Slideshow picture quality

I created my slideshow in iPhoto 08 & it look gorgeous when played back, sharp, clean images. I have tried creating slideshows directly in iDVD 08, but the quality wasn't as good , so I shared my iPhoto slideshow, exporting it to iDVD. However, the photos have much less definition. They lack the punch & sharpness of the original slideshow, even when I encode using professional quality.
Is there a setting that I have over-looked?

I guess I have been extremely lucky....I took many suggestions here and have had great success with producing iDVD projects. First, I only use Maxell discs and produce both 4:3 and 16:9 results. Use only professional quality setting and burn at speed 1 (yes it does take a very long time to burn) The results as seen on a new Pioneer 52" Plasma widescreen was mind blowing......as good as the original photos that I thought I would never see again. I produce my slideshows in iPhoto and export to iDVD ......I export the slideshow first to GarageBand and add as many sound tracks as I want using sounds like laughter and clapping and bird noises etc then I delete the movie track(slideshow) and consolidate the tracks (mix) and use it as the add-on music for making the slideshow in iPhoto before exporting to iDVD. Now if only there were more Themes available......any ideas?

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Encore slideshow picture quality

Importing photograph slides into Encore CS4 the quality of some of them are poor. They appear in the slideshow viewer and monitor in a poor quality. I have had them looking like a mosaic and more recently a yellow flag has had black areas with in the yellow. The pictures have not been manipulated prior to importing.
I have surched the forums without any success.
Does anyone have any suggestions, they would be much a appreciated?

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05Stephen104349 wrote:
Thank you for your reply.
I am also in PAL land.
I am new to this widescreen editing so I feel I am a bit lost in the dark.
I will do some re-sizing but I do not run to Photoshop yet.
Thanks again for your help.
If you have Photoshop Elements, that has an automatic batch re-sizing function. I am fairly sure that XnView, which is free, will do this also. I am sure that I once came across a free image re-sizing program recently, but cannot recall details.
Microsoft also offered a free image re-sizer for XP. This is still available, and will do batch re-sizing.
To achieve full height TV screen image with no-rescaling within Encore, the image height for PAL needs to be set at 576 pixels - this applies to both portrait and landscape orientated images, so you have to process them separately. You will still lose a little at top and bottom displaying them on a conventional TV as they overscan.
It is better to convert from JPEG to a non-lossy format before re-sizing, either .png, or .psd.

How to get good picture quality on a burned DVD slideshow using IDVD?

After producing a slideshow on IDVD from either jpg or psd photos, it looked great when I played the project. Picture quality was excellent. When I burned a DVD to share the slideshow with a friend and when I played this on the same computer, it had lost resolution and looks awful. I am using best quality but this made no difference. On a hdtv using a standard player, the quality is mediocre. Is there any way to get a decent picture quality. I have also burned a DVD and CD from the IPhoto album, and the quality is better. IPhoto will not burn a slideshow or at least I do not know how to. Can you produce decent quality DVD using IDVD or is there a better application to produce decent DVD of photo slideshows?

....or is there a better application to produce decent DVD of photo slideshows?
Yes. It's called DVDSP (apple's top of the line DVD Authoring application). It has a much longer learning curve than iDvd and is more $$$ but it does work well. The Help Menu alone is over 640 pages long. However, is this app significantly better than iDvd solely in terms of visual quality?.... No.
But it does offer many more tools to address visual artifacts on the finished DVD, more audio control, much better control of durations per slide, audio, buttons that work as expected, among other things. (for additional examples of this see chapter 12 of the DVDSP Help Menu / starting on p. 373).
Short of DVDSP, and much less money, you can also try these 2 third party apps which come highly recommended on this iDvd Forum:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/
At the moment most macs do not yet support burning to Blueray (which does offer much better results). Once this technology is more commonplace, then I believe we will see a significant improvement in what you are trying to do above.
Hope this is helpful but if not just come on back.
Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in this topic. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information above at your own discretion.

Help me with picture quality for slideshow.

