Paint Link

Paint Link offers a revolutionary new workflow for frame-by-frame animation. Create a dynamic connection between After Effects and Photoshop to unlock the best of both tools.

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  • Trial
Description

Users Love Paint Link!

We spent almost a year developing and testing it to make sure you love it!

Getting Started with Paint Link

Learn how to use Photoshop’s award-winning suite of brushes to draw directly on the frames of your project, then watch as Paint Link automatically syncs your changes to After Effects, enabling real-time preview without the need to render.

One-Click Workflow

With a single click, Paint Link forms a dynamic link between your project and a new PSD—eliminating the need to save, render, or manually manage files.

An Onion Skin For Any Workflow

The highly customizable Onion Skin is designed to complement any project or workflow. Learn more about how Paint Link can adapt to the way you work.

Perfect For Collaboration

Paint Link makes it easy to share project files with your collaborators. Perfect for team-based workflows.

Automatic File Management

Paint Link automatically syncs your files to individual keyframes within your After Effects timeline, eliminating the need for file management while maintaining full control over your work.

Real-time Workflow

Paint Link updates After Effects in real-time as you are painting in Photoshop. This video was recorded in real-time to demonstrate the workflow.

Setup Instructions

In order for Paint Link to function, there are a few Photoshop settings you'll need to adjust.Don't worry, once these changes are made you'll never need to touch them again.

Disable Color Warnings

  1. Go to Photoshop > Edit > Preferences > Color Settings
  2. Under Profile Mismatches, disable "Ask When Opening"and "Ask When Pasting"
  3. Under Missing Profiles, disable "Ask When Opening"

Enable After Effects To Photoshop Connection

  1. Go to Photoshop > Edit > Preferences > Plugins (Windows)
    Photoshop > Settings > Plugins (Mac)
  2. Turn on "Enable Remote Connections"
  3. Set "Password" to "aescripts"

And now you're ready to paint!

Discussions

Want to talk about it?

Head over to r/aescripts to chat with fellow users about this product.

Need Support?

Please open a support ticket to be connected directly with the author of this product

Version History

1.0.8 -

Jan 2, 2024

-removed the Add VFX keyframe button.

-Added a VFX mode checkbox.

1.0.7 -

Dec 1, 2023

-Added a new feature "Add Keyframe VFX".

-plugin now detects some incomplete or incorrect installations, and tells the user how to fix it.

-Fixed a few situations where a PSD might not be updated in Ae, for example, the user closing Ae and Photoshop when Paint Link is not selected.

-Fixed a crash related to the plugin server connection

1.0.6 -

Aug 14, 2023

-Fixed an error in which Paint Link would repeatedly attempt to re-connect to Photoshop when it's supposed to be idle. This prevented text from being edited because each connection attempt would force de-selection.

1.0.5 -

Jul 29, 2023

-Fixed an error in which the plugin would not work when saving to a drive which contains non-English characters in the path name.

1.0.4 -

Jun 9, 2023

-There have been no changes to the plugin itself, however we have fixed an issue with the installer that was preventing installation in some cases.

1.0.3 -

Jun 8, 2023

-Fixed a bug in the latest version of Photoshop (24.5) where sometimes the frame step controls would not work.

1.0.2 -

Jun 1, 2023

- Added support for Photoshop 24.5, which introduces a new Context Aware panel that interfered with older versions of Paint Link.

- To reduce lag on older computers, we've fully prevented Paint Link from processing or updating when After Effects is not selected as the operating system's active window.

1.0.1 -

Nov 28, 2022

- Fixed an issue where Paint Link may not push images from Photoshop to After Effects if only one single keyframe exists in the project.



-Added a check to ensure "Allow Scripts to write files and Access Network" is enabled.

1.0.0 -

Aug 22, 2022

- Initial Release

Compatibility

After Effects

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022

Photoshop

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022