Still Image Question

In final cut express (or Pro, I would guess) what size would you prepare your still images (presuming you won't be animating them) for DV NTSC (4.3) video? Thanks for your help.

Hey Benjamin,
If you're asking what the resolution is for DV NTSC 4:3 it is 720x480. Like David said though it depends what you're doing. Sometimes I scale my images down so they render faster if I'm not animating them and sometimes it's better to do this in Photoshop before so you know what the photos will look like. If you're scaling a massive image down in Final Cut, you might get those jitters because you're compressing a lot of detail into a smaller space. Also a lot of lines or colors could also cause the moiré patterns and sometimes a simple blur of 1 or 2 pixels will help eliminate it.

Similar Messages

Broad Question - Horizontal Scrolling Slideshow with Still Images

Hi everyone,
I have to make a horizontal scrolling slideshow using many images of different filetypes, sizes and DPI in Premiere Pro CS5.5. I have tried a few different methods but each has its own problems:
1. Arrange still images horizontally in the timeline, adjacent to eachother, and apply a custom Push video transition between each one. This is a consistent method that doesnt require much work but it's tough to control the amount of whitespace between the images, especially when the images are all different proportions.
2. Arrange still images both horizontally and vertically in the timeline, so that there is no white space between the images (the images overlap across multiple video lanes). Then, set up motion fx for the position of the image for each clip. This is tedious and I have to make every clip the same size and make sure the distance each clip travels (in the motion fx) is the same. So for instance, I have to set the starting key to 1200 on the x-axis, and the ending key to -300, for every single image (tedious when there are many). Another problem with this is that it becomes very difficult to change the duration of the motion fx once ive set it up for many.
3. To have an easier time composing the arrangement of images, I just make a single giant image by laying out dozens of photos in InDesign, then export a very wide jpeg. The great thing about this is it's fast, easy, and the composition is exactly how i want it. The bad thing is that premiere doesn't handle many megapixel images well, and furthermore the image quality is horrific compared to the quality of importing individual images.
The biggest problem with all of these is the image quality (extremely poor compared to viewing the source images on their own) and the animation smoothness (all three methods produce very jittery and erratic videos). The biggest question I have is: should I even be doing a slideshow in Premiere? Can someone recommend a better application I should be using for something like this? Do i have to learn Flash? I am not trying to make an interactive thing, just a video/animation where I hit play and dozens of images scroll horizontally, at the same speed, with a lot of control over the scaling of the images and their horizontal and vertical arrangement (the amount of whitespace between them).
Thanks for everyone's time and help!

Don't know if it is still being sold, but Grass Valley's Imaginate was the perfect application for your intended purpose. There are many others as well, but PR is not the program of choice for this.

Converting clip to still image, format question

Hello.
I have created a still image from my interlaced video. I now need to export it to fit the following film format to be applied on a promotional postcard. The format needed is:
(.TIF, .PDF, .JPG, .EPS, .AI)-all are okay
300 dpi (dots per inch)
1/8 bleed size
Resolution: 1875px x 1275x
How do I make these sort of specifications in FCP? I am without Adobe or any of the others.
And also, I will be creating a movie poster too within the next few days. I had no problem creating a design in FCP for a postcard but the actual poster is a different matter. It is possible to create a poster in one of the programs part of Studio 2?
Thanks.

You REALLY, REALLY need to use a high resolution still photo for printing purposes ... especially if you plan to blow it up to poster size.
A still image from video will yield the same resolution as your footage; for example, a still from DV footage would produce a 720 x 480 image at 72dpi.
You'll need Photoshop or other photo editing software to manipulate the image beyond that - FCP won't do it.
FWIW, I'd recommend saving the still image from FCP as an uncompressed TIFF file, then send it to a print house to handle the rest.
-DH

Questions on Still Image Export

I shot a wedding where the photog's Hasselblad failed. Only the first two frames of each roll where successful. I need to export around 100 images as stills. Each time I use QT Conversion I have to select "still images" from the format drop down box. Is there a way to set "still" as a default?
Secondly, the exported image looks a bit "wide" compared to the images in FCP's canvas. How do I adjust for this. In FCP? In Photoshop? I'm sure this is remedial but I'm a bit of a novice. Thanks in advance for any help.
Frank, Cranford, NJ

