The After Effects review workflow: getting client feedback on comps

The cleanest After Effects review workflow is to render a review copy, share one link, and collect frame-exact comments right on the player — never hand the client your project. Comps are where feedback gets fuzziest (“nudge the title”, “that transition feels off”), so the review has to pin every note to a frame — and, for motion work, to a spot on the frame.

Giving a client access to your .aep is a recipe for broken links, missing fonts, and “I moved a layer to see.” Keep them out of the project entirely.

Render a review copy, not the project

You don’t send the composition — you send a video of it.

• Render through the queue or Media Encoder to a 1080p H.264, ~10–20 Mbps. Small enough to upload fast, sharp enough to judge kerning, timing, and colour.
• Render the section under review, not always the whole piece. A 12-second lower-third package doesn’t need the full 3-minute sequence around it.
• Keep your project untouched. The review copy is disposable; your comp is the source of truth.

This mirrors the Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve approach — export a flat review file, review it somewhere the client can’t touch your timeline.

Share one link and collect notes on the frame

Upload the render once and create a share link. The client clicks, the comp streams, and there’s nothing to install.

For motion graphics, two things make or break the review:

1. Timestamped comments — a note pinned to 0:04 tells you when. Essential for timing notes: “hold this beat longer”, “the text is up before the whoosh”.
2. Drawing on the frame — annotate directly on the pixel tells you where. This is the one motion designers can’t live without. “Move this” plus an arrow on the exact element beats a paragraph trying to describe which of five layers the client means.

Because reviewers don’t need an account and are free on every plan, you can add the client, the creative director, and the account manager to the same link without a per-seat bill.

Conform the feedback back to your comp

Now the notes come back as an ordered, frame-exact list — work it like a shot list.

• Go timecode by timecode. Each comment maps to a moment in your comp, so you’re not scrubbing to find what “the middle bit” meant.
• For drawn notes, the annotation shows the exact layer and position — nudge, re-time, or restyle against a reference instead of a guess.
• Re-render and upload it as a new version on the same asset. The client can compare it against the last render to confirm the note landed.

Lock it when it’s signed off

Motion work often feeds an edit downstream — an editor is waiting to drop your comp into their sequence. So the sign-off matters.

Get an explicit approval, then lock the approved version so everyone downstream is finishing against a frozen, agreed reference — not “the one I think we approved.”

A timecode tells you when. A drawing on the frame tells you where. Motion graphics need both, or the note is still a guess.

The point

An After Effects review works when the client never opens your project and every note is anchored — by timecode and by a mark on the frame. You stop re-rendering against misread feedback, and you keep a clean record of what was approved.

Editlock runs this on one link, with unlimited free reviewers and pricing based on storage, not seats — so adding every stakeholder to the review is free. See the plans; there’s a free tier to run a full comp review before you pay a rupee.