Still Photo Size

Just transitioning to FCPX from FCP Express.
I am getting ready to put together a "slide show" consisting of only still photos in FCPX. It will be projected on a 10' screen with a Sanyo PLC-XU110 projector, NTSC SD, interlaced. I am planning on preparing all of the photos in Photoshop.
I'm assuming I should use 640x480 as the size for the "slides", or does it matter as long as I use 4:3 aspect ratio? Does FCPX scale them?
Also, does ppi matter when it comes to FCPX? Does it have to be standard screen resolution of 72ppi? If so, what happens when you zoom-in or use Ken Burns? Does it pixellate? I'm kind of freaked about projecting this from a DVD player onto a 10' screen. Any help from a person experienced in this will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

I'm assuming you mean irrelevant?
If that's the case, no response necessary.
Thank you.

Similar Messages

Issues with still photos (size/cropping) in IMovie

Hi,
I been searching and despite trying to solve this issue myself and through taking the advice given in similar posts, I still have not been able to resolve this issue.
When making a video/movie, my still pictures get cut up. The tops are noticeably cut and I didn't crop anything. I played with the widescreen vs. normal options, and still, tops are definitely cut off. There are several portrait or people pictures that are taken vertically instead of the "normal" horizontally for size or angle reasons. Another thing to note is that I do have a WIDE ANGLE camera. Some pictures it is absolutely essential that I have the FULL photo in, so what do I do?????? I been here for HOURS trying "trial and error" and I am getting soooo frustrated. ANd who is this Ken Burns guy?
I am learning here but need some assistance. Thanks!

You can disable Ken Burns by going to the Rotate, Crop, Ken Burns Tab in the Inspector and choosing FIT or CROP. FIT will force your photo to fit the aspect ratio of the movie by adding black space.
CROP will chop off the top or bottom to make it fit. You will want to FIT.
Unless you would like to use the Ken Burns effect.....read on.
As you have observed, neither of these are ideal for portrait-oriented photos.
In iPhoto, the Ken Burns effect will automatically add black space so that portrait photos will work. However, in iMovie, there is no way to automatically add black space for Ken burns.
You can go into a photo editor like photoshop and add black bars to the side so that Ken Burns will work properly.
There is a way to do this automatically, and without using Photoshop, if you take the time to learn how to use Automator, which is a workflow tool that comes with your Mac.
(You can find Automator by clicking the spotlight magnifying lass at the top right of your screen. Then type in Automator.)
Set up an Automator Workflow to
1. Ask for Photos (You must select one or more photos and hit Select - you can make this easier by putting them in an album beforehand)
2. Copy Finder Items (give it a folder to copy to- so you can find them easily)
3. Pad Images. (put a check mark in "scale image before padding" and set for dimensions of your project.
Hit Run and a dialog box will come up asking you to select photos. When you are finished, press SELECT and the Automator script will keep running.
Then at the end you should have padded images in the folder you created in step 2.
Before you try Automator, take a look at [this website for some tutorials and videos.|http://automator.us/leopard>
There is a [Good Website here that includes Automator and Services for Snow Leopard|http://www.macosxautomation.com/index.html]
Here is the [Apple Discussions group for Automator|http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1261]
If you create an Automator Workflow that you like, and you have Snow Leopard, you can create a SERVICE so that when you select a Photo in iPhoto or the Finder and right-click, your Workflow will be available on the contextual menu.

Best Still Photo Size for FCP

This question has probably appeared before but here's my question: I have gathered several hundred digital photos which I want to import into FCP. These photos range from 104kb/72 pixels per inch to more than 13MB/400 pixels per inch.
On previous projects I seem to remember having problems when large clip sizes were used. I don't mind resizing the photos in Photoshop Elements if someone could tell me what size would give me the least problems and best results. I've heard that 720 X 480 or so with 72 pixels is OK. CAn someone confirm this or is teh 72 pixels going to fade out in FCP?

