Better Quality Still Images

When I place a still image into Final Cut Pro the image quality goes down dramatically. To the point where some of the faces on the pictures are unrecognizable. Does anyone know how to solve this issue so that the image quality stays the same? Just to let you know...the quality is still low even after I render it.

Search around a little there is a lot of info on this subject. Here's a start for 'ya.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=574657

Similar Messages

  • Trying to get a high quality still image

    Hi,
    I am trying to get a high quality still image from a 16mm film I completed years ago. I have had it transfered to digital format and brought it in to Final Cut Pro Studio 2. The distributor (Canyon Cinema) wants a high resolution image for the website. 600-dpi or better. When I create a still it comes out 72. How can I increase the resolution of the image for distribution on their website? Thanks to anyone who get guide me to the 21st century...

    DPI is essentially meaningless in the video world. DPI is a measurement for the print world only.
    But since video resolution equates roughly to 72 DPI, that's the best you'll get. Best to go back to the original film and pull a still from there.
    Or you could try one of those resolution enhancing plugins for Photoshop like Genuine Fractals.
    -DH

  • Exporting high quality still images?

    Is it possible to export a high quality still image from video? I have used the export using qt conversion, exported it as a photoshop document and when I bring that doc into photoshop the image quality is poor at 300 dpi. It comes in at 10 inches X 6.67 inches at 72 dpi, but when I make it 300 dpi the image size is only 2.4 inches by 1.6 (this, of course, is when I turn off "resample image")
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks,
    Tim

    Is it possible to export a high quality still image from video?< </div>
    Yes and no. it is no better than your video camera shot it. Generally, for conventional DV, that's roughly 500x800 pixels at a shutter speed of 1/30th second. HD formats and special frame rates, of course, produce other still images.
    720x486 at 72 DPI.< </div>
    I beg to quibble, or at least to be a pedant. The 72dpi is an artificial construct imposed by Photoshop. There is no dpi or lpi in video. You only get the raw pixels. You can make the pixels bigger by scaling up or you can throw some away by scaling down but, without additional work like resampling or applying a tool like Genuine Fractals, you cannot get any more pixels.
    bogiesan

  • How to i resize a larger 72ppi image to better quality smaller image but for correct size to paste into flyer

    Hi, I am trying to resize a larger 16cm wide image saved at 72dpi to a smaller better quality 5cm wide image for invites for an art exhibition I am having. I figure there must be lots of information in the pic given that it is large, I just want to condense it into a smaller image. If I adjust the size to 5 cm wide it changes the dpi to 230 which would be better for printing (the 72 dpi is way too grainy). However when I paste it into the flyer I am making in photoshop it pastes as a massive picture. I then tried to drag the corners in to make it the right size and it became even grainier than a 5cm wide 72dpi image. I hope that makes sense to someone. So basically I need a 5cm wide document size that I can put in my small flyer that is the best quality I can make it! Thanks in advance!

    Up-sampling from 72ppi to 300-600ppi can result in blurry images.  It's always best to start with a good quality, high resolution image if you can.  Go to Image > Image Size.  When up-sampling, use Bicubic Smoother setting.  When down-sampling, use Bicubic Sharper.  See screenshot.
    Nancy O.

  • Method better quality of image ?

    Hello I would like to know which is best the method to obtain best quality while leaving in dvd to import it in final cut hd, to make an assembly and to record it in a video format.
    Me did J use handbrake to convert my file dvd (video ts) into mp4 for L to import in final cut, then I export it in quiktime and there quality is not very good?
    Thank you for your assistance

    Handbrake only converts to MPEG4 and, as stated, you don't want to work in that format
    Use MPEG Streamclip to convert to DV. Its free but you have to buy the MPEG playback component from Apple
    Or you could buy DVxDVD
    Or, if you have a DV cam, hook up a DVD player to the cam and the cam to the Mac via Firewire and capture using Easty Setup DV Converter and Capture Now

  • Creating Still Images/High quality JPG's...please help

    We are in desparate need of creating quality still images from captured video. Basically, we have footage in mini DV format that we import into Final Cut HD using a Sony Clamshell deck. What is the best way to make high quality still images?
    We tried it this way....Export Quicktime as Still image...and it just looks bad, Even after De-interlacing it within Photoshop. We need it to look exactly like it does if we simply press pause on the deck or pause within Final Cut.

