Not really ground-breaking but here is a simple plug-in we created to allow you to copy a frame from After Effects to the system clipboard so you can paste it in a program like Photoshop. This saves you from having to render a frame to a file and then reopen it and apparently it is not a new idea but we made it 64-bit and cs5 compatible if anyone needs it.
I was doing a lot of Photoshop work with stuff from After Effects and using this plug-in saved a lot of time getting screenshots into my PS canvas.
Install the plug-in to your AE plug-in folder. For CS3 and CS4, use the 32-bit version for CS5, use the 64-bit version. There should be a .aex for windows and a .plugin for mac users too.
Once installed you can navigate to a comp and then choose export, and select Copy Frame to Clipboard. Then open image application and choose, Edit-Paste!
Any bugs, post them here and we’ll try to fix them.
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Thanks! This will be faster than rendering the frame.
Cool. Thanks for sharing! Downloading it right now.
cool..thanks…
thanks for sharing !!!
Awesome job.
Optical flares is the best for space art
and this will save me some time.
Terima Kasih banyak atas semua tutorialnya, .
Sangat membantu saya..
translate :
Thank you very much for all tutorials..
very helpful for me.
thanks^^
This is quite handy an came in a good moment!
Thanks for sharing.
Awesome! My question is, how is the frame compressed?
Anything that can help shorten time is always a great help. Thanks AK!
GREAT..really needed this
well that was nice of you
Does the plug-in work with PPC macs?
WOW just tryed it works great thanks AK.
Amazing! I was working on a few project where I was rendering flares from Ae into Ai. I’m so glad you guys came up with this…Its saving me all kinds of time. THANKS!!
Great idea ! Thanks a lot !
COOL IT WORKS THIS IS GOING TO SAVE ME A LOT OF TIME!
thanks VC
Thanks for the plug-in, Andrew! Cool … Actually saves time. Very comfortable. But the best of all is that you do not leave us without our Master:-)
Awesome idea~ It does save some time~ Thanks~
No, it’s not ground breaking, but this is still amazing! This will be such a time saver! Thanks Andrew!
Very, Very , very useful Andrew! I will use always for export images and frame for my website! Thanks!
Real timesaver ! thx
Great idea! Was looking for something like that for a long time!
You get a big wet kiss on the cheek for that one from me!
Thanks!
Really something that AE needed, I am sure they will make it native in there next update
Hi Andrew, i have a question about your new plugin: when i use it to export a frame with a shape layer the borders of the elements are crisp and have no smoth aspect like i see in AE. I don’t know if i am doing something wrong or what. Thanks
thanks Andrew! that’s cool! good job. thanks to all VCP team!
ahh thats handy
It does not work with my Photoshop CS5…? I can’t edit/past
But it works with Paint.
Same problem as Moebius (great name btw!: Copy to Clipboard and then try to Paste in Photoshop but it’s grayed out as if nothing is in the clipboard – if I go to Paint it pastes just fine.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks a lot! Save time increase creativity
And about the linear space in AE, how to obtain the good colors space in Photoshop?
Thanks to VC team!
Thanks Andrew !
Please make a tutorial about: “how to create a plug-ins?”
this is so useful !
Nice tool. But How does it work with 16/32 bit Projectsettings in AE? Do I have to setup my PSD as 16/32 bit and then just paste it, or can it only transfer 8 bit?
thx for the help. u may not know it but on my CV it says VideoCopilot college that is where i studied.
Thanks Andrew!!!
Good Job!!!
Thanks, anything that saves me time is always appreciated—-now if you guys could get to work on robots to do my projects for me there MAY be a christmas card in there for you—–its not a bribe—-just an incentive.
tanks andrew
good job
COOLLL!!!! Thanks Andrew!!! IS A VERY USEFUL TOOL!!
Fantastic!
Working fine here!
Very very nice!
I noticed it uses the preview window, so for the best result you should set the preview window in “Full” mode.
Sorry for double posting i forget too say something important in my older message.
THIS IS GREAT too share your work with friends on MSN. You won’t have to render it and all things, you know?
Just what i currently need. Saves me “some” time. Thanks
mac users can press shift cmd 4
then drag the area to create a still of the desktop. shift cmd 3 will do the whole screen. their .png if anyone is wondering.
andrew thank you very much for this plugin would really be very useful, for a long time I needed something like this to work, greetings from Venezuela and looking forward to your new tutorials.
Cool stuff…Thx…do it work with Premiere too?
Dude! You just saved me so much time!!
Awesome. This is definitely a great little plug-in and definitely will be handy for future stuff. Great timesaver. Thanks Andrew!
You are an excellent team, the world will give you back what you are giving.
Thank you from Spain!
i was just looking for something like this 2 weeks ago. thanks.
Great. Just tried it. Works like a charm! SWEET!!
I have to ask again: But How does it work with 16/32 bit Projectsettings in AE? Do I have to setup my PSD as 16/32 bit and then just paste it, or can it only transfer 8 bit?
