Poor photo quality in iMovie

When I import a still picture into iMovie from either the desktop or from the media library and use it in a movie, the quality of the photo suddenly becomes terrible in both the iMovie preview screen immediately upon import and later in the actual exported movie.
Here's an example which dramatically illustrates this problem:
Here is a JPEG photo I took at sunset with a Nikon D7000.
The picture is intentially underexposed as it is one of the final shots in a time lapse sunset movie.
Now, here's the photo exported into a 1080p iMovie!
The photo is now horrible! Gag me!
I've tried various settings in "Export using QuickTime" and the quality does not improve. From my research, it appears this has been a persistent issue.
Has anyone found a good work around?, or alternate workflow?

Jim
No one asked the ? of the sizes of the pictures
that you are putting into iMovie?
When I do a slide show I use from 1 to 2.5mg.
I go from Photoshop E / iPhoto to a folder on my DT then drag to iMovie without going to iPhoto.
iPhoto is an easy import. I do use it from time to time.
I do not crop, I use iMovie. I find that a better way.
I do not use KB to import. I then change some to KB.
Special effects no more then every 5th frame.I do break that one too.
I also use Toast.It works for me.
Karl-I like that thread- I put that in my iMovie folder.
Woodie
iMac 20 G5 BT AP Rev A / iMac G3 / in the closet Performa 6115CD / ll SE Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Similar Messages

Poor photo quality when importing to iMovie

I imported some photos to make a slide show with added soundtrack. When I select a photo and click the "Show photo settings" it looks crisp and clear, just as it was shot. As soon as I deselect the "Show photo settings" button it looks blurred, pixeled and fuzzy, just an ultra low quality photo. The end result of the video slide show it's just a low end work.
I just want to burn some DVD's to show my photographic work, but such a poor photo quality it's not going to help me achieve what I had intended.
Any clues anyone???

I'd like to follow up on your answer re: resolving poor photo quality. It seems the mere act of bringing photos into iMovie degrades the quality. You look at the photo in the preview window and it looks crisp. But then when you "ADD" it to the timeline, it becomes almost fuzzy. Isn't iMovie rendering the photos then and there as you bring them into the timeline? I cannot seem to make the photos look sharper and it doesn't seem to help doing the slideshow first in iPhoto, which I'd rather not do anyway.
Any suggestions?

Maintaining Photo Quality In iMovie

Question for one of you brilliant guys using iMovie.
I have my movie for the veterans almost finished, but I have a question on maintaining photo quality when publishing or finalizing the movie.
I did a test and exported my movie to hard drive, but the photos have piilation in shaded areas like the photos were taken with a Dollar Store throw away camera. The original photos are good quality. I exported as 720 HD. How can I get the best quality if I want to put the movie on DVD?
Thanks so much.

Sorry for the Typo, I meant "Pixilation, Spottines" generally poor quality

Photo quality in Imovie

I have Imovie HD 6 and Final Cut Express. I am creating the typical slideshow with photos from a digital camera and adding transitions and music, blah, blah.
When I export in each application I get the same quicktime export screen. No matter what I do I get crappy photo quality in the imovie export and amazing photo quality in the FCE export. Are they not both using the same quicktime export? Why is there such a difference in quality?
I did notice that if I render the imovie video as "uncompressed" ir in HD I get ALMOST the same quality as the FCE render on a typical MP4 export.
Just wondering why this is since they seem to both just be using Quicktime to create the compression.

I don't own FPE (or have any "video" camera) but you're mixing apples and oranges when using image formats in "video" apps.
iMovie is a DV editing app and converts your single image into 30 similar files per second (.dv). The same is probably true with FCE but it may be set for "high quality" which may appear better. And the newer option to use MPEG-4 does make a bit of difference.
Neither is appropriate for using still image files because of this conversion.
First rule would be to use the appropriate dimensions for your destination. Standard definition video would be 640X480 and not your multi megabyte source files.
I would add (scaled) the 640X480 sized image to a few seconds of audio (you decide the duration), extract the new video track and then export that as DV Stream (.dv) using QuickTime Pro.
Same as if it came from a DV camera.