    When you start with DV material, the highest res you can for a still image capture 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 masterpiece 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 frame, 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.
    Confused yet? I hope not...
    Still, if you know you'll want stills from a project, it's better to carry around a small digital still camera, you'll get better results. Otherwise, plan on pretty small prints.
    Good luck.
    x
    Do your part in supporting your fellow users. If a response has been Helpful to you or Solved your question, please mark it as such as an aid to other lost souls on the forum.
    Also, don't forget to mark the thread Answered when you get enough information to close the thread.

  • Render high quality 15 minute clip of still images with transitions - After Effects CC 2014

    Hello, I am rendering a 15 minute composition comprised of a 3 high quality still images (5 mins for each image) with basic blur fades between each still at a res of 1440x900.
    Rendering this out as a Quicktime movie is taking forever and results in a HUGE file size, can someone please recommend an alternative that will not sacrifice video quality?
    Thanks!

    He can't give you any specific advice because you didn't give us any specific information. How you are delivering your video makes a HUGE difference in what render settings you would use. If you're planning to send it for use in an NLE like Premiere, the advice would be different from if you were wanting to upload it to YouTube. Thus, he linked you to a resource that could best help you based on the limited information you provided.
    Also, Todd comes on here in his free time. This is a user-to-user forum, not an official way to contact Adobe. We are grateful for any support we get here from official personnel.

  • Large Still Images into PE - One Workflow

    Everyone wants the highest quality that they can obtain when doing their videos. It’s natural to want the best. Well, when dealing with still images, bigger is not necessarily better, for two reasons. First, overly large still images can really tax a system and second, one is limited to the frame size of the video, so these have to be resized somewhere - this resizing can be in the NLE (Non Linear Editor) program, or in an image processing program like PS (Photoshop), which does a better job anyway. Doing this in PS, or PSE, will result in better resized images, and they are easier for the NLE to work with. Quality is as high as your Project’s Preset will allow, and you are more efficient, with fewer crashes, slowdowns and hangs. It is a win-win situation.
    Here is my normal workflow when dealing with still images. This workflow is for NTSC 4:3 720x480 with a PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) of 0.9. If your Project’s Presets are different, use those specs to resize to.
    Since I shoot my still images in RAW, I Copy my files from the CF card to my system and catalog these images by location, subject and date (if necessary). I’ll do a quick conversion and Save_As Adobe DNG for backup. I then process these RAW images in PS with the ARC (Adobe Raw Converter), correcting them and then doing a Save_As PSD into a sub-folder. All of this is in my still photo library.
    Normally, I will edit these PSD’s to find the images that I wish to use in a Video Project, and will Copy the selected images to another folder. You’ll see that I work with a lot of Copies, so my original files are always untouched and stored elsewhere. This guards against anything happening to them.
    At this point, I’ll decide how I wish to use these selected images in my Video Project. Let’s just say that they are all horizontal images, and are still full-size from my camera. As stated, my Video Projects are DV-NTSC 4:3 720x480 PAR 0.9. [Remember, your Video Project may vary, so you will need to plug in the dimensions for YOUR Video Project in that case.] I also will have done my Cropping on each image individually, to get them to 4:3 Aspect Ratio. I do this my eye and by hand, rather than via an Action, because I want full aesthetic control.
    In PS, I have a set of Actions for Video. An Action is like a Script, but less powerful and less involved in the writing. As I have already done all of my image enhancements and additional processing before I did my Copy to the selected folder, I only have to worry about my Action resizing these selected images for use in my Video Project. My Action here is to resize to 720x480 with a PAR of 0.9, and I normally use the Action that does this with a particular resizing algorithm, Bicubic-Smoother (though I also use Bicubic-Sharper on occasion).
    For the next step, I go to my folder structure (remember, this folder contains copies of my selected still images in PSD format), and create a new sub-folder "[Project Name]_720x480." Back in PS, I choose File>Automate>Batch. Here I set my Source Folder, my Destination folder and the Action to perform. In my case, it’ll be the Destination Folder, that I just created, [Project Name]_720x480, and my Action will be my NTSC 4:3 720x480 Smooth. I check to have the Open command by-passed, because I do not need to see this take place on my monitor. When I hit OK, PS grabs all files in my Source Folder, runs the commands of my Action and does a Save_As for all files into my Destination Folder. I can process hundreds of large images down to a great 720x480 PAR 0.9 via Bicubic-Smoother interpolation, in moments. Now, I’m ready to go. Last, I Copy my Destination Folder to my Video Project’s folder hierarchy (usually on another HDD), and then Import these processed stills into my NLE.
    What if I need to pan on one, or more of these images, while they are zoomed out completely? I don’t have enough pixels in my horizontal dimension to do this. I am just filling the frame with my still. Well, if I find that there are such images, I go back to my folder with the full sized images in my still images library, and select the ones that need to be larger. I run another Action on these, but it’s one that resizes to something larger than 720x480, say 1000x750. Now, I have another Destination Folder with the name [File Name]_1000x750. I’ll Copy this over to my Video Project, and Import these into the NLE. Here, I can go to Project Panel and remove the 720x480 versions if I so choose, but since a Premiere Project file (.PRPROJ or .PREL) is only an XML database, I may just leave them. It does not contain any media files, just links to where they are on the system and to what operations are performed on them.
    By doing my resizing in PS, rather than in Premiere, I have accomplished two things:
    1.) I have better quality resized images, using the algorithms in PS, plus have a choice of several interpolation methods to work with.
    2.) I have lessened the processing load on my NLE and on my system, while doing the editing
    I get higher quality and lower resource overhead - hence my reference to "win-win."
    Now, back to my aesthetic control. I do not do any automatic zooming or panning. If one allows the NLE to do this, then they will want to probably process all of their images to 1000x750 (remember, this is for an NTSC 4:3 Project, so you will need to calculate what YOUR Project will require).
    The two programs that I use are Photoshop and Premiere Pro, but Photoshop Elements can do the same things, though the exact commands might be different. Premiere Elements will handle the resized still images, just like Premiere Pro and the only difference will be the terminology used when one wishes to Import the still images.
    I also keep all of my images in .PSD (the native format of PS), and do not convert to JPEG, or other. If one’s camera shoots only JPEG, I suggest writing the Action to do the Save_As to .PSD, as another JPEG compression will cost one quality. Yes, the JPEG’s will be smaller, but remember we are looking for the ultimate quality, so larger file sizes are just part of that equation.
    One does not have to deal with all of the Copies, as I do. However, this allows me to go back to the originals, or to the processed full-sized .PSD’s at any step along the way. There is only one thing worse than not being able to go back to an intermediate version with full Layers and Adjustment Layers, plus any Alpha Channels, and that is finding out that you’ve lost your original RAW and DNG backups! That’s why I do a lot of Save_As and also work from Copies all along the way.
    Hunt

