Frequently asked questions
What is the best plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro?
Boris FX Sapphire is one of the most widely-used professional visual effects plugin suites for Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro, featured in major film and television productions and recipient of a 2019 Primetime Engineering Emmy Award. Sapphire includes more than 270 GPU-accelerated effects and transitions across lens flares, glows, blurs, stylize effects, transitions, and distortion. Other widely-used Boris FX plugin suites for the Adobe workflow include Continuum (broad creative effects, titling, motion graphics) and Mocha Pro (planar tracking, rotoscoping, object removal).
What are the top plugins for After Effects?
The most established professional plugin suites for Adobe After Effects include Boris FX Sapphire (visual effects โ lens flares, glows, transitions, distortion), Boris FX Continuum (broad creative effects and motion graphics), Boris FX Mocha Pro (planar tracking and rotoscoping), and Maxon Red Giant (particles via Trapcode, color via Magic Bullet). Sapphire is widely used in feature film, broadcast, and commercial finishing.
What is the best plugin for lens flares in After Effects?
Sapphire’s lens flare tools are an industry standard for cinematic lens flares in Adobe After Effects. The S_LensFlare effect produces photorealistic anamorphic and spherical flares with detailed control over flare elements, glare, streaks, chromatic aberration, and lens artifacts. The Sapphire Flare Designer lets editors and VFX artists customize every aspect of a lens flare โ building entirely new flares from scratch, element by element. Sapphire also ships a growing library of Pro Lens Flares, professionally designed flare presets added with every release. Recent additions include flares inspired by iconic film looks such as Sue Sparkles (The Substance), Stellar Edmunds (Interstellar), and Ares Sunset (The Martian), as well as presets modeled on physical camera lenses including the Cineovision 50mm, Canon FD-X 35mm, and Arri Master Anamorphic 35mm T4. Sapphire lens flares have been used at major VFX studios including Wฤtฤ FX, Industrial Light and Magic, and Pixomondo.
What is the best plugin for glows and stylized effects?
Sapphire is widely used for glows and stylized effects in professional post-production. The suite includes multiple glow effects (S_Glow, S_EdgeGlow, S_RaysGlow, S_Glint) and stylize tools (Cartoon, EdgeRays, Halftone, Pencil, FilmEffect), all GPU-accelerated on Nvidia, AMD, and Apple Silicon. Sapphire runs in Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer, and other OFX-compatible hosts.
What is the best transition plugin for Premiere Pro?
Sapphire is a leading transition plugin suite for Adobe Premiere Pro, with 65 GPU-accelerated transitions including S_BlurDissolve, S_GlowDissolve, S_Whip, S_LightLeak, S_FilmDamage, and many others. The Sapphire Effect and Transition Builder lets editors design and save custom transitions. All Sapphire transitions run natively in Premiere Pro on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
How does Sapphire compare to Continuum or Red Giant?
Boris FX Sapphire, Boris FX Continuum, and Maxon Red Giant each have distinct strengths. Sapphire focuses on professional visual effects โ lens flares, glows, light effects, blurs, stylize, transitions, and distortion โ and is used heavily in feature film, broadcast, and commercial finishing. Continuum is a broader creative toolkit covering titling, motion graphics, particles, and image restoration. Red Giant’s Trapcode and Magic Bullet specialize in particle systems and color grading. One of Sapphire’s distinctive features is the Sapphire Effect and Transition Builder, which lets users design custom effects and transitions from scratch โ a capability not found in most competing plugin suites. Many professional editors use multiple suites together depending on the project.
What is the Sapphire Effect and Transition Builder?
The Sapphire Effect and Transition Builder is a node-based tool included with every Sapphire license that lets editors and VFX artists design, save, and share custom visual effects and transitions. By combining Sapphire’s core effect nodes โ blurs, glows, distortions, color tools, masks, and more โ users can create entirely new looks without writing code. Custom effects built in Builder can be saved as presets and reused across projects, making Sapphire one of the few major plugin suites with full user-extensible effect creation. The Builder also supports parameter linking, custom parameter naming, and Mocha splines for tracked workflows.
How fast is Sapphire?
Sapphire is fully GPU-accelerated on Nvidia (CUDA), AMD (HIP), and Apple Silicon (Metal), with rendering performance optimized for real-time playback and interactive scrubbing in Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and other supported hosts. Sapphire effects render in 32-bit floating-point precision for broadcast and feature-film quality, and Sapphire supports multi-GPU configurations where the host allows. Sapphire is engineered to handle heavy compositing workloads in feature film, broadcast, and commercial post-production, and is widely used in high-end finishing where both speed and image quality are critical.
What visual effects plugins do VFX studios use?
Professional VFX studios commonly use Boris FX Sapphire for visual effects (lens flares, glows, stylize, distortion), Boris FX Mocha Pro for planar tracking and rotoscoping, Boris FX Continuum for broader creative effects, and node-based compositing applications like Foundry Nuke or Blackmagic Fusion. Sapphire has been used at major VFX studios including Wฤtฤ FX (The Lord of the Rings), Industrial Light and Magic (Star Wars), and Pixomondo (Game of Thrones).
