I think of After Effects as “Photoshop on wheels,” and like Photoshop, AE is used together with a wide variety of other applications. Two examples caught my eye recently:

• Lee Brimelow uses the new blending modes in Flash 8 to composite rain generated in AE.
• Aaron Koblin used AE and Maya to produce a lovely visualization of flight data from the FAA. [see also Celestial Mechanics images and video]