If you’re getting started in visual effects creation, likely you’ve heard the word keyframe thrown around a lot. 

Keyframes are one of the most important elements in any post-production workflow, as they form the base on which everything is built, from animations to refined color correction.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the basics of keyframing in Adobe After Effects; what they are, what they do, and how you can use them in your next project.

What is a Keyframe?

Put simply, a keyframe is a time marker that tells your effects program where you want to change something. This can be size, position, opacity, color, or any other kind of value shift. 

When you add keyframes and use them to apply new values to the elements in your image, you begin to create special visual effects on your image.

Why Does After Effects Need Keyframes?

For After Effects to make changes that take place over a certain amount of time, for example, making text grow larger as a clip plays, it needs to know how big and over how long a timespan you want this to occur. 

Keyframes give After Effects the information it needs to know when you want something to change and how. You can set these keyframes manually in After Effects, or utilize certain auto-keyframing tools to create your keyframes.

How to Add a Keyframe in After Effects

Setting new keyframes in After Effects is a relatively straightforward process. Once you get the hang of it, it’ll become a nearly reflexive part of your visual effects workflow.

Here are the basic steps to adding a keyframe in After Effects:

Step 1: Place your CTI where you want your keyframe effect to start

Step 2: Choose what property you’d like to create an effect with

This could be scale, position, opacity, rotation, etc.

Step 3: Click the arrow to the left of your layer name to open the drop-down menu

Step 4: Open up the “Transform” drop down and locate the property you want to keyframe

Step 5: Click the stopwatch next to that property to set your first keyframe

Your timeline should look something like this.

Congratulations, you’ve now set your first keyframe! However, to create an effect, you’ll need more than one keyframe, so let’s set a second one to create our desired animation. In this case, we’re going to make the word “Adventure” grow over time.