AutoCrop 2015

An After Effects Script by Jesse Toula

What is Auto Crop?

Auto Crop automatically crops your pre-comp to fit its contents. You can choose ‘Auto Crop’ which will
crop based on the current frame or ‘Crop Duration’ which will look at every frame between the pre-comps in
and out points. There is also a third type of crop, ‘Mask Crop’ which resizes your pre-comp based on a mask
applied to it.

Installing
1. In the .zip file you downloaded, you will see the ‘Auto Crop.jsxbin‘ file. Copy and paste this file into the
ScriptUI folder for your version of After Effects (This script works with versions CS3 and up, however you
may have some issues with the ‘Crop Duration’ progressbar in CS3)

Mac: ~/Applications/Adobe After Effects YOUR VERSION/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels

Windows: C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe After Effects YOUR VERSION/Support Files/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels

2. Now start up After Effects. You will see ‘Auto Crop.jsxbin’ at the bottom of the ‘Window’ menu. Select it to
open the Auto Crop panel.

Using Auto Crop

Using Auto Crop is simple. In order for it to run, you must have a pre-comp (nested composition) in your
current timeline. To run Auto Crop, just select the pre-comp and choose from either ‘Auto Crop’, ‘Crop
Duration’ or ‘Mask Crop’.

Auto Crop Options:

Auto Crop:
The first option will crop your layer based on the current time. If there is no animation within your
pre-comp, this is a good option. Your pre-comp will be resized to the smallest possible dimensions while
keeping all visible layers in view. If your pre-comps layers are animated, your layers may move in and
out of frame.

Crop Duration:
This is a good option to use if you do have animation within your pre-comp. Crop Duration will go
through and evaluate each frame of your precomp between its in and out points and crop based on all
frames. This means that even if your layers move around, they will not be cut off.

Auto Crop
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 AutoCrop 2015
An After Effects Script by Jesse Toula

PLEASE NOTE: Crop Duration runs on each frame of your pre-comp. This means that if your pre-comp
is very long, it will take a long time to complete the process. You will get a progressbar to indicate the
amount that has been completed, but due to the processor intensive caluculations that are being done,
you may notice poor preformance in the progessbar. Often times the script is still running correctly, but
the progress is just not updating. The progress is also shown in the info panel which seems to update
properly most of the time.

Mask Crop:
To use mask crop, you must have at least on mask applied to your pre-comp. If you only have
one mask applied, it will be used by default. If you have multiple masks, a dialog will appear for you to
choose the desired mask. Once a mask is chosen, to crop will take place.

Ignore Masks:

This option is not available in After Effects CC 2015. In this version of AE, masks will always be
ignored.

This option only affects ‘Auto Crop’ and ‘Crop Duration’. Any masks applied to the layer are
turned off so that the crop is working on the entire layer, not just the masked portion. Masks are
reapplied after crop is complete.

Delete Mask:
This option only applies to Mask Crop. By default, the mask that is used for the crop will be
deleted once the crop has taken place. Unchecking this option will leave the crop mask on the layer.

Pad:
NEW! You can now add padding to your crops. Specify an amount in the box and that number of
pixels will be added as a border around the edge of the crop.

‘Previous Crop Info’ Section:

This panel will display information on how the crop was applied to your layer by showing you the
amount of pixels removed from each side as well as a before and after resolution.

Auto Crop
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 AutoCrop 2015
An After Effects Script by Jesse Toula

Questions / Comments
If you have any question, issues or suggestions for improving Auto Crop please leave a comment on the
BatchFrame Blog, or send me an email using the contact form or by emailing
contact@batchframe.com.

Disclaimer
This script is provided AS IS without and guatantees or warranty.

Although the author has attempted to find and correct any issues in the script, Jesse Toula and Batch
Frame are not responsible for damages or losses of any kind from the use of this script.

Jesse Toula and Batch Frame are under no obligation to provide any support, service, corrections or
upgrades to the free script.

Auto Crop
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