For your final compositions, you need your results to be as accurate as possible: perfect - so you need a perfectly lossless codec. And if your input and|or output formats don't match the pixel formats that After Effects can handle, you need a codec capable of perfectly lossless conversion, which only Synchromy provides. But you'd still like the final compositions to run fast and be compact.

When using the appropriate Sheer codec corresponding to a given pixel format, SheerVideo is always perfectly lossless.

RGB[A] Sources and Targets

If your sources and targets are in RGB[A] 8bf or RGB[A] 10bf formats, you should use Sheer RGB[A] 8bf or Sheer RGB[A] 10bf, respectively, for fast perfectly lossless throughput with After Effects, with the project precision set to 8bpc or 16bpc, respectively:

Sheer RGB[A] 8bf → After Effects 8bpc → Sheer RGB[A] 8bf

Sheer RGB[A] 10bf → After Effects 16bpc → Sheer RGB[A] 10bf

fast lossless RGB[A] workflows for final compositions

Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] Sources and Targets

If your sources and targets are in a Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4] or Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:4:4[:4] format, you should use Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4] or Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:4:4[:4], respectively, with your project set to 16bpc, for lossless throughput with After Effects. However, because of the time required for Synchromy lossless color conversion, the encoding and decoding in these workflows are generally slower than real time. Note that in these workflows, out-of-range Y'CbCr[A] values are limited to the RGB[A] space, just as they would be without SheerVideo; however, in-range colors are converted more accurately with Synchromy than by any other method, and all in-range pixels untouched by After Effects filters will end up identical to the originals.

Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4] → After Effects 16bpc → Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4]

Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:4:4[:4] → After Effects 16bpc → Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:4:4[:4]

lossless Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4] workflow for final compositions

Y'CbCr[A] 4:2:2[:4] Sources and Targets

If your sources and targets are in a Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] or Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:2:2[:4] format, you should use Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] or Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:2:2[:4], respectively, with your project set to 16bpc with After Effects. As with the Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] workflows, these are not in general real-time. Moreover, because of the chroma resampling in going from Y'CbCr[A] 4:2:2[:4] to RGB[A] 4:4:4[:4] and back, these workflows are not perfectly lossless, although, thanks to Synchromy, the Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] ↔ RGB[A] 4:4:4[:4] part of the conversion is perfectly reversible.

Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] → After Effects 16bpc → Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 2:2:4[:4]

Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 2:2:4[:4] → After Effects 16bpc → Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 2:2:4[:4]

minimal-loss Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 2:2:4[:4] workflow for final compositions