Still rendered in FCP 6 looks worse than preview???

I'm importing a still from Photoshop (CS1) into FCP 6. It's a PICT file w/ alpha channel (logo). When I slap the logo on top of my video it looks clean and sharp. But, when I render the clip, it comes out looking rasterized and I loose my smooth edges. My PICT file is 720x480 and I'm importing to a DV/NTSC 4:3 sequence. I've tried both a square pixel aspect and a D1/DV NTSC .9 ratio in Phsp but the end results are the same- crappy.
How do I maintain my clean, crisp logo in FCP?
~reicko

It isn't FCP that is messing up your logo, its the DV codec. Hence the reason people spend all the money on 4:2:2 Uncompressed 10-bit equipment.
That being said, there are some things you can do. First, make sure you are looking at a video monitor that is atched to your deck. What you see on your computer screen is not how the actual video will appear. So it might not be as bad as what you see on your computer screen. If it still bothers you then you might add a slight gaussian blur to "blend" it better into the video.
Message was edited by: Shawn Birmingham

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Colors in FCP looks different than when playing in QT7

The colors of the video's in FCP looks different than when playing back in QuickTime. I wonder if it can be a color management setting in FCP? I have the same problem when playing a clip in AE. I have two FCP machines, but only one of them is having this problem. Any ideas of what I can do to get the right colors back?

Have you enabled Final Cut Studio Color Compatibility in the QT Player preferences?

How come that the design mode looks different than preview mode with slideshows?

hello,
I am placing a slideshow on the site. when I look in the preview mode the slideshow is not exactly in the same place.
How come? Am I doing somthing wrong?
thanks for response

Welcome to the medium that is the web. Every browser has it's own text layout engine and "web-safe" fonts are a misnomer. You cannot rely on text line breaking the same in different browsers. Thus creating text frames that snuggly fit the text within is likely to result in what's occurring on your site in some browsers or browser versions.
As a general rule, you should attempt to use Web Fonts whenever you can. Use "Web Safe" fonts as a second choice. And only use System fonts as a last resort and only for small amounts of text (since they become an image when output).
If you want a specific portion of text to absolutely never go to two lines, you'll want to put it in a text frame that significantly wider than the text so when the line length varies the text doesn't wrap to a new line.
"Web Safe" fonts are not a single font but actually a list/stack of fonts where the browser goes through the list until it finds a font that's available on the current viewer's device. The fonts in the list/stack are similar in visual appearance and font metrics, but any difference in font metrics is sufficient to result in changes in line breaks, so when using web safe fonts you need to account for much larger variations in line length and line breaking than will occur when using a Web Font.

Why do AME exports look worse than Premiere exports?

Has anyone else come across the situation where AME exports don't look as good compared to exporting straight out of Premiere?
I'm encoding the videos to H.264 MP4 files. The stills (JPEGs) in the video is where I'm having the problem. I've created a sort of slide show with 4 pictures in a short ~10 second part of the video using Scale keyframes and Cross Dissolve transitions.
When I queue the sequence for export straight out of Premiere, these parts of the video created from the stills look fine. However, when I queue them up in AME, these parts of the video look harsh and have jagged edges (the image quality is greatly reduced on the stills).
The export settings are identical, as I am using a Preset for H.264 / MP4 / 720p / 23.976 fps / Square pixels / NTSC / Profile: Main / Level: 3.2 / Render at Maximum Depth (checked) / VBR, 1 pass / Target 6 Mbps / Max 10 Mbps / Use Maximum Render Quality (checked)
Audio (if this would affect anything???) is AAC / 48000 Hz / Stereo / High Quality / 192 kbps / Precedence: Bitrate
Here are my system specs:
- The latest versions of CS6 through the Cloud membership (Premiere CS6 6.0.2 / AME 6.0.2.81)
- Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 / 2 x 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon / 32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 / NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2048 MB
- Video footage is AVCHD in MP4 (but that's not where the issue appears to be)
- Still images are large JPEG files (roughly 6000x6000 px); 300ppi / Bit Depth 8 / RGB Color Mode / Adobe RGB (1998)
My Premiere sequence is based off of the AVCHD footage:
AVCHD 1080p square pixel
23.976 frames/second
48000 Hz
Previews are I-Frame Only MPEG, but when I export I do not use Previews (unchecked).
So…any idea why the exports look crappy coming out of AME as opposed to straight out of Premiere? It would be nice to use AME in the background while working on other projects or when large batches of exports need to be done, but not if the quality is going to suffer (at least when still images are involved). One work around seems to be replacing the still with an After Effects composition. Any idea why this would make a difference?
Thanks in advance for your help!

