Best graphic file formats for use in FC

The FC User's Manual indicates that FC can use PICT, TIFF, TGA, PDF, Photoshop (I assume .psd) or JPEG files for images.
What is the best file format, most compatible with FC and DV? I understand that image files ought to be 720 x 480 px for standard video.
What is the preferable format and why?
I made a test set of cels for animating in FC. I made them in Photoshop at 720x480 px and saved them in PICT format in a folder with sequential filenames such as pic0001.pct, pic0002.pct, pic0003.pct, etc. They worked fine.
Would jpgs be preferable to picts for this?
When using jpgs what "quality" setting is best?
When using .psds, ought they to be "flattened" to one layer before use in FC?
Thanks,
George

I would prefer 'non-compressed' formats as pict or tiff ... if you have the choice.
although 'perfect' on screen, jpegs, after conversion into any video-codec, you'll soon notice 'banding'...
and 'saving disk space' should be no issue while movie making.
for sure, it makes no sense, to convert a jpg into tiff before import
.psd should only be 'flattened' if you don't need the layers as tracks ... example: I created a title in PS with a shadow on a separate layer. in FC/e I animated the title with a super-fast 'moving from outside into frame' ... and the shadow comes 'delayed' => that fast! ... old Looney Toons effect.

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Best log file format for multivariable non-continous time series

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Think this is the right forum...
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What is the best camera encoding format for use with iMovie09?

I may well get a new camera, so might as well get one that likes iMovie.
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What characteristics should I look for?
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Message was edited by: yvonarchambault

Intel processor in you MB Pro? Need it to capture avchd.
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Best File Format For Online Line Art?

I thought the conventional wisdom was that all line art for the screen should be saved as GIFs, all photographic line art should be saved as JPEGs.
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I've been exploring this because I've been having a problem when exporting line art from Illustrator 8 as a PNG and opening it in Fireworks MX, where it appears washed out.
I did a bit of research among comic strip artists -- the art I'm exporting from Illustrator is a comic strip -- and came up with conflicting results.
Dilbert seems to save black and white line art as GIFs, e.g. http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2008611230313.gif
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Meanwhile Donnesbury seems to save colored comic strips as GIFs, e.g. http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2008/db080406.gif
Any thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks.

I assume your line art is drawn as vector art in Illustrator, correct?
As far as I'm concened, the "best file format for online line art" would be .swf, because it would retain its scaleable vector nature, and the Flash Player is most likely embedded in any reasonably recent computer's browser.
But a little simple experimentation would be in order regarding file size. SWF (as exported from Flash, not necessarily AI) is very efficient. But the complexity of the line art could still make a given image require more bandwidth as .swf than as a rasterized version.
The former conventional-wisdom regarding PNG is the old "not supported in older browsers" saw. I see even Firworks's online help still says:
> However, not all web browsers can view PNG graphics.
Personally, I think its way past time to stop cow-towing to outdated browsers and use PNGs anyway. So if it were me, and the nature of my line art required rasterization for online use, I would use PNG for its obvious advantages. But then, my livlihood is not affected by some minority of outdated web viewers not being able to view my PNGs.
I would think that whatever color problems you are having in getting your AI files exported to PNG can be worked out with a little investigation/experimentation. (PNG supports color management profiles, so that alone may be your problem, and may be easily fixed in your workflow.) GIF is by definition limited to a subset of colors. JPEG is by definition a lossy compression format. So there are certainly precise color-accuracy issues with those overused formats, too.
But again, that's just me. What little I do in web graphics that would involve this issue doesn't really affect my livelihood. Lowest-common-denominator compatibility may be more important to you.
> Gilbert seems to...
> Doonsbury seems to...
The two images are very close to the same size (132K & 125K). They both include contone grads. Between JPEG and GIF, I would expect JPEG to more consistently yield acceptable results. Since GIF is limited to an 8-bit lookup table, I would expect aberations such as unwanted banding to be more likely in GIF if the artwork contains many colors and alot of highly-rendered shading.
Since you specify
line art, though, that would rule out contone fills, and you could use GIF with a very small color table.
On the other hand, you do not specify whether you want to use transparency in your line art images. If you do, PNG would be far superior, because it supports true alpha transparency. In a GIF, if you can only make one particular color transparent. So even with line art, if the line art is antialiased at all, you'll have the ugly halos so commonly seen in GIFs when displayed on a wrong-colored background.
The only functional "advantage" that I see in GIF over PNG is its multi-image capability, for quick & dirty frame-by-frame animation. My personal animation efforts focus entirely on Flash/SWF, and use scripted animation whenever possible to avoid frame-by-frame. But I recognize the simplicity convenience of animated GIFs for web banners and those (often-annoying) moving icons and such.
JET

Line Drawing best file format for import in InDesign

i was wondering what is the accepted and recommended file format for files to be imported in InDesign. I was under the impression that AI files should be saved as EPS but I just read an article that says that Adobe's Dov Isaacs said that eps will be shortly obsolete.What should I do. I work on curriculum that contains both photographs and line drawing and we use tiff for the former and eps for the latter. Most of our line drawing is done in AI. Howeverwe have a cartoonist that sends us files in jpg format. What would be the best file format for him and for us as we draw in AI?
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Yes, I drag the AI file in.
If after it's in place I need to change I can just right click and chose edit original make the changes and save and the illustration in inDesign will reflect the changes.
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It is this interoperability that to me makes the Creative Suite so much more than the sum of their parts.
Craig

Best Hi Def File Format for PE 10 on a PC?

