You could try starting After Effects with Ctrl+Alt+Shift (on Windows, or Cmd-Option-Shift on Mac) held down, which will recreate the preferences file.

Problem Solved!
 

Thanks everyone - it's working now - I deleted and reinstalled the application!

So, drastic I suppose, but it did fix the problem - you all helped, I wanted you to know that.

Cheers!

Glad it's working. But no clue what was wrong? I'm curious.

It seems the problems aren't over...
 

After Effects now says it's working in 32 bit mode. The filters I apply look a bit smoother than what my original renders looked like. The codec I'll be outputting to is a 10-bit codec (Apple ProRes 422 HQ), and as I've read by Mike Curtis on HD for Indies, TEST and make sure it really is outputting 1024 levels of gray (10 bit) rather than 256 levels of gray (8 bit). Mike's suggested test makes a lot of sense:

"1.) Are you SURE you’re getting 10 bit output from your CS3? Often one has to edit text files to make sure the codec enables 10 bit output - see

http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/06/a...-tips-and.html

2.) If unsure, render a black to white gradient, left to right, on a 1024 pixel wide frame, to your ostensibly 10 bit codec. Bring it back into your AE project. Does each pixel moving right change one pixel in brightness? If they change in jumps every 4 pixels, you’ve got 8 bit output."

So, in AE, working in 32 bit mode, I made a new compostiion and.. what the hell.. even before I render OUT, the grays jump 4 levels every time I move my mouse over one pixel, not 1 level per each pixel move as they should!! I can *see* the banding as well.. what .. this shouldn't even be happening now, only if/when I export. I'm in floating point mode for crissakes!

Is this After Effects 7 Standard or Professional?
 

Is this After Effects 7 Standard or Professional?

Here's what the "About color depth" section of After Effects 7 Help says: "In After Effects, you can work in 8-bpc, 16-bpc or 32-bpc color mode for each project; 16-bpc and 32-bpc color modes are available only in After Effects Professional."

BTW, there's no Standard version of After Effects CS3, so this confusion shouldn't happen with the new version.

(Sorry to respond so late, but maybe this will be helpful to someone else with the same issue.)

Todd, I'm using the Pro version.

Don''t know enough about Macs but could it be something as simple as your screen resolution (maybe set to 16 bit colour instead of 32)? Seems unlikely...

Apart from that maybe a clash with the driver version of the ATI card you are using - check for the recommended driver on Adobe's site.

This problem has existed before the drivers were updated (I installed the new drivers a week ago). Problem still exists. In the new year, I'll install a fresh copy of Leopard - we'll see if this fixes things.

Glad you got it working for you...