Scanning stills in PShop (square vs non-square pixels)

Hello,
We need to scan hundreds of still photos for a documentary. We've done this before and are familiar with the whole square pixels (PhotoShop) and non-square pixels (FCP). By the way, we're using PhotoShop 7 and FCP 5.
In the past we've adjusted our images in PShop (reducing the height) before importing into FCP, and things have turned out nicely.
But before we tackled this new project, we ran a test and were surprised by the results.
I don't get the following:
1. If I make a test image (a red circle) in PShop 7 with an image size of 720x540 pixels, the image looks correctly proportioned in PShop.
2. If I then make a second test image (the same red circle) -- or duplicate the file from step one -- and then adjust the image size to 720x480, the image looks squished in PShop -- it's an ellipse. But this second version SHOULD be just right for FCP 5.
3. But when I import both files into FCP 5, they BOTH look just fine. They look exactly the same on the monitor (well, the second one seems to have slightly cleaner edges).
4. When I analyze each clip's Motion tab, FCP has automatically Distorted the 720x480 PShop file by -12.5 -- and it looks fine: a nice round ball. Meanwhile the 720x480 PShop file (the one adjusted in PShop for FCP) has NO Distortion, looks exactly the same. Both versions are perfectly round in FCP. You can toggle from last frame to first frame across the edit and nothing changes.
Hmmm, is FCP recognizing a sq pixel image and automatically adjusting? And if so, how does it know to distort one file but not the other?
Then it gets more interesting when I scan a test photo and:
5. I scan an image at 300 dpi (overscanned so we can move on the image in FCP) and the image is 2084x1488. When I bring this image into FCP 5 (or in FCP 4 for that matter) ... anyway, when I bring this image into FCP 5 if looks great even though it has square pixels and has NOT been prepped in PShop for FCP. It has NOT been squished by FCP. When I check the motion tab, it has been scaled down to 34.55% (that's fine) and distorted by -12.5. It's behaving like the round ball test in No. 1 above.
6. Meanwhile if I take this same image and adjust it for FCP (2084x1324) and bring it into FCP, it looks just right, too. The motion tab shows that FCP has scaled it 38.83% (that's fine) but now it has ALSO distorted it by -12.5. So it is NOT behaving like the ellipse in No. 2 above (which had ZERO distortion)?
Regardless, I wonder if any one can tackle this so we understand what's gong on. And the big question is: Why are we taking that step to prep the PShop files for FCP, if FCP seems to handle either version properly? We'd save a lot of time if we didn' take this step in PShop for hundreds of photos ...
Thanks in advance for taking time to comment. This is a wonderful forum and we're always amazed at how kind and sharing contributors are.
Brad

"FCP has automatically Distorted the 720x480 PShop file by -12.5"
That should probably read 720x540.
Yes, FCP does the distortion automatically. It's done this since v3. The problem is, as you've noticed, it doesn't do it nearly so well as Photoshop. Yes, you could let FCP do it for you, but it will soften the image more than you might like. There is also one caveat. This only works for flattened images, images imported as graphics files. Other PSD files with layers or transparency that import as sequences will not be automatically resized when they are placed inside another sequence.

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Square or non square pixels

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Whats the math behind converting from square pixels to non-square...?

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http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7f3aa.htm l
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Also see the free Meyers video on Lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=40550
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Message was edited by: Stan Jones

Non-square to square....(looked everywhere!)

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Anyone who can explain this to me in words of less than four syllables will get a free ticket to Disneyland.
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t_Mc wrote:
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t_Mc wrote:
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That is not important.
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t_Mc wrote:
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Scanning stills in PShop (square vs non-square pixels)

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