''When you make graphics for video in something such as Photoshop, you generally make them at 72 dpi''
No you dont
read what Jim and Studio have said;
You only find dpi settings in Photoshop because you can print to paper with it, you dont find dpi settings in FCP, Motion or Boris.
once you bring a stil photo or graphics into FCP, dpi is completly ignored by FCP because it doesnt know what to do with it. You can change the dpi setting to 5, 50 or 5000 in photoshop, FCP will ignore it.
dpi settings can only be used by three dimentional output devices like inkjet printers and film recorders.
read the reference:
http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html
G

Acceptable File Size and Resolution for Still Photos in Keyframe Motion

Hello Hello
I know that FCE HD (as other Video Editors), will automatically fit a still photo's size to it's default capability of 720 x 480 Correct?
Well, in regard to making the best possible ZOOMS, and Pans from Still Photos, is it neccessary to re-size all your photos (from an external editor like photoshop), to a specfic size?
According to an older book for FCE, it sez that actually photos re-sized to 720x534 with a resolution of 72 are best. *The proper proportion for NTSC.
And I noticed that when I inserted larger JPG still sizes (like about a meg), on the FCE timline, and when applying Panning, or Zooms, some of the rendered images with motion didn't pan or zoom smoothly.
Is that because those file sizes were TOO large?
Well I have soooo many stills that need to be imported into this particular project that it would be a lot easier for me to just generally reduce these stills (by percentage).
And is the magic resolution amount supposed to be 72?
Because if that's the case I can re-size all my photos to 72, and try to keep the file sizes down to say 300 KB's or so.
Sound like a plan?

Thank you guys
"basically, you should try to make your images large enough so they never have to be scaled beyond 100% in the motion tab in fcp."
Actually as I mentioned some of these file sizes are very large. About 800-900 KB's - and what as a result, what I've noticed is that I actually had to DECREASE the viewing area in both the Browser Window, and the Canvas Winbow just to be able to see the whole image.
Ok - so the 72 DPI is not as important as the dimensions of the photo. But as I said I have soooooo many of these that it would take me forever to manually re-size them all not to mention the fact that re-sizing some of them (odd shapes),would throw the images out of balance.
So again I ask - if there is NO motion applied to the photo, file sizes of about 200 to 350 KB's appear just beautifully ....
BUT
If I need to PAN or ZOOM, is it ok to laod a 1 MEG sized JPG onto the timeline and start working with Keyframe?????
In fact in some cases I'm actually using these larger file JPS's (1 meg or more), so that they TOTALLLY fit the canvas window (cropping them by enlargment)
*With some clipping of the original image of course ...
Why do I do this?
So that you don't see the usual border with horizontal images, or vertical images - know what I mean?
Thanx

Premier Elements. Rcommendation for still photo resolution/size

I have a Panasonic composite camera. It shoots HVCHD lite. It also takes 16:9 (3968*2232 9Meg) still photos. I wish to produce a composite DVD in Pal format suitable for a wide screen TV. What resolution and size is recommended for the still shots? I am using Windows XP with Powertoy image resizer. Or is it more convenient to use the Oraganizer in Elements to resize the photos? Tony

For my thoughts on still images, you might want to see this THREAD. In your case, you'd substitute my 720x480 PAR 0.9 for your HD Project's framesize. If you need to do any panning on images that will be fully zoomed out, I'd not go any larger than you will need to accomplish this. Some Projects require that I use several different Actions in Photoshop, if I will do much panning on the zoomed out images. Since I do not do any automatic pan/zoom Effects, but create each by hand, as each image is unique, I can tailor the resizing to exactly what I will need. If you let your program do these Effects automatically, then just give a bit more wiggle room and your good to go. Having overly large stills in your Project costs you, both in processing power and also quality - PS's resizing algorithms are better than Premiere's and doing this outside of the NLE is much more efficient.
Good luck,
Hunt

Photo Size for Still photography video

I am currently using Premeire Pro CC. What would be the best size of a still photo to use to put together a still photo video? I have be asked to do this and what size I would like the photos to save time on resizing?

What size will the frame-size be on your timeline? From past experience, either produced at size or at multiples of that seem to work best, though not required. It's a bit quicker to work with if they have similar sizes, but you can set a sequence for a certain frame-size and also to match images to the sequence, so it automatically re-sized them. Of course, larger images do allow for pan & scan or simple choices of which part you do want to include.
Neil

Still Photo - Maximum Size

What is the "Ideal" maximum size still photo that can be used?
Most of my photos were scanned from negatives and about 15MB in size.
Thanks,
Steve

The advice makes a lot of sense. I will be using the 720x480 pixel size
Is their a shortcut in Photoshop that will resize "multiple" still photos at one time?
Thanks,
Steve

I'm trying to make "Stop motion videos" in Final Cut EXPRESS by using 100's of still photos and setting them to music. They are coming out blurry if viewed larger than 4x6 in size

I'm trying to make "Stop motion videos" in Final Cut EXPRESS by using 100's of still photos and setting them to music. They are coming out blurry if viewed larger than 4x6 in size.
I don't understand why this is happening.