    Your workflow looks good. I do similar, but use PS, in lieu of LightRoom. I also do DNG's for my archives.
    Provided that one chooses a JPEG compression algorithm setting that does not do too much compression, I doubt that anyone, but the most very critical, could tell the difference in Video. Most of my tests on PSD vs JPEG have been for print. There, one can more easily detect the differences. Video "hides" some of that.
    To date, I have not had a Project where the Asset size differences between equally sized PSD's vs JPEG's caused any slowdown, or problem. There could be a resources savings with the smaller JPEG files, but there is a tiny bit of overhead dealing with the JPEG compression. I have never tested this, so can only guess that the smaller Asset size of the JPEG would trump that overhead - just a guess on my part.
    For me, keeping the images in PSD does save a tiny bit of work in my Action (basically one less operation to perform), but I doubt that one could measure that time difference, even over the automation of hundreds of images. Besides, it's only one additional line in the Action. My feelings on JPEG vs PSD is firmly based in my print experience, and I am probably being too critical with images going to video. When I move up to HD and BD authoring, I need to apply a very critical eye, to see if I can tell the differences on an HD TV. So long as one does not apply too much JPEG compression, the differences should be very slight, at the worst, and maybe not even noticed, at best.
    I do minimize the impact of many files on my Project by sizing to what I need. If I will not be doing any pans on zoomed-out images, I size to my Project. For pans on zoomed-out images, I calculate just what I will need for those pans, and might end up with several groups of sizes, to accommodate each. Still, the vast majority will be sized to exactly what I need for the Project - very few extra pixels.
    In my case, and yours too, I have my RAW, my DNG, my working Layered PSD's, and then my sized output. I always keep all working PSD's, as I might change my mind, or my client might change theirs, and I do not want to have to go back and redo work, if I still have those working files. I also do as little destructive editing, as I can, using Dupe Layers, and Adjustment Layers, whenever possible. If I can, I never Flatten, or Merge Layers, so I can make any/all changes at any time, and only have to do the resizing via the same Actions. That is basically a "one-button" solution, once I have made the changes required.
    Good luck,
    Hunt

