After Effects Footage vs Composition Import Options

When importing layered files from Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator into Adobe After Effects, selecting the right import kind determines how your assets behave on the timeline. The three primary options—Footage, Composition, and Composition - Retain Layer Sizes—dictate whether your layers remain separate, how their anchor points are placed, and the size of their bounding boxes. Understanding these differences ensures your layers animate predictably and your workflow remains efficient.

Footage

The Footage option treats your file as a single, flat asset or allows you to import only one specific layer from the document.

• Behavior: If you choose "Merged Layers," After Effects flattens the artwork into a single layer, just like a standard PNG or JPEG. If you choose "Choose Layer," you can import a single designated layer from the source file while ignoring the rest.
• Dimensions and Anchor Points: When importing a single layer as footage, you can choose between layer size (bounding box matches the art) or document size. Merged files match the total document canvas.
• Best Used For: Static background plates, textures, or instances where you only need an isolated element from a complex multi-layered file without creating a new composition.

Composition

The Composition option imports all layers as distinct, editable elements within a newly created composition that matches the original document's dimensions.

• Behavior: Every layer from the source file is placed on its own timeline track, maintaining the visual stacking order, blend modes, and positions set in Photoshop or Illustrator.
• Dimensions and Anchor Points: Every individual layer is forced to match the dimensions of the entire source document. Consequently, the anchor point for every layer is placed at the absolute center of the composition, rather than at the center of the artwork on that specific layer.
• Best Used For: Projects where elements must remain strictly aligned to the global canvas, or when you do not plan to rotate or scale individual objects around their own visual centers.

Composition - Retain Layer Sizes

The Composition - Retain Layer Sizes option also imports the file as a new composition with individual layers, but it crops each layer boundary tightly around its visible artwork.

• Behavior: Like the standard Composition setting, all layers arrive separated and correctly positioned relative to each other.
• Dimensions and Anchor Points: Instead of expanding every layer to the canvas size, each layer's bounding box matches only the visible pixels or vector paths of that specific layer. As a result, each layer’s anchor point is automatically positioned at the center of its own content.
• Best Used For: Character rigging, UI animation, and standard motion graphics. This is the most commonly used option because it allows you to immediately scale, rotate, and manipulate individual objects naturally without manually resetting anchor points.

Summary of Differences

• Footage: Combines layers into one flat element or imports only one isolated layer.
• Composition: Keeps all layers separate, but expands every layer's boundary to the full canvas size, placing all anchor points at the center of the frame.
• Composition - Retain Layer Sizes: Keeps all layers separate and trims each bounding box to the layer's content, centering the anchor point on each individual object.