Cant believe their isnt a forum, but anyway.

Is it possible to postwork a still image in AE ?

Adding particles and such ?

yes in deed.

It's timebased, so you add an effect (like particles), tweak the settings till it looks like you want it to and then you can render a single frame, where the particles are in the right place.

A good start is http://www.creativecow.net/ & http://www.videocopilot.net/ .

hey thanks. Interesting yo send me this link. I was reading an article about it @ creative cow, but never any mention of stills LOL

there is no problem in using an image as an background-layer. Your Project should use the dimensions of your picture, so you don't have any black borders around.

Particles funktion in an 3D world so you can rotate them as you like etc. Leave your image 2D, so it's always orientated towards the camera. Perhaps you have to use some masks on the particle layer, if you want them starting behind an object on your image or so.

good luck!

I had the idea to light my scene according to the particle/exxect i was going to apply and then just apply it to 2D space. I was thinking about Particle Illusion, but i doubt it has the same quality as AE. Now off to find tutorials as i know NOTHING about AfterEffect :D

That Video Co-Pilot site is an awesome find.

Thanks for posting that link.

Tom

Yes it is. I found it by accident and it turned out to be very usefull for an startup. I like his humor and the tutorials are inspiring. It's amazing to see what can be done with only a little work, if you know how. Another tip is to look inside the projectfiles he offers with every tutorial. Often there are some more sequences and variations of the examples he presents.

By the way, R.P.Studios, I saw you're using Cinema 4D. Perhaps you already know but if not: There is an possibility to import C4D Scenes directly into AE. There you can change the lighting, textures etc. directly the space you created in C4D. Perhaps it's another way for you to get your particles set up.

Andrew Kramer over at VideoCoPilot is a Genius as far as I am concerned.

As to adding effects on a still image, it is really the same as adding effects on motion graphics. The difference is you are using only one frame.

My last image I posted I used AF CS5 to add the electrical charge in the Crystal Ball. Of course it is actually Advanced Lightning, but it did the trick very well.