Still images used in iMovie ('09) look bad, poor quality

I'm curious why my photos look poor in iMovie? Is this just a lo-res rendering that I'm seeing on screen, or is this really how they're going to look? I'm using the photo browser in iMovie and selecting photos from both iPhoto and Aperture, just as suggested in iMovie...i'm not using some weird import method. The photos I'm using were shot with a 5D Mark II, so no slouch in photographic capabilities. All are of proper exposure and, on screen in Aperture for instance, they look amazing. But in iMovie, there is banding and pixelation, particularly when dealing with dark, rich colors, and especially black. When those colors show on screen, they look like there were taken with a terrible camera at a low resolution. Is this just a lo-res on-screen render? Or is this how it's going to look when I export this to iDVD and play it on my television?

I too made a very similar post last week and had no responses. It is a software problem I believe, there is no doubt about that. I showed this problem to some apple guys at a tradeshow. They used my pics on their computers with the same result. They could not provide an answer. they said they would raise it with apple techs.
The issue was eveident when i purchased my mac book pro with leopard and now with snow leopard. I have made some DVD's and the issues present on the TV screen as well.
imovie imports, compresses these pics too much and the result is poor on a lot of images. I'm not sure imovie can handle the amount of colour, or isn't equipped to do so. Pixelation and gradations, particulary similar colours. Skies, sunsets etc are the biggest offenders Whatever the case it is a big dissapointment. iphoto to a quicktime movie is fine quality wise but has its limitations with adding transitions, titles, music etc.
Please apple, lets have a fix. imovie06HD was fantastic - what went wrong here?

Similar Messages

Still images added to iMovie HD disappear when exporting

I have added a few still images to my iMovie HD movie project, using the Media/Photos tabs in iMovie. The images are JPEGs in my iPhoto library. I place the images in the timeline, but when I export the iMovie project to my video camera or to an MPEG file, the images disappear. Any suggestions welcome.

I have added a few still images to my iMovie HD movie project, using the Media/Photos tabs in iMovie.
This is the iMovie '08 forum.
I place the images in the timeline, but when I export the iMovie project to my video camera or to an MPEG file, the images disappear.
While you may get a better response regarding your camera export in the iMovie HD forum, I am intrigued by your loss converting to MPEG. Could you be more specific regarding your work flow for this process?

Shaky still images in burned iMovie/iDVD project

Hello all, I've stopped by the discussion forums in the past for quick fixes to problems when they come up, this is my first post though that doesn't seem to address anything I've found on here...
I am working on a project that takes scanned pictures from regular print photos into iMovie 6 and then burned into iDVD 6. I have done this similar style of work several times and never run into this problem. The project looks fine in both iMovie and iDVD preview, and burns fine to disc. As soon as it is popped into a DVD player, some of the still images flash and shake around, it appears to happen on the same images every time.
The original project used about 100 photos, around 12 minutes of movie time. It uses only still pictures and there are cross dissolve transitions between each one. I have tried dragging and dropping the iMovie project into iDVD instead of using 'share'. I also saved as a disk image and burned slowly (4x) not only on my SuperDrive but on an external LaCie drive. I've even started a brand new project file, imported the pictures again from iPhoto and everything... still no luck. I've done about 5 trials now with these different settings, no luck. I use Verbatim DVD-r disks as well...
I've even tried scanning a few images and replacing them, thinking the file might be corrupted, but this isn't fixing the problem. Is there some setting that I'm missing or any other suggestions you have?
I'm trying to save a trip down to see a genius, but if I can't get any help I'll have no choice but to make the 3 hour drive to the nearest apple store. Hopefully someone has some suggestions! Thanks!

