Pan & zoom still photos

I have two high rez photos that I need to pan and zoom in my timeline. Because there is some fine detail in the images when I pan from bottom to top of photo I get a lot of artifacts or instability in the process. It might be called an image flicker.

Is there any method of eliminating this unacceptable problem?

As always thanks for your assistance.

Try doing the moves in Motion or After effects?

I fyou have them. I suspect you have Motion more than AE.

Make sure the pictures aren't too large. Pictures that are too small look bad because of the blowup, but pictures that are more than twice the size of the video frame will also suffer. If you're working in 720x480, your photos shouldn't be more than 1440x960, 72dpi. If you need to resize them, make sure you save copies.

Shane & Derek,

Thanks for your input. I don't have Motion or After Effects. Would you advise purchasing one over the other for use with FCP?

I will also try reducing the size of each photograph to 1440x960 at 72dpi. These images are considerably larger and rendered at 300dpi. I was successful in using another large image at 300dpi, however, it didn't have the fine detail that these two have.

Thanks again.

Google for "deflickerator", a free Photoshop Action that does a good job of preparing PS files for this purpose in FCP. I've used it with good results.

Scott

Don't forget to do the "size crunch" to compensate for the square pixels on the stills. If your video frame size is 720x480, then you should crop the pictures to around 1440x1080 (720x540 is the size you want if you're not double-sizing the images), then resize in Photoshop to 1440x960 (or 720x480) without constraining proportions.

dpi means "dots per inch" its almost meaning less in video its for translation to print ie how many dots are printed of the picture on 1 inch of paper...


only worry about pixel dimensions and ratios.


If you want to stop flicker on pictures - add a Gaussian Blur in FCP of 0.3 to 0.6





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Saw Photo to Movie app demo'd at MacWorld. Has a very intelligent deflicker engine.

But Derek's right. If you don't optimize the size of your image in PS prior to importing into FCP, you'll see moire on large, detailed photos.

Optimiizing in PS has really gone by the wayside in recent years due to the proliferation of digital still cams. Too bad, a lot of newbies have tons of trouble with this one thing.



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Thanks for the Deflickerator, Scott. Nice tip.

It's true that dpi doesn't determine image quality in FCP. But let's not forget that a picture in 300dpi would be around 130MB, and sadly, FCP does often have problems dealing with stills of that size. You should optimize the video-ready stills to 72 dpi. If you need to have those pictures at print quality, preserve a copy at a high dpi and don't use it in editing.

Nearly Derek you are trying to explain something out of context - its a common misconception that large dpi means large files - maybe I should explain...

If you scan a 2"x 2" Graphic in at 72dpi then the resulting file will be 144x144px - a tiny files size and not really good enough for video.

The same image scanned in at 400dpi gives a 800 x 800 pixel image which you could use for Standard Definition Video

Lets say we take a 5"x4" Photo and scan at 300 dpi then you will get a 1500x1200 pixel image which is fine for Standard Definition Video and 720 High Deinition Video plus you can pan around it on SD. The filesize will be relatively small too - around 5MB uncompressed and FCP can handle much bigger than this.

The pixel size for a 130MB file would be something like 8000 x 6000 pixels and at 300dpi it would have come from an image that was 27"x 20" !!!



So to sum up...

DPI should only be taken into account on acquiring images via scanners or when you are outputting a print.


Note - always work in Square pixels then convert to the video pixel aspect ratio you need - eg: D1


In video you should only work with the pixel dimensions (as DPI will only serve to confuse you as it is ignored by video software).

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A couple of tips:

Basically scan in at a resolution good enough to get a file with the pixel dimensions you require:

I usually ask for/scan a minimum picture size as follows

800 x 600 px for Standard Def 4:3

1100 x 600 px for SD Widescreen 16:9

1400 x 780 px for 720 HD

2000 x 1200 px for 1080 HD

This way you have a small leaway to move the pictures around - but if you want to do major moves then you will have to get them in larger pixel dimensions.

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To work out your scan size in pixels:
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Image size (width in inches) x dpi setting = horizontal pixel size

Image size (height in inches) x dpi setting = vertical pixel size

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To work out what dpi setting you need for a particular image size:
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Horizontal pixel size you require (Square pixels) / Image size (width in inches) = dpi setting

Vertical pixel size require (Square pixels) / Image size (width in inches) = dpi setting

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Regards


Ben



Post Edited (01-24-06 12:11)



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]