After Effects Project is black after importing Photoshop file

[Mei16B8]

Hello! I am new to After Effects. I tried importing a PSD file into After Effects. I can see the layers but the projet is black in color. I have included a screenshot of what I can see in After Effects. Hoping someone can shine a light on this issue. Thank you!

[David Arbor]

Thanks for posting that screenshot, it was really helpful.

So a couple things have happened here that are causing you issues. First, your composition is only 1 frame long, and if you look at the timecode at the top-left of the Timeline panel, you're actually at negative 1 frame.

Also, you imported your Photoshop file as an Image Sequence. Here's an easy way to fix this.

1) Trash everything from your Project panel

2) Create a new composition with the settings (resolution, frame rate, and duration) that you want to animate with. You can also use one of the presets, such as HDTV 1080. Make sure that duration is longer than a single frame. 

3) Now you can keep or delete this new composition you just made. New compositions are based on the last one you manually made, so this can help going forward.

4) Reimport your PSD, but before clicking that "Import" button, uncheck the box that says "Photoshop Sequence." Then you can choose "Composition - Retain Layer Sizes" (or whatever option works best for you) from the dropdown menu and import your PSD.