Poor Picture Quality in iMovie Which USB Camcorder Will Work and Which Won'

Dear Colleagues,
I continue to read accounts by readers regarding iMovie 98 havinga poor image quality when sharing to iDVD. It has been suggested that users with non-High Definition camcorders, standard DV8 camcorders such as my Sony DCR-TRV315, are stretching the Movie to far when using the Large and Medium setting for sharing ing to iDVD and other media.
If this is the case, what pixel size should I use when sharing to iDVD. I had understood that 720X480 was the standard format for non-High Definition Digital 8 Camcorders. So what correct pixel ratio should I use for DVD playback on a wide-screen HDTV with non-HD recordings.
I am planning to purchase a Sony USB camcorder and I continue to hear reports that they and other brands of USB camcorders won't work with iMovie 08. Is this simply a new user not fully understanding how his new camcorder works?
If this is not the case, how can one determine which USB camcorders are compatible with iMovie 08?
Please get back to me soon.
Best regards,
Robert O. Cobb
aka The Clemmons Kid

A great deal has been said about im08 degrading interlaced video, to qualify the matter im08 resorts to progressive video depending on the capabilities of your mac, I for example can achieve full quality 1080i exports.
Additionally the matter has to be put into perspective. Of course a source video looks clearer on a mac if it is displayed in it's original interlaced format on a frame by frame basis, but this isn't how one would watch video. interlaced video looks dreadful on a computer monitor and needs to be de-interlaced to be watched, additionally you would never watch a video frame by frame and so comparing video in this way is somewhat pointless. There is a quality difference on some macs but if the video is compared in a realistic way the difference is quite small and often unnoticeable.
720 x 480 as you likely realise uses non square pixels which will be converted to square pixels for your AVC exports in im08, to maintain the aspect ratio of the pixels you should export to DV.
There are a list of supported cameras here, but of course there are many that are not in this list that do work. If you select a camera, post to see if anyone has had any compatibility issues, but as you seem to be aware a number of apparent issues are as a result of user errors rather than incompatibility.

Is there any way to fix the flash and poor photo quality after iOS 7 upgrade?

Hi everybody,
Since upgrading to the new iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 ... I have experienced poor photo (grainy) and the flash works when it feels like it... Is there any way
possible to revert back at least on the camera settings or is there a fix that can be downloaded to solve this problem? I take and use my camera a lot on my iphone5 and for me to have this problem it has made me really regret ever upgrading and I am starting to lose my faith in Apple products. I have searched the entire web and it appears there are a ton of people experiencing this same problem.!!!!

Try This...
Close All Open Apps... Sign Out of your Account... Perform a Reset... Try again...
Reset ( No Data will be Lost )
Press and Hold the Sleep/Wake Button and the Home Button at the Same Time...
Wait for the Apple logo to Appear...
Usually takes about 15 - 20 Seconds... ( But can take Longer...)
Release the Buttons..
If no joy... Try a Restore...
1: Connect the device to Your computer and open iTunes.
2: If the device appears in iTunes, select and click Restore on the Summary pane.
Restoring > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
Make sure you have the Latest Version of iTunes (v11.1.5) Installed on your computer
iTunes free download from www.itunes.com/download

Poor photo quality when importing slide show into Elements 10

Hello,
I'm using Elements and Photoshop Elements 10 on Vista.
What I'm trying to do is import a slide show I made in Photoshop in to a movie I'm making so that the slide show appears as a menu item and I don't have to include a separate disk for the pictures. I've sucessfully imported it, added the menu marker and the disc works, but the photo quality is really crappy. When I play the slide show on its own, the pictures are fine. What am I missing?
Thanks in advance!
Mary

