Experience with large photos

I am doing a photo montage with some very high quality photos and am having a problem with slow speeds and I just wanted to pose the question: If I stack 30 photos into one sequence on seperate video lines to make the photos appear as though they are part of a collage...why is my computer taking up to 45 seconds just to move the whole collage anywhere? Even just to pause the playback takes 30 seconds. I reduced the quality to 2MB or less on each photo making a total of 60mb of playback at one time, but I expected that my computer could handle that...your thoughts?

My computer specs:

G5 dual 2.5
2.5 GB Memory
512 kb L2 Cache per CPU
OSX - Panther
FCP4

I appreciate your help...

Use after effects its better for those sort of things.

You could try raising the Still image cache in FCP > System settings >memory & cache > still cache

in my experience fcp isnt really great at compositing large numbers of still images...
remember - its an editing program NOT a compositing program.

johan is rig.ht, youre WAY better off at doing this in after effects

You can do fine work w/o AE, IMHO. You just need to clean the images in Photoshop first. Reduce their size to no more than 2 to 3x the native frame size at 72 dpi. Then all works much snappier. Trust me on this one.

Since the advent of digital still cams, people tend to dump them right to FCP rather than clean their images first in Photoshop. I think this is rather clumsy, but I'm kind of a purist, I guess.

Kevin

I agree - make them 72 dpi and all will be fine. You can use 150 or 300 dpi, but it's best to save these for the times when you need them, like deep zooms, because they clog up the works. For the pics that are drifitng by at normal size, keep them at 72.

Well, I tried the 72 DPI and it worked great!!! I also reduced the size of some of the photos which I found were VERY large...even larger than I thought. It is running smooth now.

I will tackle this in After Effects after my deadline to test both ways...I will reply and state my findings.

Thank you everyone!

ok, heres a side question:

if you needed to achieve a zoom on a still jpg would it be better to import it at double the 72 dpi or double its target dimension? or would it make a difference?

I can't believe you people are still asking questions about rostrum work! I have been a daily consumer of the great info on this website for years and I have to say I am sick to death of reading posts about image size for stills and zoom, pan and tilt issues in particular!

Lock off the dpi setting in Photoshop at 72 dpi then FORGET IT! ALL SD VIDEO IS 72 DPI!!!! FCP and any other program creating SD video only cares about pixel dimensions (as it relates to image size).


So, if your sequence is DV @ 720x486.

1. Look at the image and decide how much you may need to zoom into it. If you think 2x--calculate 3x to give yourself some cushion.

2. Scan or resize the image in multiples of the horizontal (720 pixels) dimension e.g. zoom in to 3x the original size -- then create an image 2160 pixels wide. Vertical will take care of itself if you lock proportions so image doesn't distort.

If you plan to tilt a vertical image apply the calculation to the vertical dimension.

THIS MEANS YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT EACH IMAGE AND PRE-VISUALIZE HOW YOU INTEND TO USE IT.

There is NO one size fits all formula you have to do the homework.

3. ONLY evaluate image quality on a NTSC monitor. I'm also sick of people who--after all this time in FCP-- haven't read up on the way FCP displays video on their computer monitors and still don't know what they are seeing is not the REAL quality (or color) of the video!

THAT"S IT! Simple. This should be on the FAQ so we can stop wasting bandwith on this mindlessly simple process.

Sorry to be such an old grump, but newbies need to learn to look for answers that are already here and a thousand other places.

Disagree!!
This forum should be for all questions.
If you get yelled out for asking something that most of us find easy, the result will be that newbees dont ask ques attions all.
Agree that this could be in the FAQ, but as it is NOT - feel free to ask !!!

I agree with Geir. It's intimidating for newbies as it is to learn this program. (Just taught a student last night who didn't know the lay of keys on the keyboard. Poor guy was struggling) But I think one of the great things about this forum is that it's newbie-friendly. And then there are people who use this application professionally but have gaps in their technique...like me. I always thought it great that I could patch up those gaps by listening to the people here.