Skip to content
cinemaOS

How-to guides

Open Photoshop, Lottie and After Effects files in cinemaOS

What comes across when you open a layered PSD, a Lottie animation or an After Effects project in cinemaOS on Mac, what does not, and how to send work back.

Published 7 min read

cinemaOS opens a layered Photoshop file (PSD or PSB) in its Photos room as real layers, with masks, groups, clipping and adjustment layers, and can export a layered PSD back for Photoshop. A Lottie animation (.json or .lottie) opens as a live Video Composition with its shapes, text and keyframes intact. An After Effects project (.aep or .aepx) opens through an experimental reader that brings across the structure of the project, not its animation. Every import comes with a fidelity report that lists exactly what came across and what did not.

None of this needs Adobe software on your Mac. The readers are built from the published file formats.

Photoshop files: layers, masks and adjustments

When you import a PSD or PSB, the Import Journey offers Open in Photos as Layers. Choose it and the document becomes a Photos layer stack:

  • Pixel layers keep their names, order, opacity, fill opacity, blend mode and visibility.
  • Groups come across, and clipping masks still clip.
  • Pixel layer masks follow their layer and can be inverted.
  • Adjustment layers such as Levels, Brightness, Hue, Vibrance and Invert come across as live adjustments, so you can still change them.
  • 8-bit and 16-bit RGB and grayscale documents are supported.

The fidelity report lists every feature of the file and what happened to it. In testing against a real Photoshop document, the imported stack rendered the same picture as Photoshop's own composite.

Elsewhere in cinemaOS, for example on the timeline or in a Layout document, a PSD places as its flattened composite picture, which is usually what you want for a finished graphic.

If you work in Photoshop, the familiar keys help: W, D and X behave as you expect, and the Select and Image menus include Deselect, Reselect, Inverse, Image Size, Canvas Size and Rotate or Flip Canvas.

Sending work back as a layered PSD

Atelier ▸ Export Layered PSD… writes a Photoshop file from your Photos stack. Each image, paint or text layer becomes a Photoshop layer with its mask, clipping, blend mode, opacity, visibility and name. If you applied a look or a RAW develop, it lands as a top layer named Look & Develop, so the file opens in Photoshop looking the way it looked in cinemaOS. A round trip from Photos to PSD and back renders the same picture.

Lottie animations as live compositions

A Lottie file no longer has to be rendered into a movie first. cinemaOS asks Open as Video Composition and builds a live composition you can keep editing:

  • Shape groups (paths, rectangles, ellipses and stars) with their fills, strokes and gradients.
  • Solids, text, and embedded or packaged pictures.
  • Every transform keyframe, with its bezier, linear or hold easing.
  • Parented layers, null rigs and nested compositions, carried over as each layer's own motion.

Some Lottie features do not come across yet: masks, mattes, effects, expressions, text animators, trim and merge paths, blend modes and 3D layers. They are counted in the fidelity report instead of being silently dropped. You can also export a composition back to Lottie.

After Effects projects: experimental, and honest about it

cinemaOS can open an After Effects project as a Video Composition, but treat this as an experiment. The reader brings across:

  • The folder tree and the compositions, with their size, frame rate and length.
  • The layer stack and layer names of the largest composition.
  • Footage links that sit inside the project folder (others are listed as offline and never read).
  • Each layer's static position, scale, rotation and opacity.

Keyframes, effects, masks, text content, shape contents, cameras and lights are reported, not imported. For animation, the better route is to export the composition from After Effects with Bodymovin as a Lottie file and open that. The fidelity report offers this route next to the result.

Illustrator artwork

Artwork copied from Illustrator can be pasted into Atelier's Layout room as editable vectors. PDF-compatible Illustrator files place from their PDF content. For building vector artwork in cinemaOS itself, see design and print in Atelier.

A practical workflow for switching

  1. Keep your source files. cinemaOS reads them; it does not change the original.
  2. Open each file and read its fidelity report before you build on it.
  3. For Photoshop work you still share with others, use Export Layered PSD so collaborators can open it.
  4. For motion work, prefer Lottie over .aep until you no longer need After Effects for that project.

If your video projects are in Premiere Pro, open a Premiere project without Premiere covers the timeline side.

FAQ

Do I need Photoshop or After Effects installed?

No. cinemaOS reads the files itself, from the published formats. No Adobe code is used.

Will my After Effects expressions and effects work?

No. Expressions, effects, keyframes, masks, cameras and lights in an .aep file are listed in the report but not imported. Export a Lottie file with Bodymovin for the animation.

Can I edit a PSD in cinemaOS and send it back to a designer?

Yes. Open it in Photos as layers, make your changes, then use Atelier ▸ Export Layered PSD… to write a layered file they can open in Photoshop.

Try it with your own files

The quickest test is a PSD and a Lottie file from a real project. cinemaOS has a 14-day free trial with no card required. Import them and read the fidelity report.