Welcome to the forum.
They work on several levels:
A subscriber comes with a problem/question, and then, hopefully, someone will have an answer
A subscriber comes with a problem/question in mind, and then finds other threads, very similar, and hopefully gets the answer
A subscriber comes to read, to pick up ideas, etc.
In your case, it appears that # 2 worked, just as it should.
As for your question, PrE can produce SlideShows for display from DVD-Video, as good as it gets. Where commercial DVD-Videos enter a different realm, is with Video footage, with motion. There, Hollywood uses special Transcoding software, that allows for many, many more passes to identify the areas of motion, to Transcode at just the right Bit-Rate, for best results. PrE does that with but two passes, unlike the US $ 500,000 programs, staffed by highly-trained experts, who do nothing but Transcoding, all day long. PrE is limited in that respect, but with SlideShows, it will be able to apply the highest Bit-Rate (the DVD-specs. are strict here, so, though higher Bit-Rate = higher quality, DVD-Video can ONLY go so far.) Also, Hollywood uses DVD-9's (DL) so that more Duration can be authored to disc, at the highest-allowed Bit-Rate, for each segment of the Video. With a SlideShow, the Bit-Rate will be as high as the DVD-specs. allow, and per the Duration of the SlideShow vs the capacity of the disc.
Now, there are some other considerations, such as the limited Color Gamut (and Gamma) of DVD-Video vs display on a calibrated computer monitor, or a calibrated Broadcast monitor. One needs to study that limited and different Color Gamut, and perhaps adjust the colors first, in Photoshop. PrE is not designed for Broadcast output, so lacks many of the Tools, that PrPro has. Also, very few PrE users have a calibrated Broadcast monitor hooked up for Color Grading. Last, even if one has produced the ultimate output, with full understanding of the Color Gamut, and used a perfectly calibrated Broadcast monitor, there is no telling what the calibration of the client's monitor (computer, or TV) will be. What is perfect on a calibrated Broadcast monitor might look great on the client's setup, or perhaps not. A Broadcast Engineer can only adjust to standards, and hope for the best, when the disc hits the public. Same for Audio. Who knows what "Aunt Marge" has to play back the DVD-Video?
For ultimate results, I would create a Timeline with a few Still Images, but with each adjusted in slightly different ways in Photoshop. Add a Title, like a Lower-Third, with the Color and Gamma settings over each version, maybe 5 variations, that are slightly different. PS allows one to adjust Colors and Gamma in many ways, so explore. Then, author that Timeline to DVD-Video, using high-quality media, and test on their DVD player/TV setup. See which version looks best, and note the specifics from that Title. Use that to process the actual Still Images for the DVD SlideShow.
Also remember, if one has set things up ideally, they will have calibrated their system and Photoshop. As Photoshop is a Color Managed Workspace, things will be, as good as it gets. DVD-Video, and TV's are NOT Color Managed Workspaces, and most consumer TV's are out of general calibration, having just the generic setting from the factory. Nothing can be done about that.
As mentioned above, if the playback is for a computer (not a DVD player and TV), then better Color and Gamma might be achieved by doing an AV file, and then burning that to a DVD-Data disc, for delivery. However, one still has the variables of the client's computer, its monitor and even the software player used. All play a big role in how that AV file will play for them.
Good luck, and I wish there was an "iron-clad" answer, as to how to achieve the ultimate results, but there are so very many variables involved.
Hunt

Poor still photo quality in iMovie 10

Does anyone know how to improve the quality of still photos imported from iphoto to imovie 10. They are fine in iphoto but
become blurry in imovie 10