Hi
A. I don't use the *Share/Export to iDVD* function in iMovie. iMovie rendering can harm
the photos in a movie.
I do: close iMovie, Open iDVD and import the movie project here (icon with a Star on it)
or just drop the icon into iDVD.
B. Some photos with thin lines most often starts to flicker when viewed on a TV.
I do: In a photo editing program eg PhotoShop or Elements: Apply *Gausian blurr*.
Just slightly. Resulting in non-flickering photos.
C. One can rather easily find out if this will occure by:
• Connect Your miniDV (tape) Camera via FireWire.
• Analog out of Camera to a TV-set
• Set in iMovie. Playback via Camera
Now You see on the TV what the final Quality will be like.
• Flicker (add Gausian Blurr to those photos)
• Color, brightness & contrast
• Over all playback rythm and sound
Yours Bengt W

Projecting still images using final cut express

Maybe someone can answer this tricky question. We need to project a FCE movie that has photoshop still images imported into it, but these photoshop images (which appear normal on the computer screen), are distorted in the projection. They look squashed horizontally. In fact the still image that we made with photoshop and imported into final cut needs to be projected on a wall to match a four foot tall section of the wall, so we need get the size exact. That is the reason why we cannot have any distortion.
We have read that still images imported into final cut should be 720 by 480 pixels to avoid distortion, but that produces an even more squashed image, and this in pixels, that determined the size of the image, so how would we determined the size without affecting the pixels? The distance between the projector and the wall is already fixed and we cannot move it. Does anyone know how to maintain the original proportions of a still image imported into FCE for projection? Thank so much.

Hi, thanks you for your quick answer. We used photoshop elements 4.0 (for Mac) and Final Cut Express HD 3.5.1 (Mac). The still image that we bring into FE is a mask, it has a transparency so I guessed is layered. When we bring it into FE appears as sequence so we open it into a timeline and bring it back to the browser so it can be used as a still image. The movie is projected as DVD on the wall.

Capturing still images using IDVD

Hi
Is it possible for me to play a personal DVD and capture still images from the movie that is being played, and then save the images, for either putting on a DVD/CD or printing them? if so how is this possible?
ps i do not have IDVD at the moment but looking at getting it.
Thanks in advance
Abed

abz latif wrote:
.. Is it possible for me to play a personal DVD and capture still images from the movie
sure, with the usual screencapture shortcuts -3, -4, -4-space etc.
but you have to use VLC as player, due to DVDplayer.app prohibits any captures.
ps i do not have IDVD at the moment ..
your Mac came pre-installed with iDVD...

Can not make still image using share in Final Cut Pro x

This is what I get when trying to make a still image under share.
(com.apple.Compressor.CompressorKit.ErrorDomain error -1.)
This is a new error message. Was able to make still image before.
Thanks for anny help in solving this problem.
Russ Andris

Hi again Russ,
just posted this over at Compressor because of the Compressor related error message I was getting wheN i tried to 'Share' a sill image from video.
Thanks for the tip Russ, I did not know that one. I had tried using cmd+shift+3 with Snapz Pro to screen capture which intially worked but then did not. I tried ditching the prefs and the apps with Digital Rebellion but had no luck in saving a still. But, I installed the new FCPX update and on first try I was able to export a stll frame, on one laptop anyway. BTW, must say, I am not keen on the 'Share' notion in an app like FCPX. What I considering I am doing when trying to obtain a stil image is exporting or saving not sharing. I hope Apple might considered amending such terminology, share seems appropriate for iTunes or iWeb but not FCPX.
One more thing, a truly odd one. Files marled as .mov from my Fujifilm X100 will not import into FCPX!!
That is truly amazing - Quicktime files not recognised by an Apple aplication!! Our trials are not over.
D

How to reverse the order of a bunch of still images in an iMovie Project

Hello,
I'm making a stop motion animation using iMovie'09. I need to reverse the order of a few hundred of the images that I imported.
Does anybody know a good and time efficient way of doing this?
Cheers,
Onur.