Studio X wrote:
2. When you start with DV material, the highest res
you can get is 720x480 (non-square) or the equivalent
of a really bad quality cheepo still camera.
(~640x480 square pixels)
To avoid the need to deinterlace, (the horrors of
which are described below) find sections in your
video that have VERY LITTLE motion, i.e.
everyone/thing standing/existing absolutely still
with the camera locked down on a tripod. These
sections will yield the very best possible still
images.
If you have motion, the still images will exhibit
'tearing' which comes from the two fields of video
being recorded ~1/60 second apart. The second field
shows elements displaced from the first field - hence
a kind of internal image shifting going on. The only
real way to deal with these kind of images is to
deinterlace them - that is - decide which field you
are going to keep and throw away the other.
When you have deinterlaced the image, you have in
effect reduced it from a 720x480 image to a 720x240
image. The image pixel count REMAINS 720x480 but with
half the vertical information as the remaining lines
are doubled or interpolated to build back to 480
lines.
I take your explanation to mean that when you export a frame from FCE you get both fields. I am confused by the use of the term "de-interlace", since in television displays that term is defined as obtaining a full frame picture either by a) combining the two fields (called "weave"); b) duplicating lines of a single field (called "bob") or c) using some form of interpolation to derive the alternate lines.
From this point of view, the term "de-interlace" as applied to the filter in FCE does not have the same meaning. Exporting without filtering produces what the TV interpretation would be a picture "de-interlaced" according to process a); applying the de-interlace filter produces an image containing one field only, and de-nterlacing that in Photoshop amounts to the application of either b) or c) above.
Am I correct on this?
867 MHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

How to Work With Still Images in Premiere Elements 10

I am struggling with the still images in my Titles for my video project, and would really appreciate some help. I have done a lot of googling on this and searched this forum, but can't seem to find the answer I need, maybe not searching the right questions or just "not getting it". Not even PE Adobe tips or Adobe TV cover this, although it seems important to know. I am not clear how PE10 will handle the resolution of an imported still image or graphic art from Photoshop. Perhaps this topic will also help others as well.
I am working on a video project for my job, editing an old training video. Created new Title graphics in Photoshop, inserted the Title images and integrated with video clips, then exported the video segments as MPEG files. I burned the whole video to DVD.
When the final DVD plays on a computer or TV screen, the photo images in the titles are fuzzy even though they were clear 300 dpi images. (I know dpi doesn't matter in video). The title text is also a bit fuzzy and the title text that has animation applied to it is even more fuzzy. Yet the old MPEG video clips look fine - it's just my title graphics and text that look bad (embarrasing).
So I need to know how to improve the quality of the still images/graphics for a video??
Project settings:
- Hard Disk, Standard 48kHz
- Editing Mode: DV NTSC
- Frame: 720 x 480 (0.9091)
- Frame rate: 29.97fps
- with "Optimize Stills" box checked
Using these settings because I am working with MPEG files from an old training video CD.
File Export: MPEG, NTSC DVD Standard
I export the video clips as MPEGS because they will be burned to a CD or DVD for distribution to our staff offices.
Work Details:
In Photoshop, I created still image graphics for each Title sized at 720 x480 with high resolution photos and company logo (300 dpi), and save them as a bitmap to import into PE10. In the Timeline, I insert the still image in "Video 1" track, then in Video 2 track create a Title over it for text (some animated, some still). Sometimes I stack 2 or three titles with text in separate video tracks over one still title image. Yes, there is a red line across the top in the Timeline because I didn't render the still images.
Questions:
• What is the best resolution for images imported into PE10 from Photoshop?
• Should I be creating title graphics/images at 720 x 480 or a larger ratio like 1920 x 1080 so it will display better when seen on a computer or TV?
• Do I need to render each title image in the timeline so that it will eventually display better in the MPEG?
• Is it better to create a title and then insert the still image into the title so they are integrated, rather than layered on separate video tracks?
I would greatly appreciate any assistance.

