Project Setup, Interface, and Workflow
Know which setting lives where
Setup questions test whether you can name the layer of settings responsible. There are three: application Preferences (undo levels, auto-save interval, memory, media and disk cache location), Project Settings (color bit depth of 8, 16, or 32 bpc, plus color working space), and Composition Settings (dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, resolution, duration, background color, 3D renderer). Marks are lost by trying to repair a frame-rate mismatch in Preferences when it belongs to Interpretation or Composition Settings.
Interface
Panels are different views of the same data: Project, Composition, Timeline, Effect Controls, Layer, and Flowchart. Workspaces store panel layouts per user, not per project, and resetting a workspace restores defaults. Learn the timeline layer switches: shy, lock, solo, quality, motion blur, adjustment layer, 3D layer, and collapse transformations. Motion blur needs the layer switch and the composition's Enable Motion Blur button. Shy layers hide from the timeline but still render. Solo overrides other layers' visibility in the comp view only.
Traps
- Undo levels are a preference, not a project property, and are not saved with the file.
- Auto-Save writes a recovery copy; it is not a versioned incremental save.
- Disk cache accelerates RAM previews and playback, not the final render pipeline per se.
Rule of thumb
Match before you fix. If imported footage plays too fast or too slow, suspect Interpretation, not Composition Settings: Interpret Footage > Main > Assume Frame Rate changes the metadata for every instance of that item at once, while a comp's frame rate only changes how often frames are sampled.