A Case Study Question in the Use of Stills with Final Cut Pro

Question

Believe it or not, for the last week I have been reading endlessly about pixels, resolution, aspect ratio, Photoshop resizing, the bloody battle over the usefulness of the term "dpi" in video discussions, and generally about what one should do in order to use still images in a film edited in Final Cut Pro. And yet, though I have a PhD from an Ivy League university, and can understand a lot of things, I am sorry to say I am still at a loss.
Much of the discussions of photos on forums like this one are either quite technical or broadly philosophical. But my questions are completely practical and specific. I am not a photographer or a printer, nor am I an experienced editor. I am just a fairly smart person trying to use photos in his film. So I am going to ask some specific questions and hope for specific answers, without any philosophical waffling or technical mumbo jumbo.
I have one of those HP all in one printer/fax/scanner machines. I am told this device, while not fancy, is perfectly adequate to the task. Some of my photos I scan with this device from prints. Some of them I get from other people. (I have stopped downloading photos from the web, as the quality is nearly always poor.) I have Photoshop Essentials (not Photoshop). I am making a 90-minute HDV documentary, 16x9. The doc is mostly HDV footage with a still here and there. I want to be able to move on the photos (zoom, pan, etc.). I want, obviously, for them to look good. My sense is that the work flow is: (a) scan the photo (or obtain from some source as a digital file); alter the photo in some way in Photoshop; and (b) import the photo into your FCP project.
Question #1: If I have a 6x8 print, what settings should I scan it in with -- is it possible there really is no difference between scanning in it at 72dpi and 300dpi? Is it really all about the dimensions of the image? Isn't a photo whose dimensions are enlarged in Photoshop to make it available for panning and zooming in my sequence going to look fuzzier and more pixelated if it was originally scanned at 72dpi than at 300dpi? Also: Does it matter if I save it as a jpeg or tiff? Bottom line: What settings do I use in my scanning software when I scan a photo for this purpose?
Question #2: Once I have the image file on my hard drive, I suppose I now have to load it into Photoshop Elements and do something to it. What is it exactly I am using this program for? I'm going to take a wild guess. I use PS Elements to (1) crop the photo so that it has a 16x9 aspect ratio, and (2) resize it so that I can do pans and other Ken Burnsy moves on it in FCP. Bottom line: What exactly do I do in PSE to the photo and what settings do I use to both (a) make it available for moves and (b) not injure the quality of the photo by increasing its dimensions?
(In passing, I will say that I have done experiments that show that if I increase a photo's dimensions to, say, 4000 pixels by 2000 pixels, the photo's quality definitely and obviously suffers. I don't understand how a picture can be increased in size without losing sharpness. So, what am I doing wrong? Is this a function of it having been scanned in improperly to begin with?)
Question #3: If I am obtaining a photo from an outside source -- say, a professional photographer -- what are the specifications I ask for in both a hard print and a photo file? If the former, what dimensions do I ask for? If the latter, do I specify resolution and dimensions and file type?
These are my questions. At this point, I really don't want to know WHY any of this is the way it is. I just want someone to say: "Do this; do this; and then do this."
Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Studio X is absolutely correct; while DPI has no meaning in the video world, it often has significant meaning in scanning (and, of course, printing). If your scanning program only allows image size adjustments in DPI, then you'll have to adapt to that ... keeping in mind that the scanner's DPI setting directly relates to pixel resolution. And it is pixel resolution (not DPI) that will make all the difference in the world for images used in video. You can test this yourself by scanning an image at 1000 x 1200 @ 72 DPI and again at 1000 x 1200 at 300 DPI. They will look identical on TV or projection as long as the pixel resolution remains the same.
As an example, my Epson scanning software allows me to adjust image size by DPI or pixel resolution. Wanting to maintain the correct aspect ratio for the image area that I'm scanning, I adjust the DPI setting which in turn adjusts the pixel resolution automatically. But it doesn't work the other way around; if I adjust the pixel resolution settings manually, the DPI setting does not change. Your software may vary.
As Jim Cookman suggested, a scan setting of 300 DPI works well for most images ranging from 3 x 5 to 4 x 6 (typical snapshot size) in a DV Sequence. I may scan smaller images at 400 or 600 DPI and larger images (8 x 10 and up) at 150 DPI. Other size images fall in between those numbers. But I'm constantly watching the pixel resolution numbers to make sure I'm getting what I'll need to support the animation I intend to apply to the images once in FCP. Also bear in mind that I don't always scan the entire image. I only scan the area of an image that I intend to use in my program.
So the answer is that it all depends on your scanner's software and how far you plan to push into an image once in FCP. Do a few experiments ... you're a bright fellow so it shouldn't take long for you to find the formula that suits your purposes.
I haven't edited an HD Sequence using images yet, so I cannot offer definitive pixel resolutions for you there.
On to your specific questions:
1. See above. There is no one correct answer It all depends on what you intend to do with the image once it's in FCP. If you only plan to push in about 10%, you won't need much higher resolution than the equivalent of your FCP Sequence resolution. If you plan to push in further, you'll need a higher resolution to support that move.
2. I've been doing these for many years (SD Sequences only) and I've never loaded them into Photoshop first. I import the entire folder into FCP and drop it on the Timeline so I can see what the images look like on TV; unless your program is for CD-ROM or web delivery, that's where it counts. When you place them on the Timeline, FCP will automatically scale to your Sequence settings and pixel aspect ratio. If I see that some of them need adjustment using an external editor such as Photoshop, then and only then do I use that program. And by the way, if you have a vertical image and a 16 x 9 aspect ratio in FCP, how do you propose to crop it to fit? Perhaps you meant another term instead of "crop."
3. If it's a print, it won't matter what size they supply because you'll control the image size when scanning. If it's a file ... once again, the size (pixel resolution) depends on what you intend to do with the image once in FCP.
I really don't want to know WHY any of this is the way it is. I just want someone to say: "Do this; do this; and then do this."<<</div>
With that attitude, how did you ever earn a PhD from an Ivy League university? But if that is truly all you want, you might consider hiring an experienced editor to do it for you.
-DH