  • Getting poor still image quality in SD project on CS4

    hey guys. sorry if you heard this one, but i havent seen anything addressing this.
    i am using CS4 to edit a Standard def project and i am running into a problem with still images being choppy and distorted.
    I tried all options to produce a better quality, but i get poor quality in the timeline monitor even after i render preview. the ouput
    when i export is equally bad.
    what i did find out was that if i switched projects in favor of an HD 720 the images are crisp on import and look good.
    am i missing something. i assumed the images looked bad because they werent rendered and since i didnt need to render to edit i didnt want to lose the time, so now i'm stuck with those images, or i have to scrap the project and start again in hd and i prefer not to. i would have done it in hd, but the footage i was given was SD. anyways i would appreciate some help. thanks!
    btw i've tried to export in both MS DV and WMV
    i have tried importing psd png and jpg i have used all these in the past in pro2 with no problem

    still images being choppy and distorted.
    Can we see a sample?

  • Poor rendering quality for still images

    I have opened a new project with PAL DSLR settings (1080p, 25fps).
    I have added a full res (about 4000px x 3000px) still image to the timeline and added a pan effect to it. When I view the preview in PE it looks fine. However, when I render the clip the quality is very poor in the preview.
    I have tried exporting the clip to a file and this plays fine, but the preview does not look good.
    Any ideas why the rendering should have this effect?

    pickera2
    I have a few things for you to consider and tryout if interested.
    First, you are taking a 4000 x 3000 4:3 still into a 1920 x 1080 16:9 project (you say project preset = PAL/DSLR/1080p/DSLR 1080p25).
    Your problem is confined to the preview of the pan and zoom result using the Pan and Zoom Tool (I am assuming the you are using Premiere Elements 10 or 11 or 12...I do not recall that you said which one).
    Edit Menu/Preferences/General includes the preference "Default Scale to Frame Size" and it does just that. It is typically found ON. So, when your 4000 x 3000 pixels still is imported, the program tries to fit it as best possible into the 1920 x 1080 16:9 space set up in the Edit Mode monitor (Magnification = Fit) by the project preset. In your case, you would expect to see the following with black borders:
    Is that what you are taking into the Pan and Zoom workspace? Or are you scaling what is seen there so that the image just fills the 1920 x 1080 space? Does it look like the following after scaling, if you do scale to fit?
    And important point to remember is that whatever the case, the Pan and Zoom workspace is not referencing what is seen on the Timeline, but is instead referencing back to the original at the hard drive save location.
    An alternative to all of this includes
    Bringing you image into the project with the Default Scale to Frame Size disabled in preference. Then the 4000 x 3000 will overflow the space in the 1920 x 1080 monitor. You would then ignore what you see in the Premiere Elements workspace, select the Pan and Zoom Tool to open the Pan and Zoom workspace, and do your pans and zooms on the image that you see there. Click Done when finished. Back in the Premiere Elements workspace render the Timeline and  scale what you see in the Edit Mode monitor as needed.
    You also might want to look at beforehand cropping your 4000 x 3000 4:3 to 2200 x 1238 pixels 16:9 and using that as your source media with or without the Default Scale to Frame Size enabled.
    Please view to see if the previews look any better and/or there are improvements in the export.
    Thanks.
    ATR

  • Quality of still images imported from i-Photo

    I've recently got a new Mac, with updated version of i-Movie. Struggling to come to terms with it, but one major problem is quality of still images.
    Whatever I do, they look rubbish in i-Movie. I've tried all sorts of settings, Ken Burns etc, still nowhere near the crystal images on the previous version of i-Movie.
    I've read that we're not supposed to look at quality in i-Movie, but only on burning, but this is a nuisance, and anyhow when I made a Quicktime movie it was no better.
    Can anyone help? And why, when something is supposed to be better, is it actually worse?
    Thanks.
    MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    Adam
    You might try more closely matching the screen resolution of iMovie, which unless you are going widescreen is 720x540... There is not much sense in putting in more dpi than the video format can handle. You can get some distortion when it compresses the images.
    I do find that they never look as good in iMovie on my TV as they did on the computer however. Ken Burns or whatever we try.
    Also, iMovie will stretch smaller than 720x540 images to fit the dimension of the screen, which makes those look truly awful. We usually put those on a black background (in Photoshop) so that they stay at the smaller size.
    Terri