When the final DVD plays on a computer or TV screen, the photo images in the titles are fuzzy even though they were clear 300 dpi images. (I know dpi doesn't matter in video). The title text is also a bit fuzzy and the title text that has animation applied to it is even more fuzzy. Yet the old MPEG video clips look fine - it's just my title graphics and text that look bad (embarrasing).
Remember that DVD-Video was designed for CRT TV sets, and was a major step up from VHS tape. However, when viewed on an HD computer monitor, or HD TV *, it is still ONLY 720 x 480, with is about 1/4 of the resolution as 1920 x 1080, which is about what we are used to seeing on those display devices. That is but only 25% of the quality. It can never look as good as HD material.
Good luck, and if I missed something, please point that out to me.
Hunt
* With the advent of BD players, and up-rezzing DVD players, things HAVE improved, when viewing a DVD-Video on an HD TV. The newer players have up-rezzing chips, that do a very good job of "improving" the viewed material's quality. However, even with those amazing chips, DVD-Video will NEVER be as good as a full-HD source. Also, computers do not have those up-rezzing chips, so when one views a DVD-Video on a high-rez computer monitor, it will still look pretty bad. There ARE a couple of new DVD software players, that improve the quality of DVD-Video played on a high-rez computer monitor, and a few look fairly promising. I speculate that we will see some more development in the DVD-Video area, especially as BD is not proving to be the big seller, that many promised. Even 3D is not helping BD realize its promise.

Using still images with Final Cut (and the apple suite in general)

I have had a re-occuring and long term problem that has caused me many lost hours of head scratching and work arounds, and as of yet I have not been able to come up with a good solution.
Its to do with integrating still images with the Final Cut suite.
If I receive a high quality image from a client to use in their video and I then try importing it into Final Cut and animating it, it always ends up looking like a pile of ahem. Often I will get "swimming" lines appear across fine detail on the image, and parts of it will flicker as it moves across the screen. For instance, if I have a picture of some blinds or other fine detail (especially horizontal and vertical lines), when I add a grow and throw movement to it the detail will become very noisy - buzzing and flickering like mad.
I have found I can counter this by resizing the image in photoshop to a resolution closer to SD video (700w or 500h) - but I always end up losing detail, and the flickering and noise is only reduced, not eliminated. Other things that have helped are blur effects applied at a very low level, like 0.5 blur, so its not noticeable visually, but Final Cut seems to treat it differently and quieten the noise and flicker down.
However, all of these workarounds are ultimately still giving a reduced quality product.
Also, this problem is not necessarily constrained to Final Cut, I am currently fighting DVD Studio Pro because it is murdering the text quality in a stills slideshow I am creating - and in this situation there is no animation being applied. No matter what file type (psd, jpeg, tiff, png...) or size I output the text and images from Photoshop in, the moment DVD studio pro gets hold of it, it turns to cripe.
For a while I was putting it down to the fact that I usually edit in SD (PAL) formats, and there just wasn't the resolution available to reproduce fine detail. However, I do often see other people achieving pin-sharp fine detail on still images and text in SD formats (the Apple templates are a good example)
So, my question to you, oh great and high boffins, if you are dealing with still images and text, how do you do it? How do you work around any noise problems you have, and how do you produce those pin-sharp images (both moving and still) I see in other professional productions?
Quad G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

still images with too high a resolution will always cause problems. this is due to the detail of the image being finer than the scanline of the tv can display ... obviously this will caise the image to flicker as these details alternately appear and disappear as and when the scanline can display them. as you have discovered, the answer is to apply a very small blur, the effect being that the detail is spread by the blur such that the scanline can dislay it correctly.
text issues are often rooted in the same problem ... unless the text is placed very carefully (whole even number on the y axis) then the quality may be impaired due to the resulting interlacing/scanline issues

Change duration of multiple still images in one operation

Hello Folks.
I am trying to change the duration of each image in a sequence of still images.
Program: Adobe Premiere Elements 7
Mode: Standard Definition 4/3 ratio
File types in use: MOD, AVI, PNG
Problem: The product manual states: "To apply the new default length to all still images in your project, delete them from Project view and reimport them into your project."
Question: Is there a way to select a group of still images and then apply a new duration value to all of them in one operation? An Adobe salesperson told me that this is possble before I purchased the program, but I cannot figure out how this is done. I switched to Adobe from another product in order to get this feature. Now that I need it, I cannot figure a way to get it to work. Time Stretch is not available when I select multiple images.
Thank you,
Brian

