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surfacist
surfacist
Participant
January 26, 2014
Open for Voting

Add UI Scaling

  • January 26, 2014
  • 20 replies
  • 8017 views

The After Effects user interface is very diffuclt to work with at 4k, even on very large monitors. To wit, on a 32" monitor at 3840x2160, the text of a layer name is 1/16 of an inch tall– 8 layers are packed into each vertical inch. The Console Debug "AdobeCleanFontSize" workaround has no effect on some aspects of the interface, such as layer names, text in effect control panes, etc. This undersized UI poses legibility challenges, and slows workflow by requiring an extrordinary level of pointing accuracy to click on things.

 

Illustrator solves this problem elegantly by adding a "UI scaling" slider control to the "User Interface" pref pane. Photoshop solves this problem a bit less elegantly but still effectively with a "UI Font Size" and a "Scale UI to Font" option.  I suggest the AE team adopts one of these appoaches.  I'd also suggets that this be a very high priority. It is necessary for most AE artists to work at 4k these days, making this an annoyance that I deal with every single day. I feel this is the most glaring feature oversight in AE currently.

 

Thank you for your consideration, AE dev team. And if you are a fellow AE user reading this and you have the same issue be sure to upvote, because apparently upvoted posts in this forum is what passes as a feature request/bug report nowadays.

 

Thanks!

    20 replies

    francoestrubia
    francoestrubia
    Participating Frequently
    February 18, 2026

    Hey, instead that, they added a tip of the day on your blank composition! be happy!  😖

    JohnColombo17100380
    Community Manager
    JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
    Community Manager
    February 15, 2026
    The following idea has been merged into this idea:

    All the votes have been transferred into this idea.
    amirite
    amirite
    Participant
    February 3, 2026

    Yes, please!!

      S
      Snehal339946522laz
      Inspiring
      January 28, 2026

      Hi Jessica at Adobe, is there any update on this? It’s going to be a busy year, I will be using After Effects daily and this usability and accessibility issue is still languishing multiple years after being raised by many community members.

        E
        Erik5ECA
        Inspiring
        November 7, 2025

        I'd like to add my vote to the having scaling be just like in Illustrator. As many have said, we should not have to change the OS scaling just to be able to read text in an Adobe app.

          Swandive stream
          Swandive stream
          Inspiring
          June 11, 2025

          I made an example of how the UI could look. Adobe software is rather lacking when it comes to accessibility, that is visual options for increased contrast, sizes etc. I struggle to see it and someone with poorer eyesight likely would be unable to use the software. If their eyesight declines over time then they may be unable to do their job if frequently using After Effects.

           

           

            J
            jojo mcfly
            Participant
            April 16, 2025

            Stuff like this is the reason I cancelled my sub.  Where is all the money going?  FIX IT.

              J
              jojo mcfly
              Participant
              April 16, 2025

              No, OS text scaling was supported a long time ago, and it's always been completely insufficient.  It's honestly insane that this is even being discussed still.  Just get a 4k monitor and look for yourself.  It's absurd.

                D
                Danielle_Agriopoulos3328
                Participant
                March 14, 2025

                As I'm getting older, I'm having to squint at all the UI text in the program, and it's really hard on the eyes. Please, please, please make it so you can have a program setting to set the UI text size to be small, medium, or large (maybe small is 8pt, medium is 12 or 14pt, and large is 18pt). It looks like 6 or 5pt to me right now on a 27" monitor and it's driving me crazy. I think this can be considered an acessibility issue.

                  surfacist
                  surfacistAuthor
                  Participant
                  November 1, 2024

                  Jessica, I really appreciate your time and attention to this issue.

                   

                  I would advocate for the Illustrator-style unform scale solution as ideal. While reading fonts is certainly a problem, ticking the small boxes and viewing the icons next to the layer names is also problematic, and the UI feels more familiar and faster/easier to move around when it scales uniformly, instead of just the fonts scaling, which changes the proportions of the layout.

                   

                  I feel having a couple of stepped options would work fine, if that works around the antialiasing problem. Small, Medium, Large would probably be fine, but it is quite valuable to me to be able to fine-tune the appearance of the UI, so certainly the more fine-tuning that can be allowed the better. 

                   

                  Again thank you for taking this up, on behalf of my eyes. 

                  Jon

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