The first step, is, to Download the Plugin from fnord OpenColorIO for After Effects for your System.

If you have a Mac you will get a .dmg which you can just install like every other program.

If you have a Windows machine, which you can unpack either with a Software like 7Zip or WinRaR. If you are using Windows 11 you can just make a right click on the file and click on extract all.

After that, you should have a folder which contains the OpenColorIO AE Manual.pdf and the OpenColorIO.aex.

Copy the  OpenColorIO.aex to this path:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2022\Support Files\Plug-ins\Effects

After that, you can delete what you’ve downloaded.

If you can’t find the path, Just make a right click on After Effects in your start menu and click on open file location. This should lead you to a file called Adobe After Effects 2022, but that is just a link, so you have to right-click and click on open file location again, which brings you into the Folder of After Effects there you need to open the Folder Plug-Ins. And then copy the file into the Effects Folder.

Installing Plug-Ins in After Effects was never simple 😢, but we are not done yet.

If you open After Effects now, the Effect OpenColorIO is available.

The Problem is, if you apply the Effect to a layer

The Problem is, if you apply the Effect to a layer and select a configuration, it will show you No confgurations.

Theoretically, everyone can create their own configuration file.

If you downloaded the files from GitHub you will have a .zip file which after you extract contains multiple files and folders, one of them is called aces_1.2 which you need to copy and put it in C:\ProgramData (not programfiles) in the folder OpenColorIO which you still need, to create.

Now, you can select aces_1.2 within the OpenColorIO Plug-In in After Effects.

Using the Plug-In is fairly simple.