Brian,
Unfortunately not. PrPro CS4.2 has just added a way to change the Duration of previously Imported stills, but so far PrE does not allow for this, unless it is new to PrE 8, but I have not read of this.
As noted, the method is to set the Edit>Preferences>General>Default Stills, and choose the Duration in Frames. Then Import the stills. If they are in the Project, that setting has already been applied, so one must delete them from the Project Panel and re-Import them with the new Duration.
Now, one can obviously change the Duration on a one-by-one basis in the Timeline, but that can be tedious, if there are many stills. If I were doing this, I would make sure to have the Info Panel open and nearby, Window>Info.
Good luck,
Hunt
PS - if PrE 8 HAS added the post-Import Duration change, I hope someone steps up with that info.

This is about the still image size changing from what I see on the computer monitor and what the burned DVD shows on the TV

I have Prem.El 12 and have used PE4 for years. I have a new PC that runs Win7Pro. The still images on the computer monitor are within the "safe margins". The still images after the movie has been burned to a disk are MUCH smaller on the TV screen. Is this an issue of 16:9 vs 4:3 ratios? My TV is 4:3. Can I tell PE12 to make the movie a 4:3?

retchemteach
Although I have seen your post of today in my Inbox Email Notifications, that post has not yet appears in this thread. It will probably will sooner or later. But, to keep things moving along....this is a copy of what I am seeing as your message of today in my Indox Email Notifications
Thank you for your patience in the time it is taking me to get back to you.
I am still trying to buy some DVD-RW discs and will hopefully do that in a
bit. Meanwhile, I have more info for you and some simple (I hope)
questions. If you want to insert your answers, that would be fine.
My camera (for stills and video) is set to the 4:3 ratio. It is capable of
being set to a 16:9 ratio if I wanted to do that. I looked in its TOOLS
menu and saw this info.
My TV is definitely a 4:3 TV. (I measured it with my tape measure and
divided W/L to get 1.33) The TV can show a 16:9 movie and just adds the
black bars on the top and bottom. Question: What will my old 4:3 movies
look like on a 16:9 TV whenever we buy one of those?
It seems to me that I want to set PE12 to the NTSC DV Standard you
mentioned.
I do NOT know how to “size your photos so that each has a 4:3 aspect”,
unless you mean doing that in Photoshop Elements, which I know how to do
(*see below)
I had NOT considered that I would need to watch the preset for the
‘Publish+Share’ step; so that’s good to know (I copied and pasted your info
for later use).
BTW, years ago when I had difficulties with my XP computer working on PE4
(had only 2 GB RAM), an Adobe tech told me to resize my photos * to have a
720 pixel width (the height would be automatically adjusted) to lower the
file size to something my computer could handle without crashing. (That
was back in the good ol’ days when Adobe support would actually talk with
their customers and try to help them in the first month)
My new computer has 16GB RAM. Do you think I still need to reduce file
size? One does lose some sharpness in the resizing process…..however,
these videos I’m making are travelogues and are for a fun way to view pics
and videos of a trip…nothing Earth shattering….and just a hobby to keep me
off the streets.
I truly appreciate the time you take to help me (and others). I was even
tempted to try to install my old PE4 on my new computer just to be able to
enjoy my hobby again.
My reply to the above....
1. If you camera is giving you 4:3 photos and your Premiere Elements 12/12.1 is running on Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 64 bit, then leave
the photos as is unless you have a lot of photos and each has pixel dimensions sizes way over 1920 x 1080 pixels that are giving your computer resource issues. If you have to down size them because of computer resources, then copy the photos to a computer desktop folder and also create an empty folder on the computer desktop.
a. Photoshop Elements Editor, File Menu/Process Multiple Files.
Process Files form Folder
Source - browse to and select the computer desktop folder with photos to be resized
Destination - browse to and select the empty computer desktop folder
Image Size
             Check Mark Next To Resize Images
            (no check mark next to Constrain Proportions)
            Type in Width = 1000 (set units for pixels)
            Type in Height = 750 (set unites for pixels)
File Size
           Check Mark Next to Convert Files To
           Set for JPEG High Quality
The above should work fine for a NTSC DV Standard project with a burn to DVD disc with preset NTSC_Dolby DVD (4:3 video).
2. With regard to the TV Set and 16:9 video....when you have the DVD-player attached to the TV, do you have the opportunity to bring up a display of menus with
controls for Picture and Aspect Ratio? From what you have written so far, it looks like the answer is no. I am not sure how your TV DVD
player will handle 16:9.
Best do a mini test run
1. Project preset set manually to NTSC DV Widescreen (please refer to post 1 link)
A few photos sized for 1600 x 1200
In the Premiere Elements project, use the Safety Margins inner rectangle for text placement
Publish+Share/Disc/DVD disc with preset = NTSC_Widescreen_Dolby DVD.
See what that looks like on your TV DVD player.
If you discovered that your current TV DVD player can be set for a 16:9 display, then I have a preferred workflow for
NTSC DV Widescreen which typically gives best possible results. Hints of things to come.
Please review and consider. Thanks for the follow ups.
ATR

