Zoom

The Magnification Ratio control in the lower-left corner of a Composition, Layer, or Footage panel shows and controls the current magnification. By default, the magnification is set to fit the current size of the panel. When you change magnification, you change the appearance of the preview in the panel that you are previewing, not the actual resolution and pixels of the composition.
Note: After Effects renders vector objects before zooming (scaling for preview), so some vector objects may appear jagged when you zoom in on them. This apparent pixelation for zooms does not affect scaling of layers or rendering to final output.
  • To zoom in to or out from the center of the active view, press the period (.) key or the comma (,) key. Each keypress additionally increases or decreases the magnification.
  • To zoom in to or out from the center of the view using the mouse scroll wheel, place the pointer over the panel and move the scroll wheel.
  • To zoom in on or out from a specific point using the mouse scroll wheel, place the pointer over the panel and hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you move the scroll wheel.
  • To zoom in on a specific point using the Zoom tool , click the area in the panel you want to magnify. Each click additionally magnifies the image, centering the display on the point you click. You can also drag the tool to magnify a specific area.
  • To zoom out from a specific point using the Zoom tool, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the point that you want to be the center of the zoomed-out view. Each click additionally decreases the magnification of the image, centering the display on the point you click.
  • To zoom the active view to 100%, double-click the Zoom tool button in the Tools panel.
  • To zoom to fit or to zoom to a preset magnification, choose a zoom level from the Magnification Ratio menu. To change the magnification of all views in a Composition panel, hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while choosing a zoom level from the menu. Choose Fit to make the image fit the Composition panel; choose Fit Up To 100% to limit the zoom level to 100%.
To pan around in the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel while zoomed in, drag with the Hand tool, which you can activate by holding down the spacebar, the H key, or the middle mouse button. Hold Shift, too, to pan faster.