Strobing effect within photos on FCP

Does anyone know how to eliminate the annoying "strobing" effect I get when I "zoom" into a photo or "pan" around in a still image on FCP? Or better yet, when I create my own "Ken Burns" effect on a still image, I sometimes get a strobing or weird shaking lines on a still image, especially when the image contains stripes.

The Pan/zoom you refer to as the "ken burns effect" was a standard effect in the movie/video industry long before mr burns was a gleam in his father's eye. Those who have been in the industry for a long time often find the idea of attributing basic rostrum moves to newly arrived videographer a little tedious and self serving. But, I digress.
The flickering is an artifact of the two field structure of interlaced video. It is a result of very thin (often horizontal) elements that exist on one scanline as is common in text or titling. This can also be the case in images with great deal of detail with high contrast as well as when when you are engaged in pan/zoom moves.
As the alternate fields play, the flashing element is essentially being turned on/off. The basic strategy is to get the element to exist over two scanlines so it is refreshed every time the field plays or to reduce the amount of contrast so the difference between ON and OFF is not noticeable.
Before you start any of these steps listed below, make sure you are viewing your material on an appropriate monitor. If you are working in an NTSC/PAL interlaced format (eg DV) you need an external TV monitor - not a computer screen. Without the appropriate device, you are playing blind.
Things to try (In increasing order of image degradation)
• (in FCP) field order>none
• (in FCP or Photoshop) reduce whites by 10% - reduces overly bright areas
• (in FCP) flicker filter - minimum
• (in Photoshop) motion blur>vertical> .2 - .5 pixels - blurs vertically only
• (In FCP or Photoshop) Gaussian blur> .2 - .5 pixels -blurs both horizontally as well as vertically
• (in FCP or Photoshop) deinterlace - throws away half the image and is generally not appropriate on scanned images
One tip when using blurs - if the problem does not involve the whole image, try using a mask to limit the effect to just the necessary area. This will keep you from softening the whole image.
Remember: Unless you are viewing your work in the appropriate external NTSC/PAL monitor, you are playing blind. The computer monitor only shows you a proxy image.
One final thought, if you have only used FCP to slow your material significantly, you may be simply duplicating frames to create the additional material to pad the playback. The flashing you see is the result of this. In that case, try using Motion or Shake's optical flow retiming to process the image. It will produce better quality product.
good luck.
x

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David, your a genius!!! You posted your reply on my birthday, and I missed it until today!
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