Still Images not working

I've put together a DVD in Encore, and many of the timelines are made up of at least one clip, and one still image leading into that clip. Everything looks fine in Encore, and it all writes to a disc with no trouble, but when I play the DVD some of th still images are working fine, and some aren't. Images that don't work either seem to be ignored all together, or, the still image seems to be replaced by the first frame of the clip it is in front of in the timeline. I can't find any differences between the still images that do work and the ones that don't. I've tried .png and .jpg files. Its always the same images too.
Any ideas?

Welcome to the forum.
Along with John's question regarding the pixel x pixel size, have you thought about doing the work with the stills in PrPro, and then just Exporting as is necessary (or using ADL)? While Encore has a limited SlideShow feature, it is designed to work better with AV files, than stills.
Good luck,
Hunt

Still images snap into focus

I'm using a number of still images in my project. Upon export to QuickTime, the images look fuzzy until they've been on screen for a few seconds, at which point they snap into perfect focus.
Searching the forums, I couldn't find an answer, though I did find a number of questions about still images. So before you suggest that I've created the images at too high a resolution...
I've created the stills at approximately the correct size to import them without problems. I still haven't quite figured out the right dimensions (I don't know why this is so hard), but I'm close -- these are definitely not too large. I have scaled them a little within FCP, but again, I don't think that's the problem because the image does sharpen into perfect focus eventually -- if the image is on screen long enough.
I've also exported using many different codecs (including none), so that doesn't appear to be the issue either.
I've had this exact problem using iMovie -- I was hoping it would go away when I moved up to FCP.
Anyone else experience this and discover the solution?

Please detail your workflow...
-Exactly what versions of FCP/QT
-How are you creating/acquiring your stills...what program did they come from, how were they created/exported?
-What are the specs for the stills...file type, image size...etc.
Is there ANY chance you've somehow applied some type of filter to the files.
Very strange sounding behavior (which I've not seen either), but with some detailed info, someone here should be able to figure it out.
K

How to superimpose still images onto video?

Hi there,
I'm an absolute beginner with iMovie (and video editing in general), so please forgive my ignorance!
OK, my question is this: Is it possible to superimpose still images on top of video in iMovie, and if so how? I'm using iMovie because it has a reputation for ease of use, and yet I can't figure out how to do this... Basically, all I want to do is take a single piece of video about 5 minutes long and periodically fade in and fade out some still images on top of the action. Am I being too ambitious here?! Should I just give up on the idea...?!
Any help or advice would be very gratefully received!
Thanks.

Just in case anyone else is interested in doing something similar - I found two (commercial) solutions to this problem:
Gee Three software's 'Slick 4 - Hollywood edition' plug-ins package includes 'Picture-in-Picture' - $50 (also includes three other great effects): http://www.geethree.com/slick/V_04.html
cf/x's 'Picture in Clip (Static)' does exactly the same, but only costs a bargain $1.50 - available here: http://www.imovieplugins.com/plugs/pictinclipstat.html
Cheers!

What PS file settings are used for still images for FCE?