Ok, here's how have I done:
1. Removed those images from the movie project
2. Created a new project and added all the images which I want to reverse the order of
3. Set the durations of the images as same as those in my first project
4. Exported the project as a movie file
5. Added this short movie file to the first project
6. From clip adjustments menu, checked 'reverse'.
There, the subset of the whole collection is displayed in the reverse order.
Message was edited by: Onur

Iphoto to imovie to idvd--bad picture quality(Cannon powershoot sd200)

My family video I made for the year looks like really. I made one last year in movie maker on my PC and it looks great. The one I made on my mac this year is blurry and not clear. The video is fine but the photos are really bad. Specifically photos that are at a distance. I have tried different video formats and can't solve it. I want to do movies that have photos, video clips to music that can be clipped. I even stumped the teachers at my local apple store which baffled me as I would think I am not the only one with this problem. If I could make a a great quality movie on movie maker on my PC, why can't I do it on my IMAC???? I

Hi again,
Glad to hear you are happier with the results. Scaling photos to fill the screen may cause you to lose a few heads if you are using the KB effect. As for images not filling the screen. It's a bit difficult to guess without knowing what kind of images they are.
You are correct in saying it is easier to add titles and transitions into an iPhoto slideshow. You can split the clip via the 'edit' menu in iMovie and add titles over your images. It is very simple and gives a great effect. If you plan ahead you can create your slideshows to accommodate these extras after you import it to iMovie.
Happy editing.
SR

Adding a title to a still image in iMovie for iPhone 4

I would like to add a title for a still image using iMovie for iPhone 4. Is this possible? I can't see an option for this and it seems simple enough. I can add titles on video clips, but not on still images. Any suggestions?

Thanks Joe, hopefully Apple adds this feature to iMovie soon.

Still image becomes blurry when played in iMovie 10.0.7

I am attempting to use still images in an iMovie 10.0.7 presentation. I have defeated the Ken Burns effect. The clear image drops out of focus when I press play and pops back into focus when the clip ends. Is there a fix for this?
Thanks.

That's a feature, lowering qualiyt while editing; on final export you'll notice a much better quality ....

DV clips look bad, good when converted to H.264 in QuickTime and reimported

Still a problem after 7.0.1:
DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> looks bad when playing and exporting/sharing
DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> "reveal in finder" -> clip opened in QuickTime -> looks good -> export as H.264 -> re-import to iMovie 08 -> looks good when playing and exporting/sharing.
In plain words: Importing DV clips from my DV camera into iMovie gives bad results when playing and exporting/sharing. Have tried everything, but the clips look blurry and not sharp at all. The actual DV clip in the events folder looks sharp and clear.
If I take the very same DV clip from the events folder ("reveal in finder"), open it in QuickTime, export it as H.264 and then re-import to iMovie 08, it looks brilliant, retaining the quality the DV clip in the events folder has.
Why can't the DV clips look good in the first place? What is it that iMovie 08 does to these poor clips? Some have suggested re-encoding, re-rendering and so on, but if I do just that in QuickTime and re-import it to iMovie 08, it still looks razor sharp and crystal clear. No reason that iMovie 08 shouldn't handle the DV file in the same manner.
Some have suggested that this is because iMovie 08 internally re-encodes to AIM or H.264, enabling edits with different kinds of formats, but if I do this myself in QuickTime before importing to iMovie 08, the problem isn't there!
If this is difficult to achieve, why not add the option of importing from a DV camera as H.264 and not DV? That would make my day!
(I have posted this to Apple using the feedback menu item in iMovie 08.)
(Background here in these threads:)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1088568
Sample clips in Apple TV format here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5173005

