Resized images and video seam blurred in motion 4...

Question

Hello,
I don't know if my problem is a bug or a stupid mistake I did, or something basic I haven't understood about motion, but here it is:
I had to edit today a project I created in september 2009 with motion 3. (I installed 2 weeks ago motion 4). The project is made of images and text. When I opened the old project the images looked ok but seamed blurred although the render settings are at best quality.
I then made an experiment and created a new project in Motion 4 and imported one image, and when I put the quality at best, again this image look unfocused. I would probably not have noticed the problem and thought that the problem comes from the image or from the capabilities of motion, if I didn't have that old video done in motion 3 with the exact same images in the exact same size in perfect crisp quality...
I did a research in forums, but haven't found any one with a similar problem. People usually have pixelated images because they didn't put the best render quality...
I then tried to test this on a different computer with motion 4: same problem. I tried all the settings I could find in Motion, but still no result. I trash the preferences, I repaired the permission of my mac, I reinstalled motion 4, tried several images format and size but still no result.
I noticed that the problem occurs when I resize an image or when I resize a video. At 100% I get perfect quality, but when I resize them, they look blurred. Anything that requires a render seam to be a little blurred when the render quality is set to best. It seams like the anti-aliasing is working so well that it blurs everything... If I put the quality at normal settings, the elements that have been resized look sharp but pixelated...
I haven't tried to test all this again in motion 3 because I don't have access to any computer that still have that version installed. And I haven't phoned applecare yet because they are closed right now in my country, but I will phone them tomorrow morning and let you know if I get any result with them.
I really hope I simply forgot something obvious, or maybe there is a new or old setting in motion 4 that I don't know about or haven't understood properly...
please help me
Louie
ps: My version of Motion is French, so I might not use the right english words used in the english version of Motion.

Answer 1

Thanks for responding.
I'm of course sizing my picture down. The project I was working on yesterday that helped me notice the problem is 300x300 pixels and the images are around 500x1000 pixels, scaled down to around 20%.
I haven't notice today that the problem occurs in other project as well. Before I was not looking in detail at the quality, and if no one tells you about it, you won't notice it. But right now all my old projects done in Motion 3, once opened in Motion 4 seam to have that blurry effect on any image or video that is scaled down.
I understand that Motion might maybe not be very good at scale down things, and might do it less perfetly then Photoshop. But what is odd is that all my old video exported when I had Motion 3 have sharp perfect scaled down images comparred to what I get today in Motion 4.
The blur I'm speaking about is very light. You won't notice it easily unless you have an old version of the same video to compare it with. But in the project I was working yesterday at 300x300 pixel, the difference was really very obvious, because at this size every detail counts.
My idea to solve my problem temporarly was to change my Motion project settings to triple its original size (from 300x300 to 900x900) and blow up everthing 300%, export the video at 900x900 and then scale it down through Quicktime instead of Motion at 300x300. This worked and my images are as sharp as they should be. This project is short and light, so I didn't mind doing this conversion, but when I will work with projects that need more render time, it's not a productiv way to work!
I noticed another odd thing about the problem, I hope I will explain this clearly by describing 3 situations:
1. I create in Motion 4 a new project with any preset.
2. I import an image or a video
3. I scale it down, by pulling one corner (=> the image or video becomes blurred)
4. In the properties inspector I type the word "100" to get it back to 100%
=> the image is still blurred, it is difficult to see, but when I import again the same image and put it next to it you can see a difference althought both image are at 100%!!!
or
1. I create in Motion 4 a new project with any preset.
2. I import an image or a video
3. I scale it down, by pulling one corner (=> the image or video becomes blurred)
4. In the properties inspector I click on the arrow in the top right corner of that reverts to the original settings the image or video
=> the image is perfect
or
1. I create in Motion 4 a new project with any preset.
2. I import an image or a video
3. I scale it down, by typing any number in the properties inspector (=> the image or video becomes blurred)
4. In the properties inspector I type the word "100" to get it back to 100%
=> the image is perfect
So it seams that my problem occurs even at 100% but only if the image has first been modified in its size by pulling one corner and than put back to 100% through the properties inspector...
hmmmm
very odd.
Louie
Message was edited by: Louie13