  • HOW DO I RENDER A STILL IMAGE AND KEEP QUALITY

    I'm still in search of help with why High Res. still pictures lose quality when I render.   The images are at 300dpi, roughly 1900x1200 (they vary in size).   I input them fine.  Then, when I go to put them on the timeline - I get a pop-up window asking me to "AutoFix" this clip?  When I say "yes" it drops down the quality and it becomes grainy.  If I say "no" the clip remains looking the same - great.
    But - then when I go to "render" that clip, in the timeline - it drops down in quality and becomes grainy - AFTER I render it.
    HOW DO I USE STILL IMAGES - AND KEEP THEM HIGH QUALITY WHEN I RENDER?
    My Project Settings are; 1920/1080  ---  30fps DROP frame  (should it be Non-Drop?)  --  Capture is HDV and Video Rendering is only marked at "Optimize Stills"
    I'm using Adobe Premiere Elements 11 on a Windows 8 PC
    Any help would be greatly appreciated
    thanks

    joeyMPI
    OK. Let us give this a try. If I go off course anywhere along the line, please let me know.
    1. Open Premiere Elements 11 on Windows 8 64 bit to the Expert workspace.
    A. Under Edit Menu/Preferences/General
    Remove the check mark next to "Show all do not show again messages."
    Set the "Timeline render quality (valid for HD projects)" = "High quality, Slow speed"
    Leave a check mark next to Default Scale to Frame Size.
    B. Right Click the Edit area monitor, select Magnification and make sure it is = "Fit".
    C. Right Click the Edit area monitor, select Playback Quality and make sure it is = "Highest".
    D. Setting the Project Preset Manually to Get the Sharpest End Product Photo Display
    Go to File Menu/New/Project and Change Settings
    In Change Settings, change the project preset to
    NTSC
    DSLR
    1080p
    DSLR [email protected]
    Close out of there.
    In the new project dialog that appears, make sure that you have a check mark next to
    "Force Select Project Setting on this Project". Close out of there.
    E. The project preset that has been selected has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it will direct the program to set
    up a 16:9 space in the Edit area monitor for editing. So, best results are expected with photos with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
    If an imported photo does not fill the Edit area monitor space, you can try to scale it (zoom in) just to the point of
    getting rid of any black borders. A quick scale can be done by clicking on the monitor screen, and dragging on a handle
    of the photo's bounding box which has appeared.
    But, now for the moment of truth..
    a. You should not have seen any helpful Fix messages.
    b. If you render the Timeline content by clicking on the render button above the Timeline
    what you see should look the same or better before and after the render.
    Also keep in mind, that having to scale up too much can create pixelation.
    300ppi or dpi has no significance in video. Pixel dimensions are the focus. And here, video is 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. In
    this specific case 16:9. It would be a good idea to plan ahead on the sizing of the photos beforehand. As far as I know the perk of enhanced
    sharpness in the end product is associated with just the one project preset that I pointed to in the workflow.
    But, right now, our target is on the maintaining the quality of the photos in the Edit area. And, I realize that you realize
    that no matter how great the resolution of the imports, the imports will be reduced to the sizing characteristic of the export
    preset.
    We will be watching for your results. Thank you for considering the suggestions.
    ATR

  • How to export a short  film made with still images without loosing quality?

