Adobe After Effects — which is included in the Adobe Creative Cloud Membership — is one of the most powerful visual effects tools on the market. It’s been right at the top of the industry since its debut in 1993. This app is perfect for creating animation, complex special effects, and multi-layered imagery.
With the popularity of Adobe After Effects, hundreds of add-ons are available online. This includes pro-level templates that add a candy-store of visual effects to your projects. You can find plenty of free resource packs online too. Many will enhance your motion graphics, slideshow, and lower thirds game to the max.
We’ve picked out eight of the best free After Effects templates and plugins that can take your work from the bargain bin to the big screen.
1. Action Pack Lite – add blockbuster special effects
If you’d like to give your projects an explosive edge, head straight to Action Pack Lite. It’s a selection of 25 After Effects templates that can make your footage look like the latest summer blockbuster. This great intro pack includes explosions, bursts of smoke, and flashes of gunfire, along with other creative assets. It’s all shot using professional equipment at 4K so you know your video editing will benefit from high-quality content.
2. Messenger – recreate text messages
We’ve all seen movies and TV shows where text messages appear on-screen. Messenger lets you display text and chat boxes in your projects. This handy, free pack includes five customizable visual styles. It’s perfect for adding modern, tech-savvy sheen to your Premiere Pro projects.
3. Unity Lite wedding templates – shoot the perfect wedding video
Wedding cinematography is big business. Unity Lite’s wedding templates can make footage of these special days look even better. It comes with badges that are perfect for elegant logo reveals. You’ll also get smooth, clean preset lighting effects that can enhance footage and transitions between sections. As a bonus perk, this pack also includes a video tutorial and you can customize all of its typography.
4. Digital Distortion pack – create a futuristic feel
If you want your project files to look edgy and gritty, then look no further than this free Digital Distortion Pack. These After Effects templates let you add CCTV-style noise to footage, enhance video with pixelation effects, or deploy a wide selection of futuristic overlays and glitches. We’ve all seen these effects in science-fiction, action, and thriller movies. This toolkit makes it easy to add them to your projects.
5. Light and Dust overlay pack – use subtle lighting effects
If you want a more subtle and realistic feel for your video project, then consider a download of the Light and Dust Overlay Pack. Here you’ll find sixteen plugins that add beams of light to video. The pack also includes dust, haze, and fog effects. These can capture a relaxing summer’s day or the oppressive atmosphere of a horror movie in equal measure. They’re very useful — and very free.
6. Color Grading pack – apply incredible color filters
Color grading can be a technical, complex, and time-consuming process for even experienced video editors. Although, this free selection of 35 Adobe After Effects templates applies different color grades to your work. The included grades can instantly give your footage a distinctive feel. Think about how filters on Instagram Stories drastically change the mood.
This pack serves up templates, plugins, and presets that can transform your promos and projects. Some filters make footage look like it’s been swiped straight from a Hollywood movie. Others provide a vintage feel. Meanwhile, some can balance your colors with a greater sense of realism.
More free After Effects templates to use
There are hundreds of free Adobe After Effects plugins on the shelf. We’ve mentioned some of our favorites, but do a little browsing on your own. One Spider-Man template overlays a futuristic HUD onto your footage — perfect for sci-fi movies. For a retro feel, check out this fake VHS template which makes your footage look like it’s straight from a VHS cassette.
Whether you use these templates or search online for others at places like RocketStock, it’s never been so easy to turbo-charge your video production in Adobe After Effects.
