After Effects is packed with wizards and the key is at the heart of motion graphics and animation. A favorite wizard is available in the animation menu, ‘keyframe wizard’. There are several options here, but one that pretty much creates an animation for you with just a few steps is the ‘sequence layers’ option. This wizard does more or less what it sounds like, it creates keys and transitions for the layers you select. Whether it’s a slideshow or part of a presentation with some timed sequences, this is a tool you’ll want to have around.

To get started, choose the images you want to sequence, ideally they should be the same size, but this is not a requirement. To create your composition, simply drag one of these images from your project panel onto the composition symbol at the bottom of the project panel. This is a quick and easy way to create a composition based on the properties of the resource. If it were a high definition video, the composition properties would match the video.

In this case, we will simply create a composition with my default frame rate of 29.7 and the size of the image used to create the composition. Now drag the rest of the images into the composition and they will all fill the entire time window. By default, this should be the time of the previous composition, since a single image does not have a time period.

When you click on the first image, the first layer, then hold shift while clicking on the last one, this will select all the layers at once. You can perform this same action by entering ‘Ctrl A’. With all the layers highlighted, drag their timeline settings back to the number of frames you want to appear in this slideshow.

Now it’s time for the wizard. Highlight all your layers, then from the ‘Animation’ menu select ‘Animation->Keyframe Assist->Sequence Layers’. This will bring up the popup menu for sequencing with three options: Overlay, Duration, and Transition. The Sequence Layers Wizard will sequence your layers based on these three simple options.

If you think of a typical slideshow, the images fade into one another, ‘dissolving’ as one moves from one stage to the next. They usually overlap a bit with a brief moment where they both share the stage, but with reduced opacity, so they are really sharing. These three options are just that.

When you click the overlay checkbox, the duration and transition options appear. You choose its duration, which will usually be the product of a bit of experimentation. In my simple slideshow, which showcases some of my artists’ work, I set each image to appear for two seconds with a four-frame overlay. When you choose the overlay and set its duration, you have three options for your transition: none, front layer cross dissolve, front and back layer cross dissolve.

When choosing dissolve transition options, simply tell After Effects to add an opacity fade over the duration window you specify. You can choose neither, but we generally like to see a fade-out transition that allows our images or videos to “share” and transfer the moment as the next one takes center stage.

What’s a bit fun about describing this wizard is that it actually takes longer to describe than to apply. Test it! Choose all your layers, choose the sequence layer wizard, check that they overlap, then set the duration and transition type. An added benefit of it being so easy is that it’s also easy to experiment, trying out different durations to get the timing and overall effect you’re looking for.