Quick follow up, since I was on my phone earlier and am back to a real keyboard.
To access Easy Setup, hit Control Q.
If you click on the blue discosure triangles, a dropdown menu with about a dozen different presets will be displayed. Select the one you want, (Here, I've selected 720P.)
Whatever you select for a preset will not be applied until you make a new sequence. (I don't like to have sequences with different properties in the same project so I prefer to make a new project if I change the Easy Setup.)
Because photo aspect ratios are different than video, I typically put a solid generator of some compatible color on the first track (v1) and put my photos on the track above (v2). Looks better, IMO, than black bars. There are other creative ways to display them. And of course, you could scale them up to fill the frame…but then you probably would have to re-position them.
Good luck.
Russ

Still photo not matching size of clip in canvas

I made a still photo from a clip. I exported it to photoshop. When I imported it into FCP it is not matching the size of the clip in the sequence. How do I get them to match?
The still and clip are 720x480.
Thanks

trouble is that you have been editing 16:9 (flagged) material into a 4:3 sequence ... FCP has adjusted for this by displaying the images in the sequence as letterboxed 4:3 ... if you now change your sequence to have the 16:9 flag also then FCP will squeeze down the 4:3 letterboxed material
the workaround should be to first duplicate the sequence ... work on a copy then you always have a path back to where you were!
add the anamorphic flag to the duplicate of the sequence
double click the sequence to load it into the timeline and make it active
press cmd-a to select all the clips in the sequence
press cmd-opt-v to "remove attributes" and in the subsequent window make sure all boxes are unchecked except the "distort" checkbox
press ok
and see if your sequence looks more as you would expect

Still Photo Aspect Ratio Confusion

Apologize for asking a question on this topic as I have been through the forum and realize the topic of aspect ratio comes up often. I have not however seen this question answered. Quick background:
-Working with HD Video footage imported as SD as I am burning non-HD dvd's and I have heard the conversion in IDVD and Toast from HD is not great;
-Using photos imported from Aperture in FCE;
-Sequence is NTSC anamorphic as I want 16:9 but without HD;
My question is about the aspect ratio of still photos when I bring them into the timeline. I have experimented with saving photos in different aspect ratios: 853x480 and 720x480. When I import into FCE the 853 shows a square pixel and the 720 shows a NTSC pixel. From what I have read this is due to the way FCE interprets the aspect ratio and assigns an pixel aspect. When I view each in the viewer they both look correct when I click the corresponding pixel aspect from the top of the viewer. It is when I move these to the timeline that I get confused. The 853 gets an adjustment of 18.52 and the 720 gets an adjustment of 33.33. What do these adjustments actually represent? Is it a percentage, a number of pixels, something else? When I read about it in the Manual it seems to state that FCE adjusts for the difference between the still and sequence, but then why does it adjust the 720 since it has the same pixel aspect as the sequence? I then tried changing the Pixel aspect of the 853 in the browser to NTSC and moving it to the timeline. I get the same 33.33 adjustment. The 33.33 does not look correct in either of them, but when I change it to 18.52 it looks correct (with the pixel aspect at square, with it not checked it looks "skinny" or squished).
Only thing I can think is that it has something to do with the anamorphic adjustment and the squeezing that goes on with it as 18.52 as 853 (widescreen) is 18.47 percent wider the 720.
At this point I am really not sure how these will display when I make a dvd and display on a widescreen tv. I would prefer not to do this by guessing or looking at the picture, but instead by understanding what FCE is doing and making sure I have the settings and adjustments correct.
Sorry for the long message, but would really appreciate any advice

