Copy clips from Premiere to After Effects

Copying assets from Premiere to Adobe After Effects lets you move clips into compositions for advanced motion graphics and visual effects work while maintaining timeline edits, effects, and animation.

After Effects automatically converts Premiere assets into layers and copies source footage to its Project panel. Compatible effects transfer with their settings and keyframes intact. For ongoing collaboration between applications without manual copying, consider using Adobe Dynamic Link. Dynamic Link creates live connections that update automatically when you modify the source composition.

After Effects supports the most common Premiere assets, including video clips, audio tracks, color mattes, still images, and nested sequences. Photoshop files retain their layer information when copied.

Copy assets to After Effects

The pasted assets appear as the topmost layers in the After Effects Timeline panel, positioned at the composition's current time.

What transfers between applications

Most Premiere clip properties convert to equivalent After Effects layer properties. Motion and Opacity values become Transform properties, maintaining keyframe interpolation types (Bezier, Auto Bezier, Continuous Bezier, or Hold). The Speed property converts to Time Stretch; these have an inverse relationship, so 50% speed in Premiere becomes 200% stretch in After Effects.

Effects present in both applications transfer with their complete settings and keyframes. After Effects ignores effects it doesn't support without displaying them in the Effect Controls panel. Audio tracks convert to audio layers, though 5.1 surround and tracks greater than 16-bit aren't supported. Mono and stereo tracks import as one or two layers, respectively.

Nested sequences become nested compositions, and color mattes convert to solid-color layers. Sequence markers transfer only when you copy the entire sequence or import the full Premiere project as a composition; otherwise, they appear as markers on a new solid-color layer. Video and audio transitions convert to opacity keyframes (cross dissolves only) or solid-color layers. Frame Hold becomes the Time Remap property, and Time Remapping translates directly between applications.

Elements that don't convert include bars and tone, titles, universal counting leaders, and some audio filters beyond Volume and Channel Volume (which become the Stereo Mixer effect). Blending modes and clip markers transfer successfully as their After Effects equivalents.

Results of pasting into After Effects

Adobe Premiere asset	Converted to in After Effects	Notes
Audio track	Audio layers	Audio tracks that are either 5.1 surround or greater than 16‑bit aren’t supported. Mono and stereo audio tracks are imported as one or two layers.
Bars and tone	Not converted
Blending modes	Converted
Clip marker	Layer marker
Color mattes	Solid-color layers
Crop filter	Mask layer
Frame Hold	Time Remap property
Motion or Opacity values and keyframes	Transform property values and keyframes	Keyframe type—Bezier, Auto Bezier, Continuous Bezier, or Hold—is retained.
Sequence marker	Markers on a new solid-color layer	To copy sequence markers, you must either copy the sequence itself or import the entire Premiere project as a composition.
Speed property	Time Stretch property	Speed and time stretch have an inverse relationship. For example, 50% speed in Premiere is converted to 200% stretch in After Effects.
Time Remapping effect	Time Remap property
Titles	Not converted
Universal counting leaders	Not converted
Video and audio transitions	Opacity keyframes (Cross dissolve only) or solid-color layers
Video effect properties and keyframes	Effect properties and keyframes, if the effect also exists in After Effects	After Effects doesn’t display unsupported effects in the Effect Controls panel.
Volume and Channel Volume audio filters	Stereo mixer effect	Other audio filters are not converted.
Source settings for R3D source files	Source settings for R3D source files