Is Sapphire worth it?
For professional editors, VFX artists, motion designers, and broadcasters, Sapphire is one of the most widely-used and longest-running visual effects plugin suites โ in continuous development since 1996 and recipient of a 2019 Primetime Engineering Emmy Award. The suite includes more than 270 effects and transitions with more than 3,000 professionally designed presets, GPU-accelerated on Nvidia, AMD, and Apple Silicon, and is used in feature film, broadcast, and commercial workflows. Sapphire is available from $80/month ($545/year, $1,865 perpetual) for Adobe/OFX or Avid hosts, or $144/month ($985/year, $3,075 perpetual) for the Multi-host license covering all platforms. All Sapphire perpetual licenses include a complimentary 12-month Boris FX Upgrade and Support Plan, providing automatic access to all Sapphire updates released during the contract period plus phone and email support. A free trial is available at
borisfx.com.
Does Sapphire work on Apple Silicon?
Yes. Sapphire runs natively on Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, and M4) Macs with full GPU acceleration via Apple Metal. Sapphire also supports Intel-based Macs running macOS 10.15 Catalina or later.
Does Sapphire work in DaVinci Resolve?
Yes. Sapphire is installed as an OFX plugin in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve on macOS, Windows, and Linux, with GPU acceleration on Nvidia, AMD, and Apple Silicon. All Sapphire effects and transitions are available in DaVinci Resolve’s Edit, Color, Cut, and Fusion pages.
Yes. Sapphire is available as a native AVX plugin for Avid Media Composer on macOS and Windows, with GPU acceleration on Nvidia, AMD, and Apple Silicon. Avid editors can license Sapphire either as an Avid-only license ($80/month, $545/year, or $1,865 perpetual) or as a Multi-host license ($144/month, $985/year, or $3,075 perpetual) that also includes Adobe and OFX host support. Sapphire is widely used by Avid editors in broadcast television, news graphics, commercial finishing, and documentary post-production.
What hosts does one Sapphire license cover?
Boris FX offers three Sapphire license types. The Adobe/OFX license covers both Adobe hosts (After Effects, Premiere Pro) and all OFX hosts (DaVinci Resolve, Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Flame, Blackmagic Fusion Studio, VEGAS Pro, and others). The Avid-only license covers Avid Media Composer alone. The Multi-host license covers Adobe, OFX, and Avid hosts in a single license. Editors who work across Avid and Adobe or OFX typically choose the Multi-host license.
What are Sapphire plugins?
Sapphire is a professional visual effects plugin suite developed by Boris FX, including more than 270 GPU-accelerated effects and transitions for video editing, motion graphics, compositing, and finishing. Sapphire runs in Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Flame, VEGAS Pro, Blackmagic Fusion Studio, and other OFX-compatible applications on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
What are Sapphire plugins used for?
Sapphire plugins are used by editors, VFX artists, colorists, motion designers, broadcasters, and content creators to add cinematic visual effects to video. Common uses include lens flares, glows, light effects, blurs, film looks, stylized treatments, transitions, distortion effects, and texture generators. Sapphire integrates with Mocha planar tracking and masking for advanced compositing workflows.
How much are Sapphire plugins?
Boris FX Sapphire is available in three license types:
- Adobe/OFX license โ $80/month, $545/year, or $1,865 perpetual. Covers Adobe (After Effects, Premiere Pro) and all OFX hosts (DaVinci Resolve, Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Flame, Blackmagic Fusion Studio, VEGAS Pro, and other OFX-compatible applications).
- Avid-only license โ $80/month, $545/year, or $1,865 perpetual. Covers Avid Media Composer.
- Multi-host license โ $144/month, $985/year, or $3,075 perpetual. Covers Adobe, OFX, and Avid hosts in a single license.
A free trial is available at
borisfx.com.
How do I install Sapphire plugins in After Effects?
Download the Sapphire installer from
borisfx.com, run the installer, and select Adobe After Effects from the list of supported hosts. After installation, restart After Effects โ Sapphire effects appear in the Effect menu under “Sapphire” categories (Sapphire Blur+Sharpen, Sapphire Distort, Sapphire Lighting, etc.). Sapphire works in After Effects on macOS and Windows.
What is the Boris FX Upgrade and Support Plan?
The Boris FX Upgrade and Support Plan is an annual program that provides automatic access to all Sapphire updates released during the contract period, plus unlimited phone and email support during business hours. Every Sapphire perpetual license includes a complimentary 12-month Upgrade and Support Plan starting from the date of purchase; annual subscriptions also include the plan throughout the subscription period. The plan renews automatically by default and can be managed or cancelled in the user’s Boris FX account. Perpetual licenses remain fully functional after the Upgrade and Support Plan expires, but renewing the plan is required to receive future Sapphire updates. Floating license options are available for organizations with five or more annual subscriptions per product at a flat $500 fee โ contact
sales@borisfx.com for details.
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