Black Solids are now transparent?

[zach_2325]

For context, I'm working on a visual that has several sections of the video masked for alpha transparency, but the black areas that are not masked are still vital to maintaining color + texture with some of the overlays I'm using. 

I just updated to AE 2025, and suddenly all of my black solid layers that were preserving the overlay in this project are now totally alpha/transparent and not functioning with the overlay as intended?

[zach_2325]

UPDATE:

Have found the  source of the problem - the Red Giant uni.Glow effect seems to be knocking out the black values for alpha. Probably something to take over to a Maxon forum, but thought I'd share this issue here as well

[Warren Heaton]

@zach_2325 

Check what the "Source Opacity" is set to.  It's the second to last parameter for uni.Glow.  If that's anything other than 100%, it starts to knock out the source that the effect is applied to.  

Pictured: After Effects 2025 Effect Controls for uni.Glow with the Source Opacity set to 0.00

[Rick Gerard]

If you want to stick with Red Giant Universe/Glow, try uni.Chromatic Glow or uni.Edge Glow. All other Universe glows use every color on the layer and black generates 100% opacity in the alpha channel, while white generates 0% opacity. 

The other option would be to add a black solid layer below the layer with uni.Glow layer, select both layers, then Pre-ccompose.

There are lots of other glows that will give you similar looks while preserving the black background.