Michael,
sorry to disagree, but for sure I was not clear, and the topic is quite complex. So I decided to provide an overview (as much as I can...) of the various combinations of clips inserted into various sequences with all settings - possibly on my web site (I'm afraid other posters are getting bored about all this math).
But since this is taking quite a bit of time, let me just tell you now where I disagree about your findings. When I'll have my overview completed I hope that will better explain what I mean.
_Your point 1_.
I'm pretty sure you (unwillingly) are importing your 16:9 square pixel NTSC clip into a +4:3 CCIR pixel NTSC sequence+ (not your original 16:9 anamorphic NTSC sequence). Please check your sequence settings by selecting the sequence in the browser in list view and reading the Frame Size, Pixel Aspect, and Anamorphic fields.
a. If your sequence is in fact +4:3 CCIR pixel NTSC sequence+, by applying the formulas you get:
- PARclip for +16:9 square pixel NTSC+ clip = 853/853 = 1 (as for any square pixel clip)
- but PARseq is not 1 (as you write) but 640/720 (square/actual pixels) = 0,8888
- Adjust = PARseq/PARclip = 0,8888/1 = 0,8888.
- Since Adjust is <1 Motion Aspect Ratio = - 100* (1/0,8888 -1) = -12,5 as you experienced on FCE. BTW this means that the imported clip has to be squeezed vertically by 12,5% (as opposite of horizontally).
b. If your sequence instead really is +16:9 anamorphic NTSC+ as you seem to imply, then 18,52 is correct as you confirm yourself with "Agree that in the four cases you list it agrees...": it is in fact the 2nd case in my 4 cases list.
_Your point 2_.
Here I suppose the sequence is +16:9 CCIR pixel NTSC+ which has PARseq = 853/720 = 1,1852.
But I'm not clear what you mean by "720/640 NTSC clip". My guess is that you mean a +4:3 CCIR pixel NTSC+ clip,
then PARclip = 640/720 (square/actual pixels) = 0,8888
then Adjust = PARseq/PARclip = 1,1852/0,8888 = 1,3333 and Motion Aspect Ratio = 100*(1,3333 - 1) = 33,33 as you experienced
_Adjust formula_.
I think this formula in your earlier message is incorrect: Aspect Ratio (in Motion/Distort) = - 100 * (1/Adjust-1) if Adjust ≤ 1; seems like the formula: Aspect Ratio (in Motion/Distort) = 100 * (Adjust-1) if Adjust ≥ 1 works at all times including <1 as follows 100*(.875-1)=-12.5.</div>
This not true (well it is true only for Adjust = 1...). As an example if Adjust = 0,8888 then 100*(0,5-1) = -11,12 (wrong value for this pixel adjustment), while -100*(1/0,8888-1) = -12,51 which is the correct vertical squeeze !!
Why 2 different formulas are needed ? because when Adjust is >1 a +horizontal squeeze+ by Adjust is necessary to fix the pixel aspect ratio misalignement, when Adjust is <1 a +vertical squeeze+ is necessary by 1/Adjust... (figures will help as soon as they are ready for... publishing).
I'm sorry these posts are so long, I try to make them as clear as possible, but the topic is a bit messy and, even if only fractions are involved in this math, their actual meaning is not always intuitive...I'd really appreciate any comment also by more experienced users of FCE/FCP...
Thanks
Piero

Still photo in FCP exported to Photoshop, not matching aspect ratio

Hi,
I made a still photo in FCP. Sent to Photoshop. Imported back in FCP. Image is squished. I am using DV NTSC 720x480.
In Photoshop I also set Image Size to 720x480. For some reason I cant get it to match in FCP. Any idea how I an fix this?
Thanks.

I should add that the image has transparency.

Still photos go bad for no reason

I am working in FCP 6.0.5 on a MacPro computer. I imported five photos into a new project for a 30 sec. commercial. The size of the photos prior to importing are: 88 kb; 196 kb, 2.6 mb , 3.2 mb and 5.1 mg
In my project, I placed one photo (2.6 mb) and dragged it out to 13 seconds duration or so. It starts out beautiful: crisp and clear. Then, after scrubbing through it, seems to become out of focus! It has now happened with each of the photos.
I tried the de-interlace photo (both upper and even) and it only made it worse. In fact, the more I try to fix this issue, the worse the photos seem to get. They seem to degrade more and more (it seems).
Also, I exported via QTime and the resulting file plays poorly. The QT file is as follows:
109 mg
720 x 480
integer: Little Endian
channel count:2
bit rate: 30,311
Thanks for any advice.

