To import a single SheerVideo QuickTime Movie (.mov) or QuickDraw Picture (.pct) into an Adobe After Effects project, either:

1. Grab the file icon, in the Finder, of the desired file of one of the following types:
   • Sheer QuickTime movie
     
   • Sheer QuickDraw Picture
     
2. Drag and drop it in one of the following locations:
   • on the application icon of Adobe After Effects in the Finder or on the Dock.
     

     
     

   • in the Project Window in Adobe After Effects.
     

3. See your imported SheerVideo QuickTime Movie or SheerVideo QuickDraw Picture file show up in your After Effects Project Window.

   

4. Proceed to set the Project Precision.

or

1. Select File > Import > File… in the menu bar of Adobe After Effects
   

to bring up the Import File dialog box.




2. Select one of the following items at the top of the Import File dialog box, in the Enable pop-up menu:
   • All Footage Files, to view all footage files that After Effects knows how to import;
     
   • QuickTime Movie, to restrict the selection to QuickTime Movie files;
     
   • PICT, to restrict the selection to QuickDraw Picture files.
     
3. Select the file icon, in the directory area of the Import File dialog box, of the desired file of one of the following types:
   • Sheer QuickTime Movie
     
   • Sheer QuickDraw Picture
     
4. Select Footage in the Import As pop-up menu at the bottom of the Import File dialog box.
   
5. Click the Open button at the bottom right of the Import File dialog box to dismiss the Import File dialog box and import the selected SheerVideo movie or picture into the project.
   

6. See your imported SheerVideo QuickTime Movie or SheerVideo QuickDraw Picture file show up in your After Effects Project Window.

   

7. Proceed to set the Project Precision.

Setting the Project Precision

In Adobe After Effects Professional only (as opposed to AE Standard), to set the project precision, either:

1. Option-click (in Mac OS) or Alt-click (in Windows) on the project-precision tool at the bottom of the Project Window to toggle the precision to one of the following values:
   • 8 bpc (for speed), for ordinary working compositions; or for final compositions that import only Sheer RGB[A] 8bf and other standard-precision sources, use only standard-precision effects, and are rendered to Sheer RGB[A] 8bf or other standard-precision output formats.
   • 16 bpc (for quality), for final compositions that include any imported sources in Sheer RGB[A] 10bf or any Sheer Y'CbCr format, or use any high-precision effects, or will be rendering to any high-precision output format; or for working compositions meetingn any of these criteria and needing the extra precision, for example to avoid Mach banding.

1. Select File > Project Settings… in the menu bar of Adobe After Effects,
   

to bring up the Project Settings dialog box.




2. Select one of the following items in the Depth pop-up menu at the bottom of the Project Settings dialog box:
   
   • 8 bpc (for speed), for ordinary working compositions; or for final compositions that import only Sheer RGB[A] 8bf and other standard-precision sources, use only standard-precision effects, and are rendered to Sheer RGB[A] 8bf or other standard-precision output formats.
   • 16 bpc (for quality), for final compositions that import sources in Sheer RGB[A] 10bf or any Sheer Y'CbCr format, or use any high-precision effects, or are rendered to Sheer RGB[A] 10bf or any other high-precision output format; or for working compositions meeting any of these criteria and needing the extra precision, for example to avoid Mach banding.
3. Click the OK button at the bottom of the Project Settings dialog box to confirm the project precision setting and dismiss the Project Settings dialog box.
   

Internally, Adobe After Effects represents all pixels as either RGB[A] 8bf or RGB[A] 16bf, depending on the project precision. For Sheer RGB[A] 8bf sources, you can set your After Effects Pro project to either 8 or 16 bits per channel. However, for Sheer RGB[A] 10bf sources and for Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8b or 10b sources, you need to set the project precision to 16 bits per channel to avoid information loss. SheerVideo uses Synchromy technology to convert Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8b sources to RGB[A] 9bf and Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10b sources to RGB[A] 12bf for After Effects Pro.

Note that you need to be using at QuickTime 5.0 or later for high-precision support. QuickTime 7.0 fixes a number of bugs critical for SheerVideo.