the most dreaded learning curves

• The cumbersome node editor can easily discourage you

• May have compatibility issues, requiring numerous plugin installations.

After Effects Editing Software

3 3Ds Max

Previously called 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, 3Ds Max can be relied on as an effective tool for professionally modeling, creating animations, and rendering. It effectively makes 3D animations, interactive games, models, and visual effects for entertainment purposes. Thanks to the inverse kinematics feature, 3Ds Max breathes life into your characters.

Speical Effects of 3Ds Max:

• Ambient Occlusion

A way to block light using some objects to create dark crevices and setup bright areas that are exposed to the environment.

• Rounded Edges

Sometimes computer imagery may seem unrealistic, mainly due to edges of the objects. 3Ds Max adds rounded edges effect to imagery to make them more realistic.

Pros of 3Ds Max:

• Gets it right when it comes to programming and customization

• The maxscript is relatively easy for artists to learn

• Contains ultra-convenient edit poly modifier

Cons of 3Ds Max:

• Still suffers from undiscovered bugs that Autodesk is yet to fully deal with

• The license fees are on the high-end

• Steep learning curve

4 Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D has some great some features that you can explore for creating visual effects. As a perfect tool for 3D artists, its results are not only fast and hassle-free but also breathtaking. Its top reliability makes it suitable for fast-paced 3D production. The program seamlessly integrates with After Effects for more appealing results.

Speical Effects of Cinema 4D:

• C4D R20 for tracking

C4D features a motion-tracking workflow which has undergone improvement over time based on the feedback received. Some improvements to expect include 2D Camera Navigation Mode, 2D Tracking, and Virtual Keyframes.

• Lighting

Add lanes and flares to revamp your production.

• Explosion

The TFD plugin is popularly used to create explosion effects

Pros of Cinema 4D:

Adobe After Effects Video Editing software, free download

• Extremely powerful visual effects tool

• Easy to learn

• Yields breathtaking results

• Works for both beginners and seasoned professionals

• Has an intuitive interface

• Widespread usage in the 3D community makes it a stable program

After Effects Free Download For Windows 10

Cons of Cinema 4D:

• Its free trial is for a limited period

Conclusion

After Effects Editing Software

The introduction of special effects technologies has led to not only stunning productions but also added the element of realism. Whereas earlier special effects were achieved through special camera lenses, today, this is done mostly via the appropriate program. These programs are available in a variety, from simple to complex free special effects video editors that both beginners and professionals can use to advanced ones that are suitable only for professional editors. iMyFone Filme seamlessly meets the special effects needs of both beginners and professional artists. Try it now and get a 1-month license for free!

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