iMovie '08 stores rendered projects in H.264 form. This happens when you render to the Media Browser. The rendered file(s) (you can have several different sizes) are in the iMovie '08 project package. The original flies in your Events folders stay in whatever format they were in.
Yes, the movies exported to the Media Browser use the H.264 format, the same as iMovie HD 5/6 did when we exported using the presets Email, Web, Web Streaming and CD-ROM. They were all H.264 too. Apple is obviously putting the (powerful) H.264 to good use to prepare movies for Web pages and other purposes.
As you know, the Full Quality export in 5/6 was to the project's native format, which varied according to the type of project. For DV projects, that was DV video. Everything was converted to DV when imported into the project, and to preserve the original quality we could export to a Full Quality DV movie.
There is nothing like that in iMovie 7, at least that I've seen. As you said, nothing is converted to a "native format" when imported to the project. (Still images are added to the project's single Apple Photo - JPEG "Still Images" movie, which is a nice twist.)
So I think of iMovie 7 as having no "native" format, but a nicely-designed path for using H.264 as the delivery format. The Media Browser — a virtual library of movies with no shared place — is a nice invention.
When I export slideshow movies in DV format out of FotoMagico I always select 'Best' and it DOES make a difference in iDVD.
I think of iMovie 7's problem with DV as more profoundly flawed. Exporting ANY DV video that's in the project to DV or ANY OTHER format is messed up. It's the handling of the DV inside iMovie that's messed up, not just the export to DV.
My guess is — and it's only a guess — that FotoMagico's Best setting adjusts the content of the image delivered for iDVD. Put another way, it prepares an image that works best with iDVD's own encoding algorithms.
One long-standing diappointment I've had with iLife is that Apple has never coordinated the image it prepares for iDVD with what(ever) iDVD does best. It's as if the programmers never talk to each other. iMovie engineers have never asked the iDVD engineers how best to deliver the image to deliver the best quality on the DVD.
Given Apple's emphasis on H.264, one would think that iDVD would be written to embrace any H.264 video and deliver great quality on the DVD. It doesn't. And with iLife '08 it doesn't even embrace iMovie's own DV exports!
I suppose Blu-Ray will change all that, but for now we're stuck with a version of iLife that can't deliver a quality DVD of our home movies.
Karl

Duration of still images between 0,1s and 1s... How to?

Hello,
After looking and reading at many threads... I figured out that I needed to ask for some help...
Here's my problem, I'm making a stop motion video on iMovie 10, and I can't find the way to change the duration of still images between 0,1s and 1s... no matter what duration I enter, iMovie always change it back to whether 0,1s or 1s...
I know that there's a solution as I did it before on the same version of iMovie (wish I wrote down how I did that!)
I can do it with the precision editor, but only picture by picture... I have 200 of them, so it's way too long!
I know there's a solution!! Just can't remember it / find it...
Hope someone will be able to help me!!
Cheers!
Nico
PS: I can't use the "." in iMovie to change the duration, I have to use the "," (french standards I guess...)

I just did some testing on this, and it seems like the Still/Freeze Duration, Preview Pre and Post-Roll changes depending on what audio/video settings you have chosen. Try selecting DV NTSC in Easy Setup. Then check your User Preferences -> Editing.
DV NTSC:
Still/Freeze Duration: 00:00:10:00
Preview Pre-Roll: 00:00:05:00
Preview Post-Roll: 00:00:02:00
Try switching to DV PAL in Easy Setup, and check your User Preferences -> Editing again.
DV PAL:
Still/Freeze Duration: 00:00:12:00
Preview Pre-Roll: 00:00:06:00
Preview Post-Roll: 00:00:02:10
When importing still images using the DV PAL Easy Setup, the stills get a duration of 10 seconds, even though the User Preferences -> Editing are set to 00:00:12:00.
Can somebody please explain why it is like this? I hope there is a logical explanation

Need aspect ratio to match still images

I create slideshows from still images using CS6 that are then put on DVD and uploaded to vimeo. The problem I'm having is that I wind up with letterboxing on the sides (not top/bottom) since the aspect ratio isn't correct
I've looked on google and I can't figure out how to create a custom project that has an aspect ratio that matches the still images instead of trying to force them into video aspect ratios.
Is this possible?
Thanks.