There is a > Discussion > iMovie > iMovie HD6 going on into which I entered. I posted the following earlier today. I am the entrant with trhe Japanese doll in red, can't miss it.
Have you a set prescription that you use when beginning the Burn to Disc from iDVD. That's where my problem is.
Please read the following and send help soon . . . potis
"My rendering is from iPhoto to FotoMagico. There the album is assembled with all of FoMo's attributes. I find it very user friendly. The blurring of a photo in iPhoto with the Blur adjustment does blur alright and it my instances I get a perceptible lightening of the image. Useable, but not the original. —Cut to the finish. Beautiful rendering in FoMo, so sent to iDVD the 130 photos and music. Beautiful in iMac playback in iDVD. Cannot complain a wink. Burn disc. Play disc, and there are the jaggies on the two buildings, one a church with lots of green and white marble on the facade, the other the Ponte Vechicco shimmering as in a desert as the zoom moves out. The jaggies appear on any horizontal or vertical shape, especially buildings (as noted elsewhere in this forum).
My logic says that if the project plays very well in iDVD and wavers in a DVD burnt from iDVD, that the wavies are introduced in the burn process. I tried recording at Slideshow settings of HD 720p as suggested. No help there.
Another suggestion has been that the digital cameras are ahead of the iMac Dual Core capabilities. I don't know about that. My Pentax SLR does load them in.
For the moment I am eliminating the two dramatic zooms because they are distracting and waiting for a solution which will have to take form outside of my meager experience.
Thanks muchas for your reply.
potis
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.7) "

Poor Image quality/Slideshow/iMovie to iDVD

I placed about 150 jpegs as clips in iMovie HD (v.5.0.2). I made them all 3.25 seconds long and gave them all a short overlap transition. I set them to music and exported to iDVD (v.5.0.1). Once the DVD was burned, I viewed it with disappointment. Briefly, during the transitions the images are of great quality. But the actual image clips are very poor quality. I'm new to this and I find all the many options for making quicktime movies a little overwhelming. But, exporting to iDVD doesn't have any options. I thought it was supposed to maintain the quality.
What did I do wrong or what can I do right?

Karl Peterson said,
"If there are unrendered clips in the Timeline when we tell iMovie to Share (Export) a project to iDVD, iMovie will ask permission to render those clips. (Rendering converts the clips to video clips.)
These may include still photos, photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox turned OFF. Photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox ON are rendered by Ken Burns; iMovie won't ask to render them again.
If we grant permission to render clips, iMovie will render them with very poor quality, adding lots of "jaggies" to the photos. It's a bug.
To avoid the bug, do NOT grant permission to render when iMovie asks. Then iDVD will render them for us, which it does with good quality.
So, to avoid the bug do any ONE of these:
1. Import all photos with the Ken Burns checkbox ON.
2. If iMovie asks permission to render when exporting the project, do NOT grant permission.
3. Instead of sharing from iMovie to iDVD, drop the iMovie project into the iDVD project window.
Karl"

Poor photo quality in finished i movie

Hi,
I have just completed an i movie project that contains video and many still photos imported from i photo.
These photos were scanned in at 200 dpi - probably would have been better at 300 - but what's done is done. Now that the movie is burned to i dvd, the photos are grainy and noisy.
Do you have any advice that could help the quality - shy of rescanning and redoing the entire project?
thanks.

Yes there's a big difference between what you see on the iMovie screen and the TV screen. It usually looks better on TV but way cropped. Dang!
If you have a iMovie compatible digital camcorder with analog to digital pass-through (such as my Canon ZR40 and others) you can monitor it through the TV as you edit to see what it will look like. The signal can pass both ways.
Connect the camcorder to the mac by firewire (dv). Connect the camcorder to the TV using the S-Video (if it has it) or compostite video connection and L/R audio out. I know some newer camcorders don't have S-Video in/out but they should at least have composite, i hope, otherwise ya can't do it. I don't know about the other makes but that's why I like the Canon camcorders from 3 or 4 years ago (ZR40,45,50,60,65etc) -- they had the inputs and outputs needed like firewire(dv), svideo, compostite video, audio in/out, mic input, headphone output, and the all-important analog-digital/digital-analog pass through without having to record it to tape.
Open iMovie and in Preferences under Playback check the box that says "Play DV project video through to DV camera" (a "minor" detail I was overlooking myself until recently). When you turn the camera on and start working in iMovie it should play through to the TV.
Sometimes instead of the TV I connect the camcorder to the DVD Recorder (S-video) and record straight from the mac through the camcorder to DVD-R in the 1 hour XP mode on the set top recorder. Even though it goes analog it comes out better than iDVD or Toast at their highest settings and you don't have to take all that time encoding and burning. Only drawback no fancy menus just whatever ones the DVD Recorder has.

Poor photo quality in Photosmart All-in-one B209a

Hello All,
I purchased a HP Photosmart 8150 printer back in 2005 for the sole purpose of making prints. Recently the thing crapped out to the extent that the repair would cost more than the printer did. It was recommended that we purchase a new printer. We bought the HP Photosmart All-in-one B209a. Most of its use will be printing photo too.
The main issue I am having is in the noticeably poor quality in the prints compared to the 8150. I was shocked since it is advertised as a good photo printer, but I can't believe that in 5 years this the quality has gone down? Can anyone confirm that this is the case: Is it just that the previous 8150 model was a better printer for photos or is there something wrong with the B209a. The quality in the shadows is especially disturbing and true black is never achieved, rather a very grainy shade of grey comes up. I have gone through the Print - Quality Toubleshooting guide online here, but the problem persists.
Any recommendations?
-Ronan

Hi
i have just bought the same printer and when i printed some photos using the paper supplied the pictures actualy seemed dark. I am not happy with this as you would expect the print quality to improve. does anybody know why the print quality is not as advertised?
Thanks
ronesyzf wrote:
Hello All,
I purchased a HP Photosmart 8150 printer back in 2005 for the sole purpose of making prints. Recently the thing crapped out to the extent that the repair would cost more than the printer did. It was recommended that we purchase a new printer. We bought the HP Photosmart All-in-one B209a. Most of its use will be printing photo too.
The main issue I am having is in the noticeably poor quality in the prints compared to the 8150. I was shocked since it is advertised as a good photo printer, but I can't believe that in 5 years this the quality has gone down? Can anyone confirm that this is the case: Is it just that the previous 8150 model was a better printer for photos or is there something wrong with the B209a. The quality in the shadows is especially disturbing and true black is never achieved, rather a very grainy shade of grey comes up. I have gone through the Print - Quality Toubleshooting guide online here, but the problem persists.
Any recommendations?
-Ronan

Photo Quality in iMovie HD

I'm importing photos into iMovie . . . all of them look GREAT when viewed in photo or graphic applications, but when bringing them into iMovie they look distorted and blurry. When they were originally created I saved them at a high resolution to hopefully avoid problems like this. Any idea what the problem is? Thanks

I'm having a similar problem with this and I wonder if you've gotten anywhere? I've used Keynote to create builds with my text & image content for an intro to a presentation that I'm putting together in iMovie.
The resolution quality when I export from Keynote (at high quality 1280x1920) to Quicktime is variable depending on what format I set the Quicktime view at when I open the file in Quicktime. At actual size, it looks perfect. When I switch it to full screen mode, it's horrible. So perhaps my problem starts in this phase from Keynote to Quicktime?
Just to check to see, I then drag the Quicktime movie into iMovie to incorporate it into the presentation. Here, the graphics retain their quality, but the text content stays horrible.
From here, when I "share" to quicktime with all settings at highest quality, the quality is indeed the worst when opened and viewed in quicktime.
Has anybody found a remedy for this? It seems to be a common problem where there are so many places one can go wrong....

"Still" photo quality in iMovie & iDVD

I work with still photographs only. Trying to produce a slideshow DVD that maintains the original quality of the photo. After reading some postings on iMovie & this problem, I took the advice of several photographers & now use FotoMagico. Photo qulaity is execellent as images are not coverted to video as they are in iMovie. Program also allows the transitions & Ken Burns effects available in iMovie. To produce DVD, you must export to iDVD or Roxio Toast to burn DVD. After export to iDVD the images degraded - both on the screen & on the burned DVD & hen played on screen or HD TV. I don't have Roxio Toast. Does Roxio maintain the photo file or covert to video image? Can someone tell me what it will take to produce a DVD from Still photographs that will maintain image quality & offer transitions & title slides?