I also had the Use Maximum Render Quality box checked in my export settings
This should carry over to the AME when you send it to the queue, but you should double-check in the AME.
So I guess the difference is in the GPU rendering vs software rendering?
In theory, software MPE with MRQ and Max Bit Depth enabled should produce (nearly) identical results to hardware MPE.
I had originally understood that this is for rendering previews, but looks like it's also used during final exports?
For exporting, video frames have to be rendered before they can be transcoded to the final format/codec. So hardware MPE helps rendering previews, but it also helps the rendering step of the export process.
That's unfortunate that AME does not utilize the GPU as well. What is the reason for excluding this feature?
That's a question only an Adobe engineer can answer! NB: I know for sure that the scaling-using-software-MPE limitation in the AME applied to CS5 and CS5.5. It may be fixed in CS6, or it may not. I don't have time to properly research that right now.
I don't really understand how something as simple as rendering a scaled JPEG image turns out looking bad, while AME can render full-on After Effects comps...???
If differences in scaling methods don't apply here, there may be system issues or a software bug at work.
Jeff

Bridge CC - Content Panel looks different than Preview

Problem - Images in the Content panel look dull and desaturated. The view of the same image in the Preview Panel, as well as Photoshop CC, looks fine (ie, like I expect from working with these images in CS6). This applies to NEF, JPEG and PSD files. In the attached screenshot, note the distinct lack of red in the skin tones in the Content Panel compared to Preview. Blues look a little dull as well. This is a PSD file. This image is tagged sRGB, verified in the Metadata panel as well as in Photoshop CC.
I have read similar threads here (where all of Bridge was dull and desaturated), but I don't see anything that mentions the two panels in Bridge displaying images differently.
Background - 10 years as a pro photographer, and I know what I'm doing around a Mac and color management. I finally "upgraded" from CS6 to CC when I got my new Mac.
System -
Retina iMac w/Yosemite. Second monitor - HP LP2475w (Bridge sits on the HP monitor)
Both monitors have profiles generated with an i1 Display and the i1 Profiler application.
Both monitors are using their correct profiles
Steps Already taken (condensed)
1. Purge cache (multiple times throughout the process).
2. Check color cache and cache permissions.
3. Reinstall Bridge at the behest of Adobe support, even though this was a new install.
4. Check that "Always high quality" thumbnails is checked in Bridge (this seems to have no effect either way).
5. Check color settings - NA GP2 in Bridge. Interestingly, the same behavior is exhibited no matter what I select here.
6. Drag Bridge to the iMac display - everything now looks good. Drag back - now BOTH Content and Preview are desaturated. Will stay like this until Bridge is restarted.
7. Recalibrate the HP (Bridge) monitor. No change in behavior.
8. Verify no sidecar xmp for this image, to rule out ACR in the problem.
9. Open Output module to verify that the content panel looks the same way there (it does).
10. Investigate ~user/Library/Caches/Adobe/Bridge CC/Cache/ folders. Wow, the preview for this particular image in /1024/xxxx LOOKS CORRECT (like it does in the Preview panel). So Bridge IS generating high quality previews correctly.
Thoughts -
1. This seems unlikely to be a monitor profile issue. Bridge itself is displaying the same PSD two different ways. A bad profile would make everything on that monitor look wrong, wouldn't it?
2. Some of my images sit on an external drive, but the screenshot here is from the internal mac drive, to try and rule that out.
3. It's not some strange issue with the HP monitor not displaying color evenly across it's surface - if it were, than the screenshot would not show the difference between the panels. I also moved the Bridge window around the display to further verify that color is the same across the whole panel.
4. Maybe Bridge ignores the profile for the content panel - but in the case of no profile, it assumes sRGB (or does it?) which is exactly what this image is. I have tried this with Adobe RGB images and the same behavior is exhibited.
5. Previews are being generated correctly, but do not seem to be what is read off disc to display in the Content Panel.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. My gut feeling is that for some reason, Bridge is not showing me the saved high quality preview in the Content panel. But why?

Is your file tagged? I.e. does it have the proper color profile embedded?
Is your monitor accurately calibrated and profiled?
What are your preferences in Bridge re previews and profiles?

