This tutorial teaches you how to turn on and also modify title safe and action safe guides in After Effects.
What are Title Safe and Action Safe
Title safe and action safe tell video editors the limitations of where items should go in a video. Video will and should run outside of title safe and action safe but these guides determine the outermost points that you should consider as the viewing area.
When your video is aired on TV or film, you run the risk of it getting cutting off. So you use title safe and action safe for guidance. More than likely you are editing for the computer screen rather than TV or film. However title safe and action safe are still good practices to follow, especially when using After Effects.
Okay, so how do we turn on these guides so that we can see them in After Effects?
Turning On Title/Action Safe Guides in AE
With a Composition open, find the Composition panel (the main panel that shows you the video you are making in After Effects). At the bottom of the panel there’s a box surrounded by crosshairs. Click it then select Title/Action Safe. The Title Safe and Action Safe guides will now appear in After Effects.
Alternatively you can use the ‘ (apostrophe) key on both Mac and Windows to show or hide these guides.
FYI — If you don’t know the keyboard shortcuts to show and hide properties in After Effects, you should learn them. Here’s a quick tutorial.
🎧 Do you need stock music? Check out my friends at Soundstripe. They have the best selection, pricing, and licensing out there. For 10% off a subscription use the code “EVF” at checkout.
Modifying the Safe Guides in After Effects
Did you know you can change where Title Safe and Action Safe are set in After Effects? By default Action Safe is set to 10% and Title Safe to 20%.
Navigate to After Effects’ Preferences screen. Under Grids & Guides is the Safe Margins section. Change Action-safe and/or Title-safe to another number if you’d like then click OK.
Do you know how to create regular guides in After Effects? Learn it in this quick tutorial.
If you’ve read this tutorial and you still can’t figure it out, please leave a comment and I’ll do what I can to help troubleshoot it. But if you can now turn on and modify Title Safe and Action Safe guides in After Effects, I hope you stick around and check out some of the other After Effects tutorials on my website or consider signing up to get notified about new blog posts and happenings around EVF.
– Josh