• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Don’t want to have to zoom in so tight on my photos!

  Posted by Barrett O’donnell on October 19, 2012 at 2:49 am

  I’m laying down photos that I scanned to my comp at 300 DPI. Some of them are small and verticle, but I don’t think I should have to motion in SO tight that all I can get on the screen is their face without the black borders showing up DO NOT WANT THOSE… How can I fix this problem?
  I’ve got great old photos that I’d like to use more of, not just extreme closeups of the face.

  Frame Size: 1929×1080
  Pix Aspect Ratio: Square

  Gary Milligan replied 13 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Shane Ross

  October 19, 2012 at 2:55 am

  First off, DPI doesn’t matter. Frame dimensions do. Make sure that your picture dimensions are over 1200 pixels, but under 4000 pixels. Large, but not too large. FCP chokes on images over 4000 pixels.

  Second…how are you going to get a vertical picture to fill the horizontal frame of video without zooming in enough that you chop off the top and bottom of the picture? You can’t…unless you distort it and stretch it wide…making people fat like a fun house mirror. Or, deal with the borders. Crop…or border.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
• 

  Gary Milligan

  October 19, 2012 at 4:41 pm

  Surely you must have seen what is a quite common solution to this problem – use something other than black as your background layer. More often than not it’s the same photo scaled way up and extremely blurred to provide a textured background – more interesting than just black or solid colour.

  HTH

  Gary
• 

  Barrett O’donnell

  October 20, 2012 at 2:00 am

  Thanks, I like this idea. So the background image which would be blown up and blurred would be somewhat reminiscent of the photo in the foreground? I’m not exactly following, but the idea sounds good. Could you explain a little of how it works? Or link a shot like it?
• 

  Gary Milligan

  October 20, 2012 at 5:26 am

  A very quick example – this image is comprised of three layers; the bottom layer is white, the middle layer is the photo enlarged so it fills the screen from side to side and then a blur is applied (adjust to taste). I also reduced the opacity to 70% so the white layer shows through (you might also consider using a colour instead of white – or even black). Again, adjust to taste. The top layer is the photo – full frame and angled. For added variety you might also consider setting keyframes on the scale of the top layer to zoom in (or out) on the photo. Experiment a bit… or a lot!

  HTH

  Gary

  

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