User Guide

CHAPTER 3
114
Building a Composition
3 Position the pointer within the layer (but not on a handle) and drag the layer to a
location within the Composition window.
After you start dragging a layer, hold down Shift to constrain the dragging to horizontal
or vertical movements, or hold down Ctrl+Shift (Windows) or Command+Shift
(Mac OS) to snap to the frame edges or center.
Setting the background color of a composition
The default background color for the Composition window is black, but you can change
the color at any time. When you add one composition to a second composition (nesting),
the second composition’s background color is preserved, and the first composition’s
background becomes transparent. If you want to preserve the first composition’s solid
background color, create a new, colored solid to use as a background layer in the first
composition. See “Creating a new solid layer” on page 127. For more information on
nesting, see “Organizing a project using nesting” on page 342.
You can also change the color of the pasteboard in the Composition window.
To set the background color of a composition:
1 Choose Composition > Background Color.
2 Click the color swatch to select a color, or click the eyedropper to sample a color from
anywhere on the screen. Then click OK.
To set the pasteboard color of a composition:
1 Choose Edit > Preferences > Display.
2 Click the color swatch to select a color, or click the eyedropper to sample a color from
anywhere on the screen. Then click OK.
Using checkerboard backgrounds to display transparency
You can toggle a checkerboard pattern on or off (like the checkerboard that Adobe
Photoshop uses to indicate transparency). Viewing the checkerboard pattern may slow
down window redraw.
UG.book Page 114 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM