Compiling many still images into a movie

Hi,
I have about 2,000 still frames, all PNG files, that I wish to compile into a movie. They are a bit of a weird size (1049x870px) so iStopMotion doesn't work.
iMovie 8 is beyond useless for this since it downsizes them, works in a different frame rate (25fps as opposed to the 15fps that I need the final movie in), there seems to be no clear way to set the number of frames each still should last (unlike in iMovie 5), and above all, it cannot seem to import them in the correct order, and I don't have the time to manually import 2,400 files in order.
Does anyone have any software recommendations, ideally freeware/demo/cheap shareware?
Cheers

I suspect the random order problem is the result of a peculiar Finder bug that has been around since, well, a long time. Try opening the Finder in Column view, navigate to the folder, and then select the contents and drag 'n drop into iMovie. The only way alphanumeric order is respected for any number of Finder things is if the folder is in Column view.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Combine multiple still images into one clip PE 10

Is it possible to combine mulitple still images into a single clip? For example, I have 50 still images in a video track, each of which is a clip, and I want to combine them into single clip out of them so I can adjust the opacity without having to adjust each of the 50 clips individually. Any information is welcome. Thanks.

Mark,
I had done this but I was hoping there was an easier way to do it within PE, without having to export as a video file and then importing that video file.
One has to think about what PrE is doing with the Timeline, to understand why the Export/Share is necessary to get Stills/Clips to become one file. PrE is a non-destructive editor, in that it does not actually work with the Source Footage/Files, but only extracts data from them. What we see on the Timeline is really a proxy file, representing the edits that we are making. It is stored as XML language, with first links to the Source Files, and then a set of instructions on what we have done with that data. Since the Timeline is but a representation, of what we have done, there is no AV file - yet. That does not come about, until we Export/Share. At that point, PrE looks at the Project file (PREL), and notes exactly what data is required from the Source Files. The program then reads that information, and say gathers the data of Clip # 1 from 00;00;00;00 until 00;05;00;00, for use in the output file. It then moves to say Clip 2, and extracts the data needed there. Finally, the program processes that data, say adding Effects, and then Exports/Shares to a new file - creating that from the data, and the instructions. Still, the originals are not changed in any way - they are untouched, and only read from.
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Still images into a project

Hello.
I am working on an SD NTSC-Anamorphic project and want to bring some still images into the project. The images were shot with a Canon 350D (Rebel XT) in Raw format and currently are in TIFF format as converted by Aperture. When I import the images I am finding a noticable degredation in quality when comparing the images in "Preview" to the Viewer to the Canvas. Once the images are in the timeline and I look at them on the canvas they look alot fuzzier.
Should I be using a different file format? Is there a setting I've overlooked somewhere?
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Hi,
I have read the comments above and all are valid but they do not look to me to answer your core question.
I had been asking the same question on forums for a long time and had similar responses and finally fixed the issue by purchasing a Photoshop book called WOW.
One of the earlier comments really hits the nail on the head but does not seem to offer the fix (I'm not trying to be critical here because all information does help).
First of all you need to reduce the size of the file for video - this is, in my experience best done in Photoshop not FCP (Photoshop WOW book comes with DVD and automatic actions to do this).
I call this the 'resize' step and put all my photos through this stage first (it does help to have an action for landscape and one for portrait to ensure that they are kept separate for the next step).
Then you need to 'rescale' the image to the size of your project in FCP (I assume that you are using widescreen as I do). To do this you need to create a blank document in widescreen format and then drop or drag your resized photo into the widescreen format and it will take on the same format as the blank widescreen document. Get rid of any layers and save the document in TIFF or JPEG it is up to you - you can keep the layers if you want to but you need to be aware of the issues of layers being imported into FCP.
I felt like I had found my fountain of youth when I sorted this out properly (the stress was definitely make me age).
Some comments suggest that the latest FCP does a better job of compressing the photos than the older versions but I wouldn't know as I use FCP 4.5HD and this may be so. However, it is commonly accepted, I believe, that formating the photo in photoshop is the better option.
It fixed all my headaches at least because I wanted the flexibility of FCP with photos just as you do.
Good luck and no intention to dislocate any noses out there, the willingness of people helping to provide assistance out there is fantastic.
Lee

Inserting still images into video

I have PS CS4 Extended, and I am pretty new to working with video. I need to insert still images into several continuous frames of video after removing the frames that are there. Can anyone help point me in the right direction?

Hello, wooblesmom. This is actually the forum for Photoshop Elements. Questions about CS4 will get better answers in the appropriate forum. The Photoshop forums are here:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop
Good luck!
Incidentally, if you really meant to ask about Premiere rather than Photoshop, those forums are here:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere

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Hi
Is Your photos .jpeg photos ?
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The photos were imported for 5 seconds each because apparently that's the duration currently set in the Photo Settings window, the window that opens when you press the Show Photo Settings button.
The shortest duration offered by the Photo Settings window is 00:03 — three frames. But there is a back door to import with a 1-frame duration. The trick is to use the iMovie feature that imports photos using the import duration — and all the other photo import settings — of the last imported clip you clicked on.
1. Click on any photo in the Photos list. Press the Show Photo Settings button. Turn OFF the Ken Burns checkbox in the Photo Settings window; drag the duration slider as far left as it will go; then press the Apply button. The new clip will have a duration of 3 frames. (Don't try to type the duration in the Photo Settings text box. The text box is buggy and you won't get the duration you want.)
2. Double-click on that new clip. In the Clip Info window that opens, change the duration to 0:00:01, which is one frame. Press the Set button. Now the clip will play for one frame.
3. In the Photos list, click on any photo. The default duration will be 00:03 in the Photo Settings window, which is the duration of your last import.
4. Now click on the new 1-frame clip, then click on any photo in the Photos list. Now the default duration will be 1 frame, not 3.
5. The photos you subsequently import will be 1 frame long until you change the duration, or click on a clip that's longer.
There's one other hurdle, importing the photos in the order you want them. Ideally you have them now in the same folder, and they are named in numerical order. To preserve the order, the best method is usually to use iMovie's File > Import command to import all at the same time. (Click on the first photo in the folder, then Shift-click on the last one.)
That method usually delivers them in the proper order. Dragging them from a Finder window — or from the photos list — usually will not.
Oh, and don't forget to set your iMovie preferences to import them to the Timeline, not the Clip pane.
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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.
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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

How do I turn still pictures into a movie?

I have CS5 web and Lightroom 3. I'm trying to create a movie/video from a group of 500-1000 still photos that I took with my camera. I set my camera up to take a picture every few seconds and I would like to make it into a movie format to were it would show 2 or more pictures per second or how ever many per sec. And I'd like to add music to it. I don't know what program to begin in or if it's even something I can do with any of the programs I have.
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Nothing you already have. This requires After Effects, Premiere Pro or something similar.
Mylenium

Can you merge two still images into one in premiere elements?

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Depending on what you mean by "merge," you can use PiP (Picture in Picture) to have the second image come in and occupy part of the screen with the original image. There are many ways to display PiP, from say a small image located in the screen to having it occupy one half of the screen.
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Curt
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thank you for the reply
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Making a loaded swf-file loading images into the movie..

Trying to convert my problem from norwegian into english
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Compiling many still images into a movie

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