Importing Photoshop and Illustrator files

We can import Adobe Photoshop (.psd) and Illustrator (.ai) files using any method from the previous recipe, but sometimes we may want more from these files. For instance, Motion can allow us to work with individual Photoshop layers but we need to import it in a specific way.

Getting ready

Locate a Photoshop file (PSD only) and Illustrator file (AI only) to use in the upcoming recipes.

From the File Browser, navigate to the Photoshop .psd file on your system, preferably one with multiple layers.

How to do it...

Follow these steps to import Photoshop files to Motion:

1. With a blank Motion project open, navigate to the File Browser by clicking it on the left side of the interface, or press Command + 1.

2. With the .psd file selected, drag it from the File Browser straight to the Canvas or the Layers tab without releasing your mouse.

3. By default, a pop-up menu appears allowing you to choose from merging the Photoshop file, selecting one of the individual layers, or importing all layers.

4. Choose Import All Layers, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

5. If your video seems too big, press Shift + Z to fit it into the Canvas window.

6. You may notice that the Photoshop file has all of its layers contained within a group (named after the Photoshop project) of a group (the default group for the Motion project). It's good practice to release the Photoshop layers from the Photoshop group and have them solely within the Motion group.

This is how we import Illustrator files:

1. With a blank Motion project open, navigate to the File Browser by clicking it on the left side of the interface, or press Command + 1.

2. With the .ai file selected, drag it from the File Browser straight to the Canvas or the Layers tab and release your mouse. You cannot see an Illustrator file's individual layers.

3. If your video seems too big, press Shift + Z to fit it into the Canvas window.

4. At first, everything looks fine, but as soon as we start scaling the file we'll notice some deterioration of the graphic. Press F1 to navigate to the Properties tab of the Inspector. Locate the Scale property and scale up the image by double-clicking on it and entering a new value. Keep scaling till you notice pixelation.

5. Vector-based images from Illustrator are supposed to allow us to scale up the image to infinity and beyond. The problem is the minute we put the file in Motion, it places the file into a pixel-based world. To have this infinite scaling opportunity, we need to tell Motion to not give this file boundaries or take away its fixed resolution. To do this, navigate to the Media tab and select the AI file from the list; use the following screenshot for reference:

   

6. Press F4 to go to the Media tab of the Inspector, and deselect the checkmark next to Fixed Resolution, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

7. Try scaling up the object again from the Properties tab of the Inspector and notice how crisp it looks.

See also

• The Importing files to the Canvas, Layers tab, and Timeline recipe.