Hi I'm David and I'm new to adobe elements and video editing and am trying the elements 9 trial.
I'm trying to learn the software and thought i'd start witha a slideshow vid with some holiday pics.
My first and biggest issue i've come across is the pictures quality is really lousy when i have added them to the video. even thought they are fairly fine 8 mp jpg pictures from my digital camera and looks nice when wieving them outside of elements. Why and how do i solve this?
Also i wonder if there is a way to preview the pictures in big size before ading them to the timeline?
Can i change the time lenght shown for many pictures at the same time instead of changing them one at a time?
Will really apreciate help on this matter.
Thx!

Okey I thought that cs5 was the big really proffesional program.
I want to do much more than just slideshow but thought that would be an easy start and i had the fotage already.
I want with more features than moviemaker or similar but having to use another program to not get bad quality pics is not what i expected.
I'll check your tutorials out.
Thx

Calendar Picture Quality Warning

I am converting some old 35mm slides my father has and creating a calendar for him for Christmas. The pictures look good in iphoto. I add them to the calendar and in the upper right corner of the picture there is a yellow warning triangle.
When I complete the calendar and go to order it indicates that some of the pictures (I assume the ones with the yellow triangle) are of a too low picture quality to print.
I shot the slides in raw format and imported into iphoto.
Is there something I an do to correct this issue? When I cropped the pictures I did not go with one of the preset sizes, but rather just cropped to get rid of the slide frame

What resolution did you scan the slides at? For a decent print they should be at around 3600 dpi or better. I believe iPhoto will warn if the dpi of the photo used in a particular frame or page falls below 140 dpi. The calendars are now 13" x 10.4" per page so you would need an image size for a full page photo to be around 1820 x 1456 pixels to avoid the warning sign.
For a full page image, 1280 x 960 gives a warning as does 1600 x 1200. That's not to say they won't print up fairly well but it's below the standard set by iPhoto.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Picture quality deteriorates

I just made three short films on iMovie, which I imported into iDVD and burned to a single DVD. But when I play the DVD, the picture quality is fine for the first few minutes, then deteriorates, the picture becoming pixellated and the text being hard to read (two of these three 'films' are in fact a series of still images with subtitles and music in the background, ie slideshows).
The two slideshows both deteriorate in the same way, but the third film (actual moving pictures) doesn't, although it is shorter at just 3 mins long, the slideshows being 5mins long.
I have to show this film at a big ceremony tomorrow so am getting near panic and would appreciate any help! Thanks.
I recorded the Project on PAL 4:3 Best Quality.

PS I should add that the picture quality is fine when played in iMovie

Computer vs. TV picture quality for iDVD

I'm making about a 10 min sequence using nothing but still images (jpegs mostly) and edited text using FCX to make a slideshow displaying my artwork. My question(s) are when I burn the dvd how does a computer display the movie? when I display my movie while working on my tv the images are cropped about 10% all the way around while on the computer its being displayed the way I want it to be. Also on the tv the images are good quality but on the computer they are not. When all the data from the movie goes on the dvd will it look good as far as picture quality AND NOT be cropped? the cropping on the tv pretty much ruins most of the images since they are perfect on my computer. Thanks

"I suppose I'm slightly screwed if anyone wants to view it on a tv... "
More or less.
"If I want people to view it on a computer since thats whats typically going to happen (color is better, etc) is it going to be cut off or will it look like it does in the canvas? and it will be good quality right?... like looking at the photos through photoshop or something but simply fitting the screen at max. ?"
FCE is a video editor designed to output to interlaced TV/Monitors as opposed to non-interlaced computer displays.
There are big differences in how they work and display images.
In short, if a computer has a decent DVD player (hardware and software) you should pretty much see what you had in the Canvas.

Grainy picture quality in iMovie

Relatively novice user here. I'm putting together a slideshow with iMovie and am cross dissolving between photos, with a musical background. Everything is great except for the quality of the pictures. In iPhoto the pictures are sharp, crystal clear (about 2 MB each) but when I play the slide show in iMovie they look like they were blown up from 75 Kbps pictures. I really don't see any way to address picture quality. Any suggestions? Thanks!

On further inspection, I see that according to iMovie each of the slideshow pictures have a size of 117 KB. So, there is a quality reduction going on for sure.

Pictures quality

It is strage but I can not obtain very good pictures quality after iMovie slideshow export. It is codecs independent. Bad quality is visible in dark parts of photo for example water surface in shadow. There are colour spots instead of soft shadings. It makes iMovie useless for semiprofessional presentations. It looks that pictures are simplified before they are transferred to codec.
Have you got any ideas about it?

I did a lot of experiments about that.
My final conclusion is that there is impossible to obtain good quality slideshow made of camera images with iMovie (even HD resolution), really surprising !!!
It looks like iMovie imports pictures and at the same time simplifies them to have real time speed edition and playback possibilities. Unfortunately export option does not take original pictures to make rendered movie but takes this simplified version and I think that is the reason why final movie slideshow has terrible spots visible in dark parts of pictures (regardless of the sorce picture format, codecs, resolution options, bitstream etc.). In my opinion it is software bug.
Am I wrong?

Yank in Europe Seeks Picture Quality

Put me in the ignorant but willing to learn category, i.e., not very sophisticated yet but not afraid of techie details when needed.
I just finished my first iMovie project and put together a DVD with iDVD (iLife '06 versions). I was generally happy with the process and results except for the quality of the picture when the DVD was played on our largish (32") plasma TV. Lots of jaggies on photos in slideshows, and the menus that looked so great in iDVD were almost illegible on the TV screen (plus which the highlighting often didn't work, so you couldn't tell what you were going to get when you pressed the OK button).
I'm looking for help on two topics: 1. how to maximize picture quality in general on an iDVD project; and 2. whether it makes a difference that I live in Europe but have an audience (i.e., grandparents of my cute kids) that lives in the U.S.
1. Picture quality in general. From what I've read on this forum, I gather that the following things are helpful: keeping the video in the same format from the beginning of the project until the end; using non-rewritable DVDs; and using Ken Burns rather than having static photos. Any further tips would be helpful. In particular, is there an advantage in using iDVD to create the menus, etc., but then using a third-party program like Toast to do the actual burning since you get more control over compression settings and the like? Whatever program is used, what settings tend to work best if picture quality is the only consideration? And are there settings on TVs or DVD players that can also be changed to be more compatible with disks produced by iDVD?
2. The continental divide. So here I am in Europe, where they not only use PAL but are about to go to an HD standard that is different from the US standard (not that I need to worry about that yet, since I don't have an HD camcorder). My TV accepts both PAL and NTSC input, so I've been working in NTSC (4:3, since my parents don't have a widescreen TV). But are there options or settings that I should be using to get the best results for the folks back home? Should I tell my parents something like: "You need a DVD player that the_ type of disk, and you should set it on a __ frame rate and _ resolution?" (I don't know if this is even a meaningful question, but you get the point: what can my "audience" do to get better results, assuming I do the right thing on my end).
Thanks in advance for any advice.
PowerBook 15" Mac OS X (10.4.4) 1.67 GHz G4, 1GB RAM

I never use iMovie for still images, so I'm not much help.
1.)
You might look around here:
http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/index.shtml
And here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93002
http://www.keywebx.com/tutorials/200509_080001/
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/iMovie4_bugs.html#jaggystills
2.) Stick with NTSC and you should be fine. They should have a recent DVD player; hopefully not Toshiba.

I've got a MacBook pro 15' running 10.6.6. I want to use an external monitor for my graphic design work running Adobe software and thought I'd try an HD TV. I ran a Mini Display to HDMI lead to the TV but the picture quality was disappointing.

I've got a MacBook Pro 15' running 10.6.6. I want to use an external monitor for my graphic design work using Adobe software and thought I'd try an HD TV. I ran a Mini Display to HDMI lead to the TV but the picture quality was disappointing. I also tried a Mini Display to VGA lead and that wasn't much better. I tried all variations of resolutions in System prefs - Displays but nothing helped. Am I getting something wrong? Thanks all.

