Layered photoshop files – Apple Motion 3 User Manual
Page 209
Chapter 2
Creating and Managing Projects
209
Because image sequences have been around for so long (before QuickTime, they were
the only way to store video on a computer), they remain the lowest-common-
denominator file format for exchanging video across many different editing and
compositing applications. While QuickTime is increasingly used to exchange video clips
between platforms, image sequences are still in common use, especially in film
compositing.
As with QuickTime video clips, you can mix image sequences of different formats, using
different frame sizes, pixel aspect ratios, frame rates, and interlacing. For more
information, see “
Important:
Any imported image sequence must contain three or more digits of
padding, for example, imagename.0001.tif.
Collapsing Image Sequences
The Show Collapsed Image Sequences button at the bottom of the File Browser allows
you to display image sequences as a single object, rather than as the collection of
individual files that exist on your disk. Image sequences that you import into your
project in this way are treated as single objects everywhere they appear in your
project.
Note: You can turn this feature off in case you have numbered image files that aren’t
supposed to be used as an image sequence. For example, pictures taken with digital
cameras often have numbered filenames that can be mistaken for an image sequence.
Layered Photoshop Files
You can also import layered Photoshop files. Many motion graphics professionals
create layouts in Photoshop, where they paint and manipulate all the graphical
elements they’ll use to create a static composition. Once that’s done, the resulting
layered file can be imported into Motion to be animated, along with other imported
and Motion-generated objects, to create the final project.
When importing Photoshop files, you can choose to import:
 All the layers merged together as a single object
 All layers as individual objects, nested together within a group
 An individual layer as a single object
Click to collapse or expand image sequences.