A good After Effects preset is like fairy dust for your project. With very little effort (or even knowledge) you can create a beautiful animation or look using an AE preset. They can be huge time-savers and great additions to your project.

If you’ve used After Effects presets in the past, you are in luck, and if you haven’t ever used an After Effects preset…well, you are in luck too. Because we’ve gathered up 48 FREE After Effects presets that you have to try. There are so many great presets here, you can try 1 per hour for 2 days without sleeping. We don’t recommend this though.

Outlast After Effects Preset

Outlast is an incredibly popular video game that came out a few years back. It was filled with action, suspense, and lots of night vision. This preset is built to recreate that “night vision” look made popular in games like Outlast.

While the preset is a great way to pull together a night vision look in a hurry, it’s also great for all sorts of other things. It has a retro monochrome feel that will work for vintage pieces. And with full-color control, you can achieve all kinds of vintage looks like sepia or old black and white footage.

The preset is built so you can drop it on top of the footage and hit render. But, if you are in the mood to play around, there are a ton of controls at your fingertips. Customizable controls include color changers, glow threshold and intensity, sharpen, and vignette controls.

While this preset was built to do one thing really well, it actually allows you to do all kinds of things with a little creativity.

Long Shadow After Effects Preset

Long shadows have long been a popular effect for 2D style motion graphics. They add a lot of extra dimension to things like text and logos. But, creating a long shadow effect can be a bit tedious.

This is why we created an After Effects preset for it, and to make it even better, we are giving it away for free.

The preset is really simple to use and gives a nice clean result that will work for a lot of “graphic” style applications. We even created a video tutorial to show you just how to use it inside of AE.

Extrude After Effects Preset

Speaking of added dimension, we also created an extrude preset for After Effects. Oh, and it’s also free of course.

This preset does share some characteristics with the long shadows preset, but it works a little differently and can get some different results. It’s up to you which one you prefer using, but since they are both free and simple to use, you should really try them both.

And, we created a tutorial for this one too. So, it’s that much easier now.

10 After Effects Text Presets

Text presets are your friends. Text on screen can be pretty boring, and many times, it just needs a little animation to bring it to life. Of course, having to come up with new ways to animate type and going through the process of hand animating all your type can be quite time consuming.

That’s precisely why you need these 10 totally free type presets. You’ve got slides, jumps, wiggles, and all sorts of other inventive ways to bring on and off type.

And if you find one preset here that works for one project, it’s worth the cost!

10 More After Effects Text Presets

What’s that you say? 10 free text presets aren’t enough for you? We get it. How about 10 more then?

This second set of completely free type animation presets for After Effects brings you more options than you’ll know what to do with. But, we are sure you can find lots of ways to use them.

While the previous set included a little more whimsy in the animations, this set includes a little more punch. There are some glitchy animations, some digital randomness, and lots of quality.

Seriously, you can’t possibly need more free After Effects text presets after this. Let’s move on to something new.

10 More “More” After Effects Text Presets

Just kidding. We do have more After Effects text presets for you. Because we just know how useful they are and we know you love having them right at your fingertips.

In this group of text presets, “blur” is the word. Many of these animations are built around simple moves in and out with some heavy blur effects. These are great for working with lens type animations, anything to do with cameras, and also for more serious topics that need a little more subtlety.

Look, we love making type presets, and we know that our users love having them. So, we’ve made lots for you. And they are all free, so there is no reason to not download all of them right now.

15 After Effects Color Presets

Ok, now on to something different. We mean it this time. How about color presets?

Color correction and grading is a full-time job for some. Getting just the right tone can be hard, especially while working in After Effects if you aren’t an expert.

That’s why we made these 15 free After Effects color presets for you. Simply drop these on your footage and you will instantly have a “look” for your video. While many of these might be exactly what you need right out of the box, fear not, you can change them to your heart’s content.

Think of these color presets as a base layer for your grading. Once you find the one that fits closest to your needs, dig around with the controls, and create the perfect look just for you.

We’re just here to help you on your way. Why, because we like you!

Wow, that’s a whole lot of free stuff for you to play within After Effects. Download the presets and drop them and go, or play with them, change things up, and save your own presets from our bases. We don’t care how you use them, just use them.

We’ll be giving away lots of other great assets in the future, so be sure to sign up for a Motion Array account and grab all the cool free stuff as it comes out.