I am running Premiere Elements 10 on a PC, Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, two internal 1 TB Hard Drives, 16 gigs of RAM, with Blu Ray Burner drive. I have done a fair amount of video editing using PE 10 on this rig with standard def material, but now I hope to do some high def work. I plan to have some old family 16mm home movies transferred to hi-def media and do some minor editing (color / contrast correction and maybe some simple transition effects) and then burn the edited files to Blu ray disc.
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Rob McKay

ATR -
Thanks for your very informative reply. I'm afraid the transfer house doesn't offer samples.
Since you think the ProRes 422 would be best for me, here is what I have done in my own tests:
1) Downloaded short ProRes 422 HQ clips into files on my computer hard drive from several websites. The longest of these clips is 30 seconds.
2) Using the "get media" tool in PE 10, I've brought these clips into PE 10.
3) Dragged the clips into the project timeline. At first I got a popup message saying (and I have paraphrased this) the "file format is not supported by PE 10. Would you like the program to convert it to a format supported by PE 10?" I clicked "yes" and the clip appeared in the timeline. Later on I stopped getting this popup message. I've no clue what format the program might be converting the ProRes 422 HQ files to.
4) After I had a couple minutes of short clips in the timeline, I copied and pasted some of them over and over in the timeline until my entire video time was about 30 minutes in length. Reason for this was simply because I am trying to replicate as best I can what my file from the Transfer House will be like - not 2 minutes in length, but closer to 30 minutes.
5) Did a few minor editing effects on the timeline of the sort I would be doing on my Transfer House file - contrast and color correction, time stretch /speed change, etc.
6) Went to "Share" tab, clicked on "Disc - Burn to Blu Ray". In the Presets dropdown menu, I chose "H.264 1920x1080i NTSC Dolby" (Note - Only four choices appear. The one I chose, as well as "H.264 1440x1080i NTSC Dolby" and the same two again except in PAL Dolby.)
7) Burned a BD-R of the project in Blu ray burner.
I was very pleased with the result - image was nice sharp quality, smooth moving (no dropped frames) and filled my 4 foot x 8 foot screen when played on my Blu Ray player through an Epson projector.
Rob

Hello, what is the best way for me to convert RW2 raw format for use in Photoshop CC

Hello, what is the best way for me to convert RW2 raw format for use in Photoshop CC. I would appreciate any help with this.

Thanks for the quick help. I do have to leave for work. When I try to
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Have a great day.
On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 12:14 PM, ssprengel <[email protected]>

Best file format for linked images in AI

Goal: To keep Illustrator "running" as smoothly as possible with a few hundred linked images?
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Jpegs are compessed in such a way thata a jpeg of a smaller takes a little longer size to open.
You are probably experiencing this on alrge scale so it is more noticeable and making it take longer to link up.
I would use tiffs anyway.

Best or better file formats for editing in PPRO CS4

I'm currently working with MPEG (from tape transfer) and M2T ( recorded with Adobe Onlocation) files in CS4.
I switch between Mac and PC depending on whcih system is available. (both: 8 gigs ram , dual quads 3GHZ, graphics ATI 4850 &/or quadra FX)
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end use is HD web video that is served via Delve networks (720P).
Detailed, positive ideas and commentary appreciated.
thanks JamesNYC

If you're capturing via OnLo and it's coming up as .m2t then OnLo sees the device as an HDV device. This is a temporal codec and as such, decoding can be difficult if your system isn't up to the task. Since your CPU and memory are up to the task, I would ask about your drive subsystem and exactly which OS you are using? If you're using a 32bit flavor of Windows, you're not able to use the extra memory and I would suggest you upgrade to Win7 64.
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Dennis

For iPhone and Android, what is the best file format for watching videos?

For iPhone and Android, what is the best file format for watching videos?

You can try these setting. They are from CS5.5 but should work in CS4.
Make sure you check Use Max. Render Quality.

Best file format to use when moving....

Hi all. What would be the best file format for moving a track from *Adobe Soundbooth CS5* to *Apple Soundtrack*, for editing? I've currently got it in Soundbooth native format (.asnd), and can take it out as almost anything.
The audio will eventually be laid into a DVD project, currently in the works. Your thoughts are appreciated.
Message was edited by: matthewmac

Thanks, all. I was looking for an uncompressed format and went with .aif/.aiff, which is working out great.
Merry Christmas.....

