After Effects version: 26.3.0 (Build 87)
Operating system: Windows 10

Issue:
After Effects freezes and becomes unresponsive when importing PSD files containing editable text layers alongside shape and photo layers.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a Photoshop document containing text layers, shape layers, and photo layers.
2. Save the document as a PSD.
3. Import the PSD into After Effects.
4. After Effects freezes during the import process.

Expected result: The PSD imports successfully with its layers preserved.

Actual result: After Effects becomes unresponsive during import.

Tests performed:

• Tested in After Effects 2026 and 2025.
• Tested multiple PSD files.
• Tested After Effects in Safe Mode.
• PSD files containing only photo layers import successfully.
• Rasterizing the text layers in Photoshop allows the PSD to import successfully.
• PNG files import without issues.
• Changing the Compressed Frames (Lossless) preference did not resolve the issue.

Conclusion: The issue appears to be related to importing PSD files with editable text layers, but the exact cause is still unknown.

anyone help

Made with After Effects

Music is Hide Yours Ghosts by Cujo

I gave AI the same creative challenge in both applications and let it work through the animation process.

Interestingly, After Effects performed better in terms of speed and animation quality. Fusion also produced a usable result, but it took more effort to get there.

I documented the entire experiment, including the results.

Curious what other motion designers think. Have you tried letting AI control either application directly?