Fonts in KDE always look worse than in GTK for me

Hello, here's a screen shot, compare the fonts of the GTK window with the fonts in the KDE window and judge for yourself:
http://xs127.xs.to/xs127/08225/fonts733.png
I have no specific KDE font configuration enabled, have no ~/fonts.conf either... Why don't fonts look the same in GTK and KDE?
Please post hints/opinions...
Last edited by bughunter2 (2008-05-30 20:44:11)

Try using this in your /etc/fonts/local.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<fontconfig>

<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>none</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintfull</const>
</edit>
</match>

<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern" >
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<test name="weight" compare="more">
<const>medium</const>
</test>
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any" >
<string>Helvetica</string>
</test>
<edit mode="assign" name="family" >
<string>sans-serif</string>
</edit>
</match>
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>
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Why does Compressor's HDV output look worse than iDVD's output of same?

Okay, here's the thing... for weekly updates I've been sending the client outputs via iDVD. And they've honestly looked great. The HDV footage fills the screen and doesn't show any noticeable compression funkiness. But for the screening of the completed first cut I wanted to deliver what I thought would be an even higher quality look (esp since I intended to deliver the completed project mpeg and AC3), so I exported the HDV cut out of FCP via QT and converted it with Compressor's DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes to turn the HDV into SD 720x480 16:9 letterboxed. I then burned it with DVDSP, complete with nice looking menus, etc. And I was shocked viewing the output. The two clips I'd reversed in FCP stuttered, and even a clip with nothing on it was strobing. Plus, close ups showed noticeable compression on the faces. So what gives? Why does it look so much better when I just slammed it out on iDVD? What don't I "get?" I've scoured the books I have and nothing seems to give me a clue.
Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Lightroom uses its own raw converter and its own camera profiles to convert the raw data into an image. This will never be the same as the camera-manufacturer’s raw image decoding either in camera or using camera-manufacturer-supplied software or any other third-party software.
Here is a general explanation from a few years ago, that is mostly valid, with the one exception that there are no camera-matching profiles for your brand of camera:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?1285-Why-did-Lightroom-ruin-my-photo
The IDC is apparently using camera settings and is clearly sharpening the image and quashing some of the lens-flare, oversharpening in my opinion.
You can do these sorts of things in LR, too, but you have to tell it to do things, it won’t do this by default.
The 2010 and 2012 are related to Process Version not Profile, and one difference between the two PVs is how the toning responds to near clipping conditions. Your reds are very saturated and near if not actually clipping so it is not surprising that the two raw conversions are not the same.
Can you provide a link to the raw file, using DropBox.com or similar large-file-hosting-service and maybe someone will give some tips on how to make the LR processing closer to what you’re seeing with the camera-manufacturer version.?

My photos look worse in iPhoto 6 than in iPhoto 4

In iPhoto 6 on my new MacBook Pro, the quality of images from my Canon PowerShot SD300 is lower than that of the images from the same camera in iPhoto 4 on my iBook G4. When I email photos from the new computer via Apple Mail, they look worse than emailed photos from my old system do--even when I contrast a small 30-40 KB iPhoto 4 image to a 150-900 KB iPhoto 6 image. Is this possible? If it is, then can I change a setting in iPhoto or on my camera, or do something, to rectify the situation?
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Thanks for replying, Old Toad. Sorry for my delay in getting back to you.
When I compare the same image, in edit mode, in iPhoto 4 (on my iBook G4) and in iPhoto 6 (on the MacBook Pro), the first distinction to make is that in 6 the color, especially red, is much richer. The same picture in 4 looks washed out. But while the contrast is higher in 6, the 6 image is less sharp than the 4 copy: in 6 everything's a little fuzzier, blurrier, more pixillated; lines are less distinct. It's as if the color is richer in 6 because the dot pattern is more apparent. This is especially evident when I email the pictures.
I should add that I've been comparing pictures at the default settings in 4 and 6. When I increase the sharpness in 6 (which I do not know how to do in 4), the problem seems to lessen---until I email the photo. In an email, the sharper 6 image is grainy and, overall, worse.
Can I do anything else to improve the quality of images in 6? Thanks again.
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Clips look worse after render

Hello,
I have added the Color Corrector and RBG Balance filters to my clips, but once I render the timeline, the clips look worse than when they are not rendered. (I play through the time line before I render, and it looks great.) They look really grainy after rendered.
Running FCP 6.0.2
QT 7.4.1
I used the Easy Set up -> HDV-Apple ProRes 422 1080p24
Clips were shot in 24f with XH A1
Sequence settings:
Frame size: 1440x1080 16:9
Rate: 23.98
Render Codec: Apple Pro Res 422
Do I have my settings right?
I appreciate any help on this!

