Stroke for After Effects

What is this?

Stroke is a preset for After Effects to make managing your Stroke Layer Style easier.

Why should I use it?

After Effects offers a native Stroke effect through Effects & Presets > Generate > Stroke. However using this effect requires a mask and does not simply add a stroke layers with alpha such as precomps or imported files.

You can manually add a Stroke Layer Style but the properties are buried under several twirl downs and are not very intuitive to use.

How do I use it?

Remember, this is a preset not a plug-in.

You can add a preset to any selected layers by using Menu > Animation > Apply Animation Preset... and navigating to the FFX preset file.

But the best way to use presets is to save the FFX preset file in the After Effects Presets folder. Once saved, presets are available in the Effects & Presets > *Animation Presets.

Important reminder about presets

This is annoying but After Effects presets can only be applied using the After Effects version they were created in or newer. This is why the latest update to this preset will always require a new FFX preset file.

Where is the After Effects Presets folder?

• Windows: Adobe After Effects 2025/Support Files/Presets
• Mac: Adobe After Effects 2025/Presets