Best DPI for Motion, and more!

Question

Question in response to thread below...Thanks.
Hey folks!! What size do these images have to be to start? I'm working with 14th 15th cen. text/illustrations and I only get to scan them once. Can you recomend the best settings for scaning.
Also can someone recap this thread? I'm a little confussed... I feel very comfortable in FCP, I've not really used Motion yet but it seems the obvious choice. I'm on a G5Q so I don't think it will run slow/bad. I do like seeing what I'm doing without rendering. Does this take a long time in FCP?
Finally, I recently saw that Riding Giants movie and really liked some of the techniques they used. Are these effects, effects that you can apply in Motion? What other programs can pull this off? I have lots of ancient documents with images that I want to sort jump out off the page and onto the screen. I've heard about this "motion matte camera", how is this different than using a program like Motion? I've heard that AF can be used to creat the 3D layered images. 3D sounds cool as long as it is not overdone. Isthe 3D effect a really tough thing to accomplish given that layers need to be created?
Many thanks! Alex

Answer 1

Normally I use FCP to keyframe the animation ... for example, here's what I did earlier this week to make the headline jump off a newspaper clipping:
The client had a newspaper clipping which I scanned (I forget the exact resolution). In Photoshop, I cleaned up the image a bit (old newspaper blotchiness, etc), then using the Select->Color Range command, I selected the black print only. Next, I feathered the selection about 1.2 pixels or so and copied the selection.
Next, I started a new PS document with a transparent background and pasted the selected text onto it. Saved both and imported them into FCP. With the original newspaper image on V1, I animated it (Viewer window, Motion tab) to make it look like it was falling away from the camera. Once it reached a certain point, I placed the new PS image (text only) on V2, scaled it to match the text on the newspaper image below, then quickly scaled up the text image only (V2). I also used a little distortion (keyframed) to give the movement a little 3D effect.
Its kinda hard to explain in writing, but the end result was that it appeared that the text jumped off the page at the viewer ... kind of an 'in your face' type of thing.
And then there are other times I'll scan an image twice; once for what I'd normally use, and the second time, I might scan a smaller area of the image at a higher resolution. One example I've done using this method was a rather large portrait collage of a medical school graduating class. My client was one of the doctors and the project was a docu-tribute to him.
The original photo was one of those that has an oval matted head shot of each graduate that you often see framed and hanging on the wall. The photo was about 16" x 20" so I actually had to do 4 scans (one for each quadrant) and then stitch them together into one document in PS - but I'll count that as one scan for this example. The second scan was of just the one particular graduate, so the scan was of a much smaller area - about 1.5" x 2". Needless to say, I used a higher resolution setting for this scan.
In FCP, I placed the full image on V1; fading in with a slight scale up over the duration. At the point in time I wanted the smaller image to "lift off," I placed it on V2 and scaled it to match the size and movement of the image below. As it "lifts off," I increased the rate of scale while at the same time slightly reducing the opacity and ramp up a bit of Gaussian Blur to the image on V1 as it remains in the background. Then they both transitioned to the next scene together.
Make sense?
After Effects is probably a much better tool for this type of thing, but I'm just now trying to get myself reacquainted with that program.
-DH