It depends what you are doing with the color correction. Raising the blacks/mids too high will introduce noise in itself.
Another factor is how you are monitoring, FCP always uses a lower res proxy image to better enable real-time playback. You can only really assess the quality on an external pro monitor or at the very least, an excellent TV

FLV quality looks better than F4V, what am I doing wrong?

Hi,
I exported a small clip as a on2vp6 flv, a h.264 f4v, and a h.264 mp4 file with the adobe media encoder cs4. Each file is the same clip, exported with pretty much the same settings. Resolution: 640x480, 0.5mbps target bit rate, 29.97 fps.
Everything I read says that for a given file and a given bitrate, h.264 should provide better video quality when compared to a h.263 flv file. I would like to know what I am doing wrong, because the h.264 files look worse than the flv file. I have provided download links for a short demo clip in each format.
fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr.f4v
http://www.filefactory.com/file/af5gc7b/n/fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr_f4v
fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr.flv
http://www.filefactory.com/file/af5gc7e/n/fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr_flv
fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr.mp4
http://www.filefactory.com/file/af5gc71/n/fl7756n_29_640x480_500kbpsbr_mp4
Why does the clip look better in h.263? It seems that everything I encode at low bitrates looks better in h.263 which leads me to believe I am doing something wrong.

Okay, that is true, they are different codecs. But even adobe says:
Q: How does H.264 compare with the current video formats supported in Flash Player?
A: Flash Player supports the Sorenson Spark video codec (based on H.263) and On2 VP6. H.263 is the predecessor of H.264 and was designed for teleconferencing applications, at 64k rates. H.264 delivers even higher quality at lower bitrates. H.264 will deliver the same or better quality when to compared to the same encoding profile in On2. Factors you should consider when choosing a format include the complexity of the content, the desired reach, ability to archive, and licensing considerations.
at
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H.264#Q:_What_is_H.264.3F
Are there any tricks to getting the h.264 to look "better" than the h.263? Like, the h.264 version of the video doesn't even look close to as good, and I think that the f4v version looks worse than the mp4, which I don't really understand since they are both h.264 files. The footage is from a canon XL2 and the original source is ntsc 720x480. Is there anything special I should be doing for encoding in h.264 instead of h.263. The video is going to be only for the web.

Looks worse in the store??

I saw Apple TV today on display in the NYC 5th ave store and Jon Stewart looked worse than VHS. I mean he looked like internet video from 5 years ago. When I came home and looked at an itunes Daily Show on my Powerbook hooked to the same LCD TV (through VGA) it didn't look as bad. Kinda perplexed that Apple would display this thing without the highest quality material. In any case it was enough to keep the box away for the time being. I think VHS decks are selling for $20 these days if at all - not $300.
Oh yes, but the menus looked so cool. Funny I've never heard a restaurant review that was so excited about how the menus looked. It's usually about the food.

...If someone asks me, how such and such a restaurant was last Saturday, I cannot really give a truthful answer as I only, passed by and smelt how bad it was. What I didnt know was what else was cooking inside...but based on that single smell, I made my mind up and told my friends it was horrible...
P.S. a VCR is easily bought on ebay for 50 cents, however, atm, you won't find an AppleTV for quite that cheap...

Why does a jpeg look yellower in Aperture than Preview?

Friend sent a jpeg to me. The image looks much yellower in Aperture than preview.
Exif data regarding color:
Profile Name: sRGB v1.31 (Canon
I have Aperture and preview set to Proofing Profile sRGB 2.1. I have also calibrated my monitor using the display preferences wizard.
Any reason for the yellow cast when I import the image to Aperture?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks!

I have Aperture and preview set to Proofing Profile sRGB 2.1. I have also calibrated my monitor using the display preferences wizard.
Are you saying that you have View->Onscreen Proofing turned on? What if you turn it off and view the image does it still have the yellow cast?

Quick preview looks better than processed raw image...??

Hey all, probably a bit of a "newb" question here... so forgive me, and thank you...
Using a D7000 and often times when I shoot - the preview image on the camera looks BRIGHT, VIVID and ROBUST ... after import however - when reviewing my shots, JUST as I arrow over to the next shot - many of the preview images tend to look better than the processed image that aperture displays once it's done spinning it's wheels.
Perhaps I've messed up a Raw Fine Tuning setting?
When I click on quick preview and browse through an import, the pictures truly look nicer to me than the when aperture processes them.
Without question, the display on my acer monitor is a far cry from the miniature compressed image on the back of my nikon, however the more i shoot, the more I realize a disconnect between what I think I should see, and what I'm ultimately seeing in Aperture.
Are their specific settings to fine tune the import of raw d7000 shots?
Thanks much.. gk

