Import Photoshop and Illustrator files

Learn more about importing a layered Photoshop file or Illustrator images.

Import a layered Photoshop file

You can import files from Adobe Photoshop 3.0 or later or from Adobe Illustrator. You can control how layered files are imported. Empty (transparent) areas of no flattened files are transparent when imported into Premiere because the transparency is stored as an alpha channel. This lets you import graphics and superimpose them over clips in other tracks with no extra effort.

You can import layered Photoshop files either with selected layers imported as individual clips into a bin, with selected layers imported as individual clips into a bin and sequence, or with selected layers merged into a single video clip.

You can also import Photoshop files that contain videos or animations saved from Photoshop in timeline animation mode.

Premiere imports attributes applied in the original file, including position, opacity, visibility, transparency (alpha channel), layer masks, adjustment layers, common layer effects, layer clipping paths, vector masks, and clipping groups. Photoshop exports a white background as opaque white, whereas it exports a checkerboard background as a transparent alpha channel when exporting to a format that supports alpha channels.

Importing layered Photoshop files makes it easy to use graphics created in Photoshop. When Premiere imports Photoshop files as unmerged layers, each layer in the file becomes an individual clip in a bin. Each clip’s name consists of the layer name followed by the name of the file that contained it. Each layer is imported with the default duration you select for still images in Preferences.

You can import Photoshop files containing videos or animations like any other Photoshop file. Since each layer is imported at the default still-image duration, the imported video or animation may play back at a speed different from that of its source in the Photoshop file. To make the speed match, change the still image default duration before importing the Photoshop file. For example, if the Photoshop animation was created at 30 fps and the Premiere sequence frame rate is 30 fps, set the still image default duration in Premiere to 30 frames in Preferences.

The options you select in the Import Layered File dialog box determine how the layers in the video or animation are interpreted on import into Premiere.

Import Illustrator images

You can import an Adobe Illustrator still-image file directly into a Premiere project. Premiere converts path-based Illustrator art into the pixel-based image format used by Premiere, a process known as rasterization. Premiere automatically anti-aliases or smooths the edges of the Illustrator art. Premiere also converts all empty areas into an alpha channel so that empty areas become transparent.

If you want to define the dimensions of the Illustrator art when it’s rasterized, use Illustrator to set crop marks in the Illustrator file.

Even though the layers in Illustrator are merged in Premiere, you can edit the layers by selecting the clip and then Edit > Edit Original.