There is a > Discussion > iMovie > iMovie HD6 going on into which I entered. I posted the following earlier today. I am the entrant with trhe Japanese doll in red, can't miss it.
Have you a set prescription that you use when beginning the Burn to Disc from iDVD. That's where my problem is.
Please read the following and send help soon . . . potis
"My rendering is from iPhoto to FotoMagico. There the album is assembled with all of FoMo's attributes. I find it very user friendly. The blurring of a photo in iPhoto with the Blur adjustment does blur alright and it my instances I get a perceptible lightening of the image. Useable, but not the original. —Cut to the finish. Beautiful rendering in FoMo, so sent to iDVD the 130 photos and music. Beautiful in iMac playback in iDVD. Cannot complain a wink. Burn disc. Play disc, and there are the jaggies on the two buildings, one a church with lots of green and white marble on the facade, the other the Ponte Vechicco shimmering as in a desert as the zoom moves out. The jaggies appear on any horizontal or vertical shape, especially buildings (as noted elsewhere in this forum).
My logic says that if the project plays very well in iDVD and wavers in a DVD burnt from iDVD, that the wavies are introduced in the burn process. I tried recording at Slideshow settings of HD 720p as suggested. No help there.
Another suggestion has been that the digital cameras are ahead of the iMac Dual Core capabilities. I don't know about that. My Pentax SLR does load them in.
For the moment I am eliminating the two dramatic zooms because they are distracting and waiting for a solution which will have to take form outside of my meager experience.
Thanks muchas for your reply.
potis
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.7) "

Loss of photo quality in imovie

I have been using imovie to create a slide show of sorts. The photos I am using are tiff files. When I try to save it so I can then send it to idvd to make a dvd it reduces all the files to jpegs and thus reduces the quality of the photos. Can I stop this happening? Also is there a way of creating a dvd in imovie rather than sending it to another program? I'm new to all this so it's a bit confusing. I just don't want to compromise the quality of the images.
mini mac Mac OS X (10.4)

Hi stu:
Welcome to discussions!
All of this and much more is answered in this discussion-be sure to read what Karl has written!
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1235214&#1235214
Sue

Poor image quality using iMovie 8 or iDVD after importing DV file via FW

Hello,
i am a complete newby and asking for help. I have bought a Panasonic NV-GS320EG-S miniDV Camcorder. First i connected it via S-Video to my Pioneer Plasma which worked fine.
I have connected the camcorder via Firewire to my iMac 20/2,4 GHz, camcorder will launch import window, streaming works but in iMovie the image quality is already rather poor. I can cut files and all but after using Import film and burning it with latest Toast, picture quality is even worse, that means colors are natural but no sharpness, lots of shivering lines as soon as the angle is moving.
I've tried to import directly into iDVD with the direct transfer function for Firewire which works technically as well but the result is mainly the same, when i burn the DVD the picture quality gets far worse than via S-Video connection.
Last thing i tried is importing to iMovie, importing for media browser and reopening file in iDVD which burns the DVD later, all that works technically fine, but the image result remains absolutely poor, my wife meant inacceptable...
Any ideas what that could be??? I've always imported and exported the film with the largest picture mode possible...

I am using the Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder which records in AVCHD.
I also have a JVC miniDV camcorder.
The following is available in iMovie 08 help:If the larger sizes are not available, the original project media isn’t large enough to render in that size. The largest media size used in the project determines the final movie sizes you can render.
Tiny: Always 176 by 144 pixels.
Mobile: Always 480 by 272 pixels.
Medium: Varies in size from 640 by 480 pixels (standard aspect ratio) to 640 by 360 pixels (widescreen), depending on the size of the media in your project.
Large: Always 960 by 540 pixels (widescreen). No large size is rendered if your original video isn’t high definition (HD).

Poor photo quality in iMovie

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