I take it you're shooting and processing RAW images?
It's worth remembering that if you have a picture style selected (i.e. vivid etc), your camera might be applying extra contrast and saturation etc to the image you see on the back of the camera. Camera manufacturers do this so that we can give our pictures some extra punch and colour automatically.
I'd also be wary of comparing what you see on your camera to what you see on your monitor. Unless both are calibrated, you shouldn't trust either of them 100%. The best example of monitor calibration is going to look at TV's in an electronics store. You'll probably notice that in a wall of TV's, some pictures will be darker, some lighter, some more vivid, some more saturated. Using a calibration tool adjusts the picture your screen and monitor displays so that it is 'accurate'.
It's a bit like having a room full of scales and adjusting them so that they all read 1 kilogram when a 1 kilogram weight is placed on each of them. Calibrating monitors will mean that when you display an image on it, it will always look the same rather than getting the some light/some dark problem you saw in the TV store.
It's a tricky subject to explain (don't worry if it doesn't make sense), but you might like to have look around YouTube for videos on the subject.

The way Aperture renders my Nikon RAW (NEF) files look different than...

The was Aperture renders my NEF files looks different than NX...
Ok so I use all the in camera setting/tools to the best of abilities to try and cut my editing down as much as possible but when shooting RAW I end up having to tweak every images to get them back to what they really look like... I shoot often RAW and JPG combined and when I open a NEF in NX and a JPG in PS they are identical and need very little work, when I use Aperture the NEF files are very different looking from the JPG (or NEF in NX) and every single one needs tweaking (I get more redish/pinkish skin, often a hint of green cast to (slightly off WB/tone thing) and more contrast.
Below is screenshot showing the difference between a JPG (or NEF in NX) and a RAW file in Aperture
[img]http://www.pbase.com/ray645/image/120052970/original.jpg[/img]
This is just a silly snap shot in very flat overcast light, and has the least amount of shift or difference of any image type so far, when I use strobes, shoot for a more contrasty image, gel for color and manual WB the differences are huge almost to the point that you would think you where looking at two completely different images and not the same NEF opened in different software.
How do I go about getting Aperture to render my NEF's more like what I shot like NEF in NX, JPG in anything, and even the back of the camera screen?

Thank you, that seems like will work, just having the boost turned down a bit on import has helped tremendously but I cant stop feeling like I am moving towards the "Fix it in post" mentality
I will need to get better at tweaking my images... No matter how I try I cant kill the pinking skin or the very faint green glow in blond hair or bright neutral tones without affecting other areas of the image.. I am sure I will figure it out but anyone having any tips or links that could speed up my process I would appreciate it.
The green is weird its like someone snuck a small florescent light into all my shoots without telling me, not major but enough to be annoying.
I shoot a ton of motor sports (3000 images a weekend) and shoot JPG and have gotten good at using in camera pre sets, knowing what I got and getting it right in the camera, I wish Nikon would give up the code or whatever is needed for all the info to be carried over to Aperture..... I would pay the $100 or whatever to use the NX engine in Aperture

Mystery. jpeg stills require rendering on FCP timeline??

I'm co-editing a film with a partner on the other side of the continent. We are using a lot of stills. I use GraphicConverter to re-size the 300dpi stills to 72dpi. (300dpi stills slow down FCP considerably, and take a lot longer to render.)
My 72dpi versions are working just fine. Do not require rendering on the timeline (the green line above) ... so I can set keyframes and plan movements, requiring rendering only when I'm satisfied.
My partner has done the same thing, with the same still in fact, in GraphicConverter ... but when he brings that 72dpi still into his FCP it requires rendering (red line) before he can even work with it. Ironically, the 300dpi original stills DON'T require rendering (but will, I'm sure, slow down his work to a virtual stall when he gets a number of those stills on the same timeline).
A mystery? Is there perhaps something we are missing in the FCP preferences, or the timeline settings? The timeline settings are set exactly the same on both systems (HDV 1080i60).
Any help would be most appreciated,
Ben

I had a somewhat similar problem once and it turned out to be some bizzare naming scheme a PC used to name files sequentially.
Try taking picture A and making your GC version. Have him take picture A and make his GC version. Have him zip the image, email it to you and then you open both in GC and compare their specs. Off-hand I can't think of anything in FCP that would affect this but I'm not sure.
It could be something innocuous like a resource fork for a thumbnail or his are RGB and yours are CMYK or something.

Still rendered in FCP 6 looks worse than preview???

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