The settings of the project don't matter as much as you might think. The settings of the sequence do. It is easy enough to create a sequence from a photograph and the settings will be perfect. Read this: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3804341#3804341
However...
If you are shooting pictures like I do, they are 3:2. That ratio does not exactly work on a DVD. You can make it work by editing in a 3:2 sequence and then when you are finished you can do any number of things. You can nest your sequence into a 4:3 or 16:9 sequence and you will have choices to make. Do you scale the images down until you see everything but you have black bars, or do you scale them down to fit the sides but that means cutting off the top and bottom.
The problem is that there is no way to publish a video on a DVD with a custom shape that I know of. Someone like Jeff Bellune might show up and provide an answer. He is an expert DVD guy.
I don't know how you could get a DVD to play a 3:2 ratio video, but for YouTube it is a simple matter of using the pictures to create the sequence.
Then all you need to do is export using a 3:2 ratio, like 1620X1080, meaning you might have to unlink height and width. I have to tell you that you can upload a 3:2 video to YouTube but YouTube will play it back in a 16:9 frame amd leave black borders on the sides. I just checked.
You see, video is 16:9 or 4:3. Photos are 3:2 or so. Now, my new camera can shoot 16:9 photos, and some people shoot that way to avoid the problem you have right now.

Duration of still images when importing

Hello,
just a quick one that has puzzled (and bothered) me for some time now. I guess it's my doing something wrong in the first place, but then again it's Monday, so I can do with some bad news to ease into the week.....
As far as I know, it's possible to tell FCP how long you want stills to be when you import them. Go to the user preferences, set still duration under the edit tab to, say, 5 secs and FCP should import stills at a length of 5 ecs. Right?
Well, whenever I try that, my stills are only 4.05 secs, and setting the still duration to 10.00 secs in the preferences gives me stills in FCP that are 8.08 secs long. Is there something I'm missing?
I've tried several formats, JPGE, PDFs, TIFs, PSDs, PICTs, TARGAs, PNGs....all show the same behaviour.
Of course I could fix the duration in the browser or in the Timeline, but it would be much easier if I could import stills at the proper duration in the first place.
Any ideas?
Thanks a bunch, and hope you all have a good week ahead of you,
Colin

I just did some testing on this, and it seems like the Still/Freeze Duration, Preview Pre and Post-Roll changes depending on what audio/video settings you have chosen. Try selecting DV NTSC in Easy Setup. Then check your User Preferences -> Editing.
DV NTSC:
Still/Freeze Duration: 00:00:10:00
Preview Pre-Roll: 00:00:05:00
Preview Post-Roll: 00:00:02:00
Try switching to DV PAL in Easy Setup, and check your User Preferences -> Editing again.
DV PAL:
Still/Freeze Duration: 00:00:12:00
Preview Pre-Roll: 00:00:06:00
Preview Post-Roll: 00:00:02:10
When importing still images using the DV PAL Easy Setup, the stills get a duration of 10 seconds, even though the User Preferences -> Editing are set to 00:00:12:00.
Can somebody please explain why it is like this? I hope there is a logical explanation

Still images interspersed in video all with the original audio

I have what I think should be a very simple task. I have a 1 hour video of a school show. I want the soundtrack to remain intact. I simply want to take still images and replace the video images for certain chunks of the school show. The result should be a smooth original audio with the original video interrupted for 4-5 second periods with other images. For a bonus, it would be nice if the stills cross faded to the original video (without affecting the audio).
I have been trying to get the precision editor to let me do this and cannot get it to happen cleanly and reliably. I keep getting the audio duplicated or dropped audio. And if I try to add cross fades it is even worse. The help video on the precision editor does not make it clear to me how to do this.
In some PC programs, I know you can split the video independently of the audio and then delete the video clip and replace it with a still image. It does not look like iMovie is that intuitive.
If there is another way to do this, I would love to know about it.
Please help.
Thanks

In iMovie Preferences, make sure you have turned on Advanced Tools.
Drag the photo to the video frame where you want it and drop it. When a pop-up menu comes up, choose Cutaway.
[See this Tuturial for more|http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/imovie_09stone.html#cutaway%20pip]

Still images used in iMovie ('09) look bad, poor quality

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