Plug-ins are small software modules—with file-name extensions such as .aex and .8bi—that add functionality to an application. After Effects effects are implemented as plug-ins, as are some features for working with certain file formats. The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, for example, provides After Effects with its ability to work with camera raw files.

When After Effects starts, it loads plug-ins from the Plug-ins folder, which is in the Adobe After Effects CS3\Support Files (Windows) or Adobe After Effects CS3 (Mac OS) folder by default. Several plug-ins come with After Effects and are automatically installed in this folder. You can obtain other plug-ins for After Effects and other Adobe products from Adobe or other vendors. For specific instructions for installing a plug-in, refer to its documentation.

After Effects comes with several third-party plug-ins, including Foundry Keylight, Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse, and the Cycore FX plug-ins. Some plug-in installers—including those for Keylight and Color Finesse—install documentation for the plug-ins in their subfolders in the Plug-ins folder. Documentation for Cycore FX plug-ins is available on the Cycore website: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_cycorefxdocumentation.

When exchanging After Effects projects between computer systems, make sure that the plug-ins that the project depends on are installed on both systems.

For information on plug-ins available for After Effects, visit the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_plugins. Other resources for purchasing and learning to use plug-ins for After Effects include the Toolfarm website (www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_toolfarmhome) and Lutz Albrecht’s Mylenium website (www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_lutzplugins).

For information on developing plug-ins for After Effects, visit the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_devcenter.

Plug-ins compiled for the Macintosh PowerPC processor architecture do not run natively on Macintosh computers that use Intel processors. To use plug-ins compiled for the PowerPC processor architecture, you can run After Effects CS3 under Rosetta. Rosetta is a software translator for Mac OS X that runs applications for PowerPC processors on Intel processors. As with any application running in an emulation environment, performance is not as good as it would be in the native environment.