ignore an adjustment layer

[illuminator_26]

I have a suggestion for after effects software to add the possibility that a layer can ignore an adjustment layer above it.  (say you want to only effect foreground layers not the background)

Sure you can pre-compose but that not always convenient

I know somewhere you can give suggestions to updates, but I can't find where...

[Mylenium]

This has been discussed ad nauseum for years publicly and behind the scenes and the long and short of it that it's 99% not going to happen. The possibilities of combinations literally become infinite once you add more than one adjustment layer or adjustment layers are sandwiched inbetween other layers. Even coming up with an UI to define the exclusions then would be a nightmare, let alone figuring out the internal logic of the render pipeline. I would suggest you start using pre-compositions as a proper way to structure your work, not a burden. It's far from as inconvenient as people make it sound. People just tend to navigate themselves in corners by not thinking ahead and then of course things may break down when you actually have to pre-compose or use duplicate comps and layers. That's my brutally honest opinion about the matter. Having more layer switches and exclusion options in fact wouldn't change any of that. You still would need to think about your structure and given that it would be even more obscure than pre-comps, keeping track of what happens where would be a lot more challenging.

Mylenium

[Kyle Hamrick]

Precomposing is considerably less inconvenient than it used to be, with the inclusion of Master Properties. You can set things up and easily feed the few necessary controls out to your main comp for any timing tweaks.

Clever use of matte layers and/or the Set Matte effect can also be a good way to work with this. 

Lastly, if you have only a few layers with similar effects, which need to not affect other layers beneath them - rather than using an adjustment layer, you can use instances of an effect on each of the layers, but link them using expressions. You can do this manually by pickwhipping, or copy the first instance of the effect (which will remain the "control" version of the effect) using Edit > Copy with Property Links. Now, pasting will create a version where each property is linked back to the original, so all your adjustments happen in one place. Very similar functionality to what you're probably looking for, but without the masking/precomposing woes.

[Roland Kahlenberg · Accepted solution]

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