Adding nice shading to elements in After Effects is pretty easy using layer styles. One thing that people don’t like about that, is what seems to be the endless twirling of properties to find what you need. Sure you can use the search bar in the comp, but that ends up messing with what is visible in our comp, so it becomes pretty easy to loose context pretty quickly. Works well, but fairly intrusive. After Effects doesn’t really have a single native effect for adding an inner shadow easily.
This is why Freelance Designer and Animator Kyle Martinez has created an Inner Shadow Preset, free for all! “I built the Inner Shadow preset to match Drop Shadow closely and added a little expression magic to fix some of the controls which I found confusing” Kyle mentions. The Inner Shadow Preset tries to closely mimic a native effect in Ae. You can change the blend mode, shadow color, opacity, distance, direction, and softness of the effect through its controls.
The Preset is free and works all the way back to After Effects CS6. Get a copy and find out more here.