9 Underrated After Effects Plugins And Presets -

After Effects plugins are nothing less than life-savers for motion and graphic designers, 3D artists, and animators. Using these plugins and presets can help you bring your vision to life, and they can help the movie scripts and screenplays stand out.

Adobe After Effects is an application that is loved and used by graphic designers and animators all across the globe. It has a lot to offer, and the third-party plugins and presets make this tool even more helpful for everyone.

After Effects has been around for almost 30 years, and there is no shortage of plugins and presets available for the application. If you are familiar with After Effects plugins, you might know they are available in a wide price range. Some are free, while others are more high-end.

The After Effects plugins can help you add elements to your work that can not be added with the core After Effects application. You can use these plugins to create a more streamlined workflow and achieve outstanding results.

If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of After Effects plugins and presets available and don’t know what to choose, worry no more! We are here to let you know about some of the best and most underrated After Effects plugins and presets to help you expand your horizons and find out more about these plugins.

But before we get into that, you should have a better understanding of what After Effects plugins are.

What Are After Effects Plugins?

When it comes to video and movie editing, there are countless tools and applications. However, one of the most popular and used applications is After Effects. Whether you are a professional or have no prior experience in video production and animation, After Effects is a tool that can make the process significantly more straightforward.

Although After Effects contains many features, you can use third-party plugins that make your workflow even more streamlined. These plugins can help you add text, animations, and much more without programming them yourself.

With the help of After Effects plugins, you can get more functionality out of the application and create incredible animations and graphics.

After Effects plugins can be used to make your work easier and more efficient. You can use these plugins for a wide range of things. From 3D animations to compositing to color correcting, After Effects plugins can help you carry out many different functions.

9 Underrated After Effects Plugins, Presets, And Scripts

1.    Crossphere Bokeh

Crossphere Bokeh is one of the most outstanding lens-blur After Effects plugins. It creates incredible bokeh effects, and people who use this plugin always swear by it. It provides the users with a wide range of bokeh effects, and you can even customize the bokeh according to what you want.

The rendering speed for Crossphere Bokeh is incredibly fast. People love using this After Effects plugin because it renders lightyears faster than the original Lens Blur effect built into After Effects. You can also use Crossphere Bokeh to add layers and create any shape you want for the bokeh effect.

2.    Diopter

Diopter is another of the most underrated yet useful After Effects plugins. You can use this plugin to create various optical lens effects with ease. It is an excellent plugin for anyone not experienced in programming or using video tools. With Diopter, you get a variety of presets that you can use to make your video stand out.

Diopter enables you to quickly and efficiently emulate lens effects like macro, tilt-shift, and ghosting. With the help of position markers, you can pinpoint the place where you want the effect to be. You can also make title cards and text more visually appealing by applying Diopter on them.

3.    Neat Video

Neat Video is a phenomenal After Effects plugin. It is probably one of the most useful yet underrated plugins that a video creator or editor needs. Neat Video is a plugin that you can use to de-noise the footage, and it is incredibly simple and easy to use. When using Neat Video, all you need to do is highlight the video area that contains a lot of noise, and this superb plugin will filter the noise out for you.

One of the biggest problems you can face when de-noising footage is that you also lose other details of the image. However, Neat Video is the best option to de-noise the image without losing out on the detail. Unlike other de-noising plugins, Neat Video does not muddy up the details when filtering out the noise.

4.    GifGun

Although GifGun is a script, we cannot leave it out of the list. It is one of the most underrated scripts that you can use. With the help of GifGun, you can export gifs from After Effects with only one click. You have no idea how much time this script will save you, making your entire workflow more efficient and speeding it up for you.

GifGun makes it faster for you to export gifs than exporting them from Photoshop. It is also better at compressing the file sizes and maintains the quality of the gifs better than any other tool you use. You can also customize the various options of exporting gifs when using GifGun.

5.    TextBox 2

One of the most challenging and time-consuming tasks for graphic designers, artists, and animators can be creating boxes around text. Although it is not a difficult thing, it can take a lot of time, the same time that can be spent doing other, more important things. Fortunately, TextBox 2 exists, and you can use it to add boxes and shapes behind your text.

TextBox 2 is an excellent After Effects plugin that has various smart features. When you use this plugin, it changes the size of the box or shapes behind the text based on its size. You have many settings and customization options, and you can tell that they put a lot of thought behind this After Effects plugin.

6.    DOJO Orbit

Suppose you have any experience in animation and design in the video. In that case, you must be aware of how time-consuming and tricky it can be to animate layers that are arranged in a circular formation. DOJO Orbit is another script that you can use when working on After Effects, and you can create layers in circular forms and animate them using this script.

Making objects orbit around each other in After Effects can be quite the pain, and having a script like DOJO Orbit is nothing short of a blessing. You can control the settings with ease when you use this script, and it also provides the users with three different orbit modes, making the process a lot more efficient.

7.    Color Vibrance

Color Vibrance is one of the best free After Effects plugins. It is a convenient colorization plugin that makes your process significantly more straightforward. When you look at all the other available free plugins, Color Vibrance is probably the most useful.

The results you get from Color Vibrance are unmatched. You can use it to colorize stock elements and make the video look stunning with all the colors. Color Vibrance also provides you with the Matte Alpha option, and you can add an alpha channel to your footage using this script.

8.    Decompose Text

Have you ever tried animating the letters of a word? If you have, you must know how tricky it can be. Fortunately, Decompose Text exists, making the process easier and faster for everyone. People who don’t use Decompose Text to animate the letters are missing a lot. Fortunately, Decompose Text exists, making the process easier and faster for everyone.

This script allows you to break up the different layers of the text into different characters, and you can animate them the way you want. You can also use Decompose Text to break up the text layers by word or by text lines if you want.

9.    FXAA

FXAA, also known as Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing, is another free After Effects plugin that is incredibly useful for animators and graphic designers. It can be highly off-putting when you encounter jagged pixel edges or stair-step edges, and FXAA can help you get rid of them easily.

You can use this plugin for any footage or image in low-quality or resolution, and it can also be used to smooth out the edges of logos. If there are any jagged edges in your video that are throwing you off, FXAA is a lifesaver.

Final Takeaway

After Effects is one of the most-used video editing applications. People use it because of how easy it is to understand and use, and there are no steep learning curves. However, there are still a lot of underrated After Effects plugins, presets, and scripts that can make your video production process even more accessible, especially if you are a graphic designer, animator, or 3D artist.

If you liked this article, you should also check out Can You Use iPhone 13 Pro Cinematic Mode For Actual Filmmaking

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