Video Copilot's Color Vibrance plugin has helped me on a few projects where directors were looking for certain colors to pop. And it can even get rid of those annoying extra boxes that AE somehow adds after converting some vectors. You can use it to easily turn vector files into shapes and explode and implode groups of shapes to and from different layers. Zack Lovatt's excellent Explode Shape Layers script will save you a good amount of time if you work with shape layers on the reg. And now it even offers compression options too! Explode Shape Layers $29.99 Without GifGun, it's unlikely that the tutorials on this site would have gif examples. Never waste your time again by roundtripping through Photoshop to make a gif. If you're making gifs, get GifGun by Nik Ska. It's also great for use in team situations so people can share palettes and colors on projects. You can make palettes, pick colors off of it, use it to link colors, and easily change palettes and colors. Ray Dynamic Color is an awesome color palette script by Sander van Dijk. And best of all, Flow doesn't need to use expressions to accomplish easing, so if you have to hand off your project, it looks like you took the time to hand-ease everything. But unless I need a true Expo-and I kind of hacked a good solution with Flow-Ease and Wizz sits unused now. In fact, its functionality inspired Quiver. Flow has supplanted my use of Ease and Wizz, which is almost sad because I used the hell out of Ease and Wizz. Zack Lovatt and Tomas Sinkunas destroyed it with this script. It's taking me a while to build a library of my own because there are so many great ones already available!
AE PIXEL SORTER NO PLUG IN FREE
We'll also be posting a free library soon as well. And while you're at it, make sure to grab Andrew Embury's, Ryan Summers', and Google's libraries for Flow. If you're like me and aren't really a fan of the After Effects graph editor, you're going to want to pick Flow up. I'm not even going to explain more, go grab it now. It basically allows you to type in the name of a plugin or even a preset and add it to a layer but it does SO much more. Video Copilot's FXConsole has quickly become one of my most used plugins. I've put the current price of each plugin or script below as of the time of writing this, so you can figure out if it's worth it to you. Most of these should be built into After Effects.
You need to get some sweet write-offs in before January 1st? You want some amazing free tools? Well, here is a sizable list of great plugins and scripts you can get to save you a boatload of time and effort.
So we're a few days from the end of the year and you've got some cash in your pocket.