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You measure that the size of this image is very much larger than the composition we are using. The comp in the background is set for broadcast resolution, yet the image we brought in is actually created for high definition.

Now, you can see the difference between two, if we come over into the comp window and just zoom out a couple of clicks. This outer pink border we can see here defines the size of the high def clip. Whereas the visible area is what you are seeing in the center here. So, we actually have some room to play with to shrink this image down to fit.

Now, there is a few ways it could be done in a couple new options inside after effects seven. One way to do it, if we just zoom up again just to get ourselves a bit closer. You can hold down command option an F or control, alt, and F on the PC and what that will do is immediately scale the currently selected layer whether its down or up. It could be a smaller layer and you just need to expand it to fit the composition. But it will scale it to fit the exact dimensions of the comp that you have placed it into.

Now, in a lot of cases that is fine as long as the proportion are correct. But as you can see here, the square pixel resolution of high def is a completely different proportion to the more 4x3 aspect of the broadcast clips. So, when we scale this image down, it is being squashed to fit and that is not really going to look very good when we lender it.

Well, there is a new way to treat this inside of after effects seven. Let us just undo that scale that we did and let us come up to the layer menu here at the top of the screen, go down to the transform options and you will see a little bit further down these three fit commands.

This is the one that we just activated fit to comp. So, not keeping the proportions of the file as it was imported to simply squashing it down. But you do have two extra options now to fit to the comp with, if we go ahead and choose that. It scales the image in proportion to its original size but scales it to fit the width of the comp and in this case you use a little short on the height.

But what we could do is go back to the other option now, go down to transform and choose fit to comp height and that will take us to the height of the composition but crop off on the left and right hand side. So, we get exactly the right height and we still have a little bit of room left and right to move the image around. So, this is a really cool way to guarantee that things fit and you have got the right size and resolution to begin working with.

You measure that the size of this image is very much larger than the composition we are using. The comp in the background is set for broadcast resolution, yet the image we brought in is actually created for high definition. Now, you can see the difference between two, if we come... click to read more