I was looking for something like this about a month ago!
Glad I have it now! Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks Andrew. I have been wanting AE to add this feature ever since my first AE purchase. I wish they would put this in AE permanently. THANKS!
As for the 32 bit /8 bit. I think it is a BMP screen pixels. I think that makes it 8-bit but it could be 16. Definitely not 32-bit. Just think, what ever the pixels are currently at, that is what is copied.
Awesome
that’ll be really useful when re-creating time lapse footage
Cheers AK!!!
Saving time is essential, thanks!
Thank you, very helpfull.
cool . thanks lol
Thanks andrew,
great little add on. Cheers Mate
Hi VC Team
Thx for sharing, it looks great!
Just one request : the possibility to keep the alpha channel when exporting in the clipboard.
I don’t know if it’s technicaly possible.
Anyway, thanks for all
Thanks you sooo much for this !
Brilliant. Thanks Andrew, some of these little tools are as invaluable as the big paid ones.
Thanks Andrew! I’ve been using Copy Image plugin for a long time and was very sad to see that there was no plans to update it for CS5.
On a side note C2C2 is a bit buried in menus… perhaps if possible make it part of edit sub-menu?
Also it would be nice if there was a way for alpha channel to be transferred in one go, but I guess we are asking tooo much
Once again Thanks Andrew & Team.
Great Job! Works perfectly!
This Plugin works perfectly! Nice Job!
u r really cool ……..u r creating helper to bust our cabalility thnx a ton ………..for such a cool plugin…….
What a Great Stuff Mr.Kramer…Thanks A Lot For This Special Gift:)
So… Is this that “Dragon” plug-in we’ve been waiting for?
Nice plug!
Maby a bug? When I set Working Space (SDTV PAL 16-235)the picture will not have the correct gamma. Have set the correct Color Management mode for the imported footage. Still need to render a still to make it work with Color Management.
Wow, normally I would have to set up the comp to only render the one frame I want in an image sequence. It is very annoying but this is a brilliant solution to that problem. Thanks heaps.
just what i was thinking about. thank you andrew
i have a question. does it export with transparency or not. thanks
but thanks! again VC
thanks man this cool
Nice, but the other way around would be even sweeter. When its possible to paste stuff directly from clipboard in the AE project > photoshop like!
I translated this blog to Farsi language and Posted on my website.
Please check this out: http://www.edriscg.com/post-51.aspx
This is good … very good … maby You guys from VC could take it to the next level and asign keyboard shortcut for this plugin and make things even faster … for example if we press CTRL+PrntScrn that combination could execute this unique plugin
Awesome! thank you. I just used it. What a time saver!
Simply awesome!
Thanks!!
Doesn’t work… lol. no seriously, I downloaded your glow tut and exported a full resolution frame to show you what is going wrong. here is the example.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44742598@N02/5220864013/
Hey!
First off thanks alot for sharing this!
Tried it out today but it didn’t really work for me.
Don’t know if I’m doing something wrong but here’s the result:
VC plugin: http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/2733/vcplugin.jpg
Original image: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8308/originalj0.jpg
Any clues?
As we say here, this plug is wild.
Thanks
Actually Adobe could make this function happen.. by holding SHIFT key and pressing “take snapshot” button. That would be logical.
Hey, nice plugin
Very useful plugin actually. This just started saving me quite a bit of time on a project I’m working on. Thanks!
i like you very much andrew i like your all tutorials
thank u
Great help! Why is this not included in CS5?
Cool, didn’t see this before the ‘After Effects for Photoshop work’ post. I always use AE for my PS work, so this is very handy, instead of having to set up the render format and everything for a single frame
Thanks VC(p)
Great Man great stuff,
Many Thanks
Thanks for all to whole videocopilot staff,
and greetings from Sardinia, Mediterranean sea. ^_^
Wow, nice!! I was amazed ObviouxFX stopt making the plugin for CS5!!
Hi,thanks for the useful plug-in,now I got a problem about it.I import a 1600×1200 jpeg image into AE,when I tried to use the plug-in,I pasted it in to PS or other software,I can only get a half-size image(800×600),and I don’t know why,I changed the preview size and it still didn’t work.I’m not sure If this is a bug,hope there might be some solution to it,thanks again:D
Hello Andrew does this plug-in work for cs5.5, if i try to copy in cs5.5 AE, the system hangs, why does this happen ?
Hi, Andrew
small tip but very useful save time to make render
its AWESOME.
Hi Andrew, thanks for the plug in. so I made a comp, with a picture and i made a distortion so when i export to PS it’s open a black color inside the new layer, did i something wrong ? ( I have production premium cs5.5) Thanks!!
Thank you Andrew.
This is what I was looking for!
I dont know but it dose not work for me
(i have AE CS5.5)
never mind it now works
Thank you !!
I have been really missing obviousfx copy image plugin since I upgraded to CS5 !
THAT’S GREAT!!!