Correct Image File Format For Magazine Printing

I am using InDesign CS4 and I would like to know if it's ok to use JPG or JPEG images for printing magazines ? If not, can you please tell me the correct image file format I should use with InDesign for designing and printing a magazine ? Also what would be the best way to convert the image files from JPEG to that correct image file format ?

Use what ever format you like, I perfer .tiff with LSW compression or .eps. If you don't know what you are doing just include the original image when you send you project to the printer and link the image in InDesign don't embedded it. When you furnish the original image the prepress department can set it up correctly.
I perfer 300 dpi with image is at 100% of the final size, if the image is printing 150 line screen when printed. 200 dpi is ok for 133 line screen. I would even perfer a 100 dpi image over a .jpg image that has be over compressed.

Image file formats to use in print pdfs

We receive images from several vendors in order to build our catalogs in Adobe InDesign CS2, and then we export print pdfs from InDesign. We want to standardize our requirements for receiving images from vendors, and we had a question related to file formats. Is it okay to use jpeg files as long as they are in high-resolution CMYK format?
It is a part of our work flow to accept the images untouched from the vendor, no re naming of files, or changing f file formats. I understand that the safest bet is for EPS and TIFF formatted images, but will JPEG files be problematic in any way? Someone told me that because of their compressed format that some info could get lost when embedding into pdfs. Is there a book, or any printed documentation about what types of image file formats to use to create pdfs?
Thanks,
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(1) There is nothing "unsafe" about JPEG-compressed images. However, JPEG compression is
lossy and depending upon the type of image, its resolution, and the compression settings used when creating the JPEG file, the results at the end of the workflow may not be satisfactory. That having been said, if JPEG compression is used for a photographic image (not a screen shot or an image representation of what should be a vector diagram), the "maximum quality" setting is used in producing the JPEG image (
not maximum compression), and the image is of appropriate resolution for its final purpose (at least 150 dpi, preferably closer to 300 dpi for printing) at full magnification, then there is nothing "unsafe" about JPEG.
(2) You should be aware that saving images in EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format from Photoshop may yield JPEG compression, depending upon options chosen. Thus, there is nothing inherently "safer" about EPS compared to JPEG. And ironically, you can also get JPEG compression in TIFF files if you aren't careful how you save them, although that is very uncommon.
(3) CMYK is not necessary for image placement into InDesign as long as the image is tagged with the appropriate ICC color profile (such as sRGB, Adobe RGB, etc.). InDesign can convert those RGB images to whatever the final print conditions are or, if creating PDF, leave the images in RGB format with the ICC profile. How you create the output obviously depends heavily on what type of workflow your print service provider has. More "up to date" printers support color-managed workflows with ICC color profile tagged images in PDF files.
(4) In terms of receiving images from vendors, if you require them to convert the images from whatever their native RGB color space is to CMYK, you really must specify
which CMYK and provide the correct ICC color profile to them! Different print processes use different CMYK color spaces. If you convert RGB to the wrong color space, the results can be awful. You are probably best off requiring that vendors submit photos in their original RGB color space, but tagged with the appropriate ICC color profile.
- Dov

Firefox for Mac preferences shows .qif file format for quicken as "quicktime image format"-wrong application and won't let me select anything else

Post to Firefox forum; Oct.2011
Re: Quicken 2007; Mac OS 10.5
Problem: can’t import or download Qif format files into quicken from bofa or Chase. Mac can’t recognize; how do I set preferences in Firefox (or Safari).
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/new?product=desktop&category=d1&search=Firefox+for+Mac+preferences+shows+.qif+file+format+for+quicken+as+%22quicktime+image+format%22-wrong+application+and+won%27t+let+me+select+anything+else&showform=1
Hello,
I previously used Firefox on my old Mac G4 with OS 10.3.9; the above issue existed with that system and Firefox 2.00.2 (or similar). I then "tried" to move to a G5 Mac with OS 10.5, hoping that an updated Mac Operating system and updating Firefox would solve that problem.
I'm now working on my son's MacBook Pro, OS 10.5.8, 2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo; 2gb Memory; 2 gb 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM.
I still have a problem in Firefox Preferences trying to download .qif files. BofA Mortgage accounts only allow downloading of .qif files. My .qfx download works fine, but the error message is as follows:
The error message is that this is a corrupted file or one that Preview doesn't recognize.
and it is still a problem when trying to download Quicken .qif format files for our B of A mortgage.
The preferences for Firefox under File Helpers won't let me name the extension I want; instead, it CONFUSES .qif (Quicken Interchange Format) with .qtif (Quicktime Image Format) for Mac.
Therefore, when I download .qif files and try to import them to Quicken, I get a message that this is a corrupted file:
thanks for any help.
Val in Seattle

Well, in the end, I just gave up and deleted the photos, in the hope that it was something to do with them. Took some more photos and they seem to have imported without any problems at all.
Given that the same irksome photos loaded on the wife's macbook without so much as a murmur, how weird is that?
Still- all's well that ends well. Thanks for the suggestions- much appreciated.
Matt

Best graphic file formats for use in FC

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