What and Where is the basic photo format and size info????

Question

I am new at this but an experienced graphic designer.
I work in print often so I take high resolution images. Using still photos I want to make movies with titles and effects, music that are emailable and facebook friendly. Do I need to down size photos before importing them to IPhoto. My project will have around 30 photos.
Is there a place I can go to get this basic info, it was not covered on Apple tutorial.
Do you think any of the manuals that we have to purchase will discuss this issue? Gripe, why does mac give you a program without a manual!!!
So the question is, what is the recommended resolution and format for photos to import to Iphoto or Imovie and be able to have a good quality movie.
iMac8,1
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.66 GHz
Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Answer 1

czdezines wrote:
.. Is there a place I can go to get this basic info, it was not covered on Apple tutorial.
the Apple intended workflow is, that stills are managed in iPhoto, and iMovie 'picks up' from there.
this workflows guarantees to some extend a compatibility to iMovie.
iM will not accept 'raws' or CMYK.psd - jpeg, pic, tiff preferred.
there's a flaw, how iM handles portrait-sized pic.. if you want to show them full-sized (=black bars l/r), you have to add those in any pic-processor to make the pic landscape BEFORE import to iM09..
the maximum res of a video is 1920x1080 .. adding any higher res has no effect. only needed, as Kirk allready told you, if you like to use the Ken Burns effect.
for uploading to YT choose HD/1280x720 as size.. adds some extra grain of quality.. made a demo of some random pics as a test, what's possible with iM/YT.
mailing video...? I prefer to upload to YT, make it private, send invitation to mail adress.. for mailing, you would have to compress sooooo much.. nothing left.