I have images to use/create for the titles and transitions in my first FCE4 project. Using Photoshop CS6, the preset for File > New > Film & Video has the prest size and pixel aspect ratio selections. I thought to use this with HDV 1080p/29.97 and HDV1080/DVCPRO HD 720 (1.33) for any images I need for the project.
Most discussions I see only refer to the pixel size reference for HD image sizes, but nothing addressing the pixel aspect ratio setting for the image. Are these settings ignored in PS and handled in FCE only? Or does it make better quality images to get this "right" in PS when creating the still image?
Thanks in advance.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question. In an ideal world, the graphic material you build in PS should match the sequence settings you intend to edit them into - so, if for no other reason, it reduces the amount of reformatting FCE has to do when rendering them.
But frequently you want to build graphics larger than the frame size of the sequence so that you can re-size and reposition the graphic within FCE without losing quality.
The apparent pixel aspect ratio of your graphic can be controlled with FCE by editing the graphic to the timeline, double clicking on the clip in the timeline, and when that timeline clip opens in the viewer, click on the motion tab and adjust the Aspect Ratio Paddle (this is the correction for a 1920 x1080 square pixel clip being placed into an HDV 1440 x 1080 timeline):
In Photoshop, you can change the way your work is displayed by going to the menu View > Pixel Aspect Ratio:
Does any of this help?
MtD

Still Image File Format

Had a question about the best format for still images in FCE. Tom Wolsky on his FCPBook site recommends creating a PICT file with an alpha channel. Richard Harrington at Lynda.com states that a TIFF works best.
Do you have any information or preference for one over the over. I will be creating files to be exported for web and for DVD.
Thanks in advance for your answer.

I don't think I said PICTs were best, just one of the file formats. PICTs are different in that they carry addressable alpha channels for transparency, while other formats like TIFFs and PSDs don't. You can paint a PCIT alpha like a mask and have it carry over to other applications.
TIFFs are good but they are usually larger than necessary, waste drive space, and have had problems with Final Cut in the past. For most things I just use Photoshop.
JPEG is OK for flat images as long as you use it at best quality. At any reduced quality it will recompress each time the file is saved. The quality can deteriorate.

Stacking video frames to make still image - help please

Question:
I want to take 2 seconds of video ( 60 frames )and stack all the video frames to make one still image.
I just tried to do this in Photoshop CS3 but found out that this requires CS3 extended version. Is there a stacking feature in Final Cut Express? ( Or in iMovie6 ?)
Any ideas welcome as to how to accomplish this task.
Thank you in advance.
Tom

I would say the best advice has already been given, which would be to use a still camera with a long shutter speed. However I suspect you already have your footage and would need to wait for another opportunity to do this. I'd say the next best option would be a motion blur filter, I think stacking each frame would have its problems.
You can easily export your 2 seconds of video to single frame images by exporting to an image sequence, you could then import each still as a layer into photoshop. You would probably find that other stars (having 60 images on top of each other) would be very bright and stand out like a bird of paradise's mating ritual, unless you adjusted the opacity of each which you would likely need to do for the whole of the image excepting the shooting star. I'd say it can be done, but it sounds like a bit of work.

Still Images

I'm working with still images and have a quick question. I have two images at 477 x 239. I am having trouble resizing these images. I have not been able to resized them so I imported into FCP and thought I would manipulate them there. When I load an image in the viewer, the image stays in its original aspect ratio. However on my NTSC monitor, it fills the frame and still looks decent. When I add it to the canvas, it goes back to the normal aspect ratio. The image on the NTSC monitor is what I want, but can't get that in the Canvas/timeline. Any help would be appreciated and if I need to be clearer or provide more info I will. Thanks
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Photoshop will resize anything and will do a better job (as Brian points out) than FCP. PS is designed to do this and has a very sophisticated interpolation algorithm. It is also a very basic tool for video work - let alone print. You should get it.
Still, if you don't have it and need to do this right now, it can be done in FCP.
Open the image in the Viewer. Go to the MOTION tab. Tear it off and put it to the side so you can see it and the video in the Viewer.
In the Motion Tab - look at the Basic Motion section- bump up the scale larger than 100 (you need to enlarge the image) Keep an eye on how it looks in the Viewer. When the Image is wide enough, go down to the Distort section. Open it up and look at the Aspect Ratio setting. Play with it until your image fills the screen.
Now, drag your file from the Viewer and place it on the timeline. If you park the playhead over it, the adjustements you made should go with it.
You can also do this adjustment interactively using the Wireframe mode in the viewer. The manual covers this bit.
Good luck.
x

Still Image Question

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