    Hi,
    I have been trying everything to make a short film, which is made with still images, to look decent once exported however it is a real challenge. Here are the steps I have undertaken:
    1- I prepare the photographs and give them the aspect ration of 720p and whatever height as I try not to crop them too much at 300dpi. They look great in photoshop or capture one. I then save them as.tiff. All the images are RGB.
    2- I start a new project in premiere pro cs4 and make it DV Pal 25fps.
    3-I import the images and place them on the timeline. If they are a bit too big I rescale them. The images seem to look ok on the timeline although I seem to have lost the deepness of the colours.
    4-I render the work area
    5-I export it as quicktime, dv pal, quality 100.
    My dilemna is that although exporting with quicktime, dv pal, quality 100 seems to give me the best quality compared to using quicktime animation, mpeg2, cinemak, avi..., the images are still not as sharp as in Photoshop and the colours look a lot paler and washed out. Also, when looking close to the screens you can see tiny squares on the images although from distance it's not too bad. When I view it from the exported file using Nero it's not too bad although definitely not perfect, as soon as I try to make a DVD and import it in Adobe Encore CS4 or send it by Dynamic Link, the quality looks horrible with images that look soft if not blurred and completely washed out.
    I have now tried about t bu15 versions to see what 's the best I still have not reached the optimum quality and since these will be shown on big tvs or projected onto screens I need to nail it.
    Would anybody have any advice please please please?
    Many Thanks

    My overall advice is to do that kind of work in an application that is designed for that.  Give Photodex Proshow Producer trial a crack at it.  I do a lot of work with stills, and that IMO PSP is the best approach.  If you are intermixing the odd still, Pr may get you by.  If you plan on doing a lot of that, try proshow, where the workflow and extensive features are designed for making high quality videos from stills that can be output to a wide number of formats and destinations, including color management with many of them( including avi).  And, no need to resize.  I know this won't solve your present problem.
    Obviously, your attempt in Pr has not worked out as you had hoped. Maybe a bit more info would help. How are you rescaling them in Pr? That might well account for some quality loss. What is the original format and size of the images? What color management are you using in PS? Are you using any color correction or effects in Pr? Is your project interlaced or progressive?
    From your description,  you are not even getting the quality you should be getting from Pr IMO, though as Jim says, it is video and it will never look as pristine as it does in PS, but it still seems to me that something you are doing has degraded the work more than normally would be expected.

  • Which yields better quality images?

    Which yields better quality images?
    If I "send" my slideshow from iPhoto to iDVD? Or if I start in iDVD and import a slideshow from iPhoto?

    That’s the same thing.
    The problem is that iPhoto needs to make a movie of the slideshow to export. This inevitably involves compression. Then, when iDVD prepares the movie for burning, it also compresses. Many folks find the quality drop off too great when the material is doubly compressd.
    One solution is to create the Slideshow in iDVD, though that has limitations too - no Ken Burns effect, fo instance. But there’s only one layer of compression.
    Another way is to create the Movie in +as high a quality as possible+. Some ways to do this: Export the slideshow from iPhoto using the new high quality options. Alternatively, use another app that has more export options - PhotoToMovie, Final Cut Express, perhaps even iMovie HD - to get a high quality movie, and so minimise the impact of the compression.
    Regards
    TD

  • When rendered, still images appear in low quality

    Hello everyone.
    I'm facing an interesting dilemna with Adobe Premiere Elements 8. It usually works fine for me, and with time I have learned to fix most of the details that usually bother unexperienced users such as me.
    What happens is that I'm importing still images (JPEG) to my video, and when rendered they're final quality appears to be so low. I mean, you can see the pixels very large, square-like, you know... as if I had a small image and had it stretched out a lot, but that was not the case at all.
    I never had this problem before, and I can't recall anything different on my part in this new video.
    Any ideas as to how to fix this?
    Thanks everyone.

    Hi everybody,
    It is a bit late to join this discussion but for vacation reasons I didn't follow the PE-Forum for a while.
     I think I have a comparable problem like fmrees: Since a couple of days the resolution of the Preview in PE8 is rather poor. Unfortunately I can't say exactly when it startet. Maybe it begun after I rendered the project.
    After having read this issue I deleted the rendered files, looked at the preview: still the same. Re-rendering didn't improve the result.
    The difference between the problem of fmrees and mine is: I do not use at all still images. The only video sources are AVI-Files from MiniDV.
    I looked at other PE-projects I didn't touch for several week: I have the same problem! So probably it is something in the PE- or project-settings, but I have no idea what it could be (I am rather a newbee in PE).
    My Hard-/Software:
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz 2.80 Hz
    RAM 8.00 GB
    OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Video:
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
    Philips 244E
    Audio:
    AVerMedia H789 PCI-E DVB-T
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Premiere Elements V8.0

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