Why is Ps shrinking my Ae layers?

[jampff]

I'm on Windows 10, using Ae 24.0.2 and Ps 25.1. Also I know very little about using Photoshop; I use Ae and Pr mainly.

I'm working in a 1080x1920 composition in Ae. There are a few stationary objects in the foreground of the shot that I want to edit with photoshop filters. Then I'll reimport the Ps file, and place it in a layer above the footage... so that the moving subjects appear lifelike, but the stationary objects in the foreground are not.

In Ae, I put the playhead over the frame I wanted to edit in Photoshop and chose Composition > Save Frame As, and chose Photoshop Layers and the file location. Then, I opened the new file in Photoshop to edit.

The weird part: The Ps file is opening and displaying the frame from Ae, but in a 270x480 document. Microscopic. Sure enough, if I import it back to Ae, and place it in the same exact comp where I saved that frame, it is so tiny. I have to scale it up to almost 400% just to make it the correct size. Of course, then it's so blurry I can't even tell what it is.

Why is Photoshop taking a frame that was 1080x1920 and shrinking it to 270x480? How do I change it back? Thanks in advance.

[Conrad_C]

After you save the frame from After Effects, and before you import it into Photoshop, on the Windows desktop what does File Properties report for the pixel dimensions of the image?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@jampff what resolution are you saving the file out as?

[Conrad_C]

I just looked into this a little further and there are lots of reasons why After Effects, not Photoshop, will shrink that frame.

If you use Composition > Save Frame As > File, the frame pixel dimensions are set by the Output Module applied to it in the Render Queue.

If you use Composition > Save Frame As > Photoshop Layers, as you did, the pixel dimensions of the saved frame are affected by the current preview resolution of the composition. When I set mine to Quarter, I got the same pixel dimensions you did.

So my theory now is that if you look at your composition preview resolution, it is probably set to Quarter; and if you set it to Full, you can probably export a full resolution frame.

I have had a strong suspicion that it was a wrong assumption that Photoshop downsampled the imported image, because Photoshop is not known for doing that. But there are so many ways to upsample and downsample output from After Effects that I thought it had to be connected to that.

Can you confirm that it works as you expect if you set your composition preview resolution to Full?

[jampff]

Apologies for delay... my day job is extra busy right now.

@Conrad_C I haven't had the chance to check yet, but I'm sure that's it! Awesome! Makes perfect sense. I did have my comp monitor set to quarter resolution. And sure enough, it had to be zoomed to 400% when reimported, which of course looks awful.

A side issue, but to answer both you and @Kevin Stohlmeyer , for some weird reason Ae is not letting me Save Frame As anything except a Photoshop file. The option to save as PNG or JPEG is not available. It used to be. ??? I guess that's an issue to post in the Ae forum but I have more pressing things right now.

Thanks again for your help.

[Conrad_C]

A side issue, but to answer both you and @Kevin Stohlmeyer , for some weird reason Ae is not letting me Save Frame As anything except a Photoshop file. The option to save as PNG or JPEG is not available. It used to be. ???

By @jampff

I forget how it worked in the past, but today, because Composition > Save Frame As > File adds the job to the Render Queue, the final file format is set by your Output Module settings. When you open the Output Module for the current job in the Render Queue, you can then change the Format to anything in the menu, and then start the Render Queue to actually run the job.

Even though it says Sequence, if you used a Save Frame As command it’s only going to render one frame.