In addition to pixel density, you are up against the translation driver card in the TV.
If you read the fine print of computer-resolution-capability in the TV user guide, you will see a chart as tall as the manual page. At the top is the smallest resolution capable, at the bottom is the full use of the 1080p in the TV.
Mac falls into the top 25% of the page, maxing out at 1366x768 often. This is because the TV control card is expected to do too much of the work, but is not designed for computer-monitor processing.
I looked at the resolution charts on 2 TVs before deciding to buy a 1080p LCD monitor that has a TV interface/connector. Computer monitor first, TV second. But the thing is only 27 in. Good thing TV is not as important to me as it is to others.

What kind of picture quality can I expect from a Mini DVI adapter to Scart?

I currently have my iMac connected to my tv via the Apple Mini DVI adapter and a composite video cable. There are two problems with this, one is the poor picture quality in general, the other is that the tv screen is not filled by the image from the iMac, i.e. there are black spaces on the left and the right of the screen.
So my question is, if I used S-Video to Scart, would it kill the problem with the black borders when viewing Front Row etc..? Also, would there be a significant increase in general picture quality?

Yes, if you can get an s-video cable and plug that into the SCART adapter, that would be better than plugging in composite video.
Clearly, having an SCART connection is not going to "improve" the video going in, you're going to be limited by the lowest quality connection. An s-video connection will provide a higher (but probably not a lot) quality signal than composite video.
-Doug

Mid 2009 13" MBP iSight camera bad picture quality in photo booth

My daughter's stock mid 2009 13" MBP 2.26 ghz intel core two duo has a problem with the isight camera. The isight camera is built in to the screen. The isight camera works some of the time flawlessly and other times it comes out real grainy and with small colored pixels all over the screen like colored static (about 20% to 30% of the photo booth screen is affected but the rest of the screen outside of the photo booth app is unaffected). She only uses it in photo booth but we've tried the iChat app and the same thing happens there too, once she couldn't get the MBP to connect to the isight camera (it just showed a black photo booth screen), so she closed the lid of her MBP and reopened it and it worked. All of the software and firmware is up to date and we've tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC, it didn't do anything to fix the problem. It seems like there's a wire loose in the computer from the screen to the computer base, only because I can move the screen back and forth and the picture quality changes, the amount of static on the picture will move, go away or get worse. I had the screen changed in early 2010 (January or February) (the MBP was about 5 or 6 months old then) at the apple store under warranty due to dirt under the screen's glass (manufacturing defect). The photo booth picture static problem comes and goes, but here lately it comes more than it goes. The screen in general is in good shape and doesn't have any detectable problems with it, it has a good picture and no dead pixels, the problem seems to be only isolated to the isight camera. Can some one help with this problem? How long of a warranty is given on the warranty repairs (like the screen change they did in early 2010)? If apple does a repair on it and finds a wire that has rubbed the insulation off of it on a hinge causing a short and the isight problem, as a result of a sloppy repair from the first warranty repair, will they cover it under warranty again even if it's been over a year since they changed the screen? Also how honest will apple be if they do find out it is a problem caused from the first screen replacement, will they own up to their mistake? If I don't agree with apple's repair decision, can I get a second opinion from an outside source, third party, and if it's diagnosis different than apple's and can be proven, can I still get apple to do and pay for the repairs and labor if it turns out to be their fault from the first warranty screen replacement?
The reason why I'm asking is, I took my wife's white macbook in about a year ago for the famous cracked top cover replacement (under warranty) and when I got the computer back, the isight camera didn't work, so I gave it back, they took it apart a look at it and said there was nothing wrong with it and gave it back, then the screen wouldn't come on so after 4 hours at the Apple store they decided to send it to Austin, TX. for repairs (I'm in Ft. Worth TX.). Apple in Austin said it needed a new main board. They said the old one had water damage to it. We never had water anywhere near the computer, not even in the same room. It was working fine when we took it in, we took it in just to get the plastic top case, that cracks all of the time, replaced under warranty. And then they wanted us to pay for an $800 main board because some how while they were doing the top cover replacement it got water damaged. I argued with them and they finally gave me a one-time offer of them paying for half of the repair and labor or if I disagreed or left the store I would have to pay the whole amount if I chose to have the repairs done. So I ended up having to pay $467 for a year old macbook main board that was water damaged in their possession during their repairs. I like Apple and their products but I am worried about giving my daughter's MBP over to them for repairs because of this incident, it's an honesty issue with how honest they will be with what they find because they won't give back the old parts for analysis by a third party to verify their diagnosis.
Thanks for any info and advice anyone can give.

