Motion Graphics: After Effects allows users to create intricate motion graphics with text, shapes, logos, and other visual elements. It supports keyframe animation, allowing precise control over movement, timing, and easing.

Visual Effects (VFX): It offers a wide range of tools for creating and manipulating visual effects, such as particle systems, simulated fluids, and realistic lighting effects. VFX artists use After Effects for tasks like green screen (chroma key) compositing, rotoscoping, and matte painting.

Compositing: After Effects excels in compositing multiple layers of video footage or images to create seamless compositions. It supports blending modes, masks, and alpha channel transparency to integrate elements into a single cohesive scene.

Animation and Keyframing: Users can animate virtually any property of an object or layer in After Effects using keyframes. This includes position, scale, rotation, opacity, and more. The Graph Editor provides advanced control over easing and interpolation between keyframes.

Expression Scripting: Advanced users can leverage expressions, a form of scripting language in After Effects, to automate complex animations and create dynamic relationships between layers.

3D Capabilities: Although primarily a 2D application, After Effects has basic 3D capabilities. Users can create and animate 3D layers, cameras, and lights, allowing for the integration of 3D elements into a 2D composite.

Integration with Adobe Ecosystem: After Effects seamlessly integrates with other Adobe Creative Cloud applications like Adobe Premiere Pro (for video editing) and Adobe Photoshop (for image editing and compositing). Projects can be easily shared between these applications.

Plugins and Presets: After Effects supports a vast ecosystem of third-party plugins and presets that extend its functionality. These plugins can add specialized effects, tools for workflow optimization, and additional creative options.