I can certainly go into Photoshop and resize the photos,and then re-import, some are vertical and it will be difficult to crop. (Client supplied photos.)
Nevertheless, as I mentioned, I outputted the original file using QT and then played the :30 mov on a TV monitor and the result was equally unclear and out of focus -- same as in the Timeline. Note that in the BROWZER, the STILL pictures are crisp while the STILL pictures in the canvas become unclear.
Also, I did animate the photos (vertical from top to bottom) alternating in the opposite direction for the next photo. However, as I mentioned, the still photos in the canvas appear unclear prior to animating them. When I play the dvd, the straight lines on all the objects that I have animated, look like ants crawling.
~Thanks,
Jeryl

Still photos flicker and transitions glitchy in 6.5

I am using Premiere 6.5 on a pc with vista. I am making a still photo video and maybe my initial settings are wrong. The preset I am using is dv-ntsc real time preview standard 48kHz. When I playback my timeline, my transitions are not smooth and are "bar-like" (for lack of a better word). The photos that have motion on them flicker. I have reduced the interlace on the photos with motion, I have rendered my timeline. I have tried the gaussian blur, but that makes the photo worse. I made sure the Rendering setting is at lower field first. Should I click on optimize stills? Can I reset my project settings after I have put everything on the timeline? All of my photos are .jpgs The only thing I can think of that I am doing wrong is my settings! I want to export this to a DVD. I have made an MPEG file and an AVI file and that obviously doesn't matter. This project is due in 4 days and I don't want to start over in another software program. Please offer any advice you can. Thank you!

The first thing you need to do is provide the DETAILS about your pictures... especially including how they were created and their pixel size
Some other general reading...
How to ask a question http://forums.adobe.com/thread/416679
This is aimed at Premiere Pro, but may help
A link with many ideas about computer setup http://forums.adobe.com/thread/436215?tstart=0
Work through all of the steps (ideas) listed at http://ppro.wikia.com/wiki/Troubleshooting
If your problem isn't fixed after you follow all of the steps, report back with the DETAILS asked for in the questions at the end of the troubleshooting link

Acceptable and Quality Still Photo Resolution for HDV Documentary

I've scanned through several pages of posts on photo resolution here, but I haven't actually found a simple answer to a beginner's question. Two, actually:
1. If someone is supplying you with still photo prints for scanning and use in a documentary (shot in HDV, edited on FCP5), is there a particular size print that you should ask for? Does the broadcast venue (theatrical, TV, etc.) have any relevance?
2. If someone is scanning photos and sending you a CD with them, what are the specs (size, resolution, etc.) you should ask for? And are there "minimum acceptable" specs and "preferred, high quality" specs?
Thanks.
Paul S.
Power Mac G5 [email protected]; 4GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.4) FCP 5 (FC Studio), Logic Express, Presonus Firebox

Having worked on several long-form historical docos with hundreds of source photo scans, I'd highly recommend getting the originals in as high a resolution as you can (at least 300 DPI), and getting the entire photo scanned. You just never know when you need to apply pans or zooms or crop into a particular area to improve the edit, and there are many simple ways to prep the selected photos for import.
The simplest is just to do the scaling & cropping in FCP. It will do a fine job of this, but if it turns out most of the photos will be static, you can waste computer resources by importing unnecessarily-large images. As mooblie pointed out, you strictly only need enough resolution to prevent scaling up past 100%, as this will create pixelated lower quality output.
The most common way to prep scans is in Photoshop, where you can scale the image to a desired pixel size very easily. I'd still leave the image at its natural frame size (as scanned), so you have the most creative choice when you are framing it in the timeline using FCPs cropping & motion tabs tools.
If you've got lots of photos and lots of pans & zooms, consider using one of the third-party tools that will help with this, such as Photo to Movie from LQ Graphics, Moving Picture from StageTools, or even the plugin for FCP I wrote to help with the docos I mentioned above. It's called Pan Zoom Pro and you can see about it and download a demo here: http://www.lyric.com/fcp-plugins/index.htm#pzp .
Cheers,
John
Lyric Media

Resolution for Still Photos for film

Greetings,
I have a full length Digital Video film and want to add still photos to it. I have been using Photo to Movie software to add a Ken Burns effect to the photo, then exporting it under the movie format- DV(NTSC) 720x480, then importing that to the final cut time line. My question is what is the best resolution in the first place for the still photo before I do this process or is it okay to use the final render size from the Photo to Movie export? Or do you have a better idea.

I would suggest you to check your export preferences but it is my understanding that if you render the movie file, and then export, it you should be able to set the QT option for NTSC DV.

Still Photo Size

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for