Applying effects

- The easiest way to think about effects…is to think of them like filters…inside of Photoshop document.…Now, generally, you apply effects directly to layers…inside of a composition inside of After Effects.…Let me show you what I'm talking about.…I want to start first by previewing our animation…so I'll press the spacebar to begin the preview.…Notice, I've got this kind of cool logo animation…that's animating into the scene.…But it's sort of hard to see…over top of that really busy background…and bright background.…

What I want to do is actually add some effects…to that background video…to better make our logo pop off out of the scene.…I'm going to press the spacebar to stop playback here.…The first thing you want to do…is move your current time indicator to a place…where you can see your logo over top of the footage.…Let's position it right here around…2 seconds and 3 frames.…Now, I want to start by blurring out…my background video layer.…So I'm going to select layer 3…and then go up to the Effect menu…at the top part of the interface.…