Hi,
As a personal note I find long posts like this hard to read if they are not broken up in to paragraphs.
As I say it is a personal thing.
I can give you some information about the camera and laptops over the past few years.
Basically in early Laptops of the MacBook Pro and MacBook range the cable did tend to fray at the point where it passed through the hinge. It did take a well used laptop that had the lid open and closed frequently to cause this. (your 2009 model might just be in that group - I have no firm dates or models I am afraid)
Later models have this rerouted so that this does not happen.
However the cable has then tended to get pulled from the camera end and become loose.
This On Line Self fix site has pages about some models (The one I have linked to may not be yours)
I have linked in to later pictures in the sequence but there are navigation points to work back to the start.
Note:- they use pretty specifc specialest tools as well in these pics.
Doing this would certail Void any Warranty you have left.
From Posts mainly in the iChat and the iSight areas I have gathered that it seems common for Apple to replace the Screen as a whole rather than fiddle with getting solely at the camera.
Apple has this article on Trouble Shooting an iSight
Basically it says try several apps then try logging in on another Mac User account to see if it is App based or User based or in fact System wide.
If System wide then resetting the SMC/PMU is the only suggested fix. (Which I did read you had done)
In addition to that I would add that testing should be done in different lighting conditions.
Lighting in the evening or dark that is good enough to read buy is not always good enough for the camera or is not illuminating the right areas.
Some people have reported that Starting the computer in Safe Mode (then Rebooting afterwards) seems to help. (it clears out some caches and starts up with reduced extensions)
As to actual Repairs and any Warranty that may still be in place I cannot say.
I can say that when people post about problems with repairs a certain stores someone else will tend to post that their experience was different.
You seem to report two different experiences with the two computers yourself.
10:24 PM Thursday; July 14, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Ipod to TV, Is there a way to get picture quality ?

I have the dock and av cables. I played a video that was downloaded from itunes.
The picture is distorted. Does anyone know how to get better picture quality?

Probably not. This is one of the problems with video from iTunes. If you have a large size screen or HDTV then iTunes video will likely not look 'good'.
If I remember correctly iTUnes video is 640x480.

Significant loss of picture quality in iMovie, what are my other options???

Hello All,
I am new to the Mac world moving over from windows.
Hooking up my dv camcorder (non high-def) to my TV gives a pretty good picture.
If I use iMovie to import from my camcorder and then iDvd to burn a dvd and play the DVD the picture quality is significantly reduced (looks worse than VHS!).
I am reading that this is uncorrectable through any settings available in iMovie or iDVD. This to me is unfathomable!
Being a newbie in the Mac world I don't know what my other options are.
I read about iMovie HD and Final Cut Express but don't know how they position and can I achieve better picture quality preservation.
I want my camcorder picture quality better preserved. I’ve certainly gotten much better results on windows with various packages (but have little experience).
I came into the Mac world believing that this sort of thing is what Mac was great for so a bit surprised.
How do you folks get around such a significant picture quality loss???
My home movies through iMovie and iDVD look embarassing for circa 2009!

I convert my imported dv files to AIC at 1080p before editing.
There is a small quality drop using this approach, I find it acceptable but some others don't.
I have added an original dv movie clip, two exports in different formats of the same clip as prepared in imovie 09 and another of the same clip exported to back to dv as prepared in imovie 6, to a disc image of a DVD created in iDVD.
I don't feel the differences represent the differences some here are reporting they see themselves, see what you think
Source Comparisons (580 MB)

Slideshow picture quality

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