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Best format to import stills
A client sent me 30 jpegs that they want included in a project. I am doing a pan/scan thing to breathe some life into these still images. This totally bogs my system (2.33 Ghz Mac Book Pro 2Gigs Ram). Is there a better alternative to using JPEGs such as PICT or PNG that won’t tend to use up system resources like these JPEG’s?
Craig
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9 Replies
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What size are the JPEGS?
Richard Martz
MagicMartz MediaFinal Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
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They are all over the map size wise, but a typical size would be approx 2400 x 1600 pixels…
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The reason I asked about the size is that you might try resizing the photos to a much smaller size. 1920 x 1080 (HD) is approximately 6 times the size of Standard definition. If you are working in SD and only need blow them up slightly then your resolution will only need to be slightly larger than SD. With 2400x 1600 you are using file sizes that are pretty large.
THe way that I reduce sizes is to take them into Photoshop and reduce the size there. That method is pretty efficient.
Another thing I might recommend is that you purchase a very afordable program called Fotomagico. This is an incredibly fast program with a low learning curve and you can export a QTmovie for use in your program. It only works for certain kinds of things but for those it is fabulous.
https://boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/
Richard Martz
MagicMartz MediaFinal Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff! -
This has been touched on many times but…remember, you do not need stills that are higher resolution than 72dpi. It is the actual image size of those stills that will give you the room to zoom in and move on them.
Resize them to 72dpi and to several times your screen dimension, remembering to constrain the properties of the stills so they scale without distorting, depending on how far into the still you want to zoom.It’s the size of the still not the DPI that gives you the flexibility to blow them up…FCP has to scale them to 72dpi so if you do it first you save lots of render time.
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Craig,
You already got the best advicing from Richard and Neil. Don’t use picture much bigger than the necesary. Don’t forget that FC is not the best tool for resizing.
But just to more things
– Increase the “Still Cache” (In System Settins> Meemory&Caches) so your machine will work better with the stills.
– In your Sequence settings> Video processing> Motion filtering quality, set BEST. As long as you go to resize and moove your pictures, this will bennefit the final result.
Cheers,
Rafael -
I use a plugin called PanZoomPro that does a great job for me on projects such as yours.
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Craig,
As you can see from the answers, it is the size that matters. FWIW, a few months back I did a test using jpeg, tiff, png and pict images from the same original jpegs, to see if any rendered faster, and it was basically a wash. The thread is in the archives, I think it was in April, can’t remember.
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[Chris Poisson] “As you can see from the answers, it is the size that matters”
Yes, but the size is dictated by two variables: dpi and image size (pixel dimensions)both of which need to be adjusted in order to maximize editing happiness (both yours and your system’s). You do not need anything over 72dpi in video. Chances are the stills sent to you by your client are much higher than 72dpi because in order to print your photos on paper you need at least 150 dpi and greater to have a decent looking image…on paper. Video is different so throw out the stuff you don’t need.
Go into Photoshop or one of the other programs suggested, and re-size your photos for BOTH dpi and pixel dimension. First change the dpi to 72 and, in the same dialog box change the pixel dimensions to a size that is 2-3 times the dimensions of your editing format. The larger the pixel dimensions the more you can “blow up” the image in FCP without it falling apart. There is a box in photoshop called “constrain properties”…make sure this is selected so you don’t absolutely resize the image to the new pixel dimensions but, rather do so proportionately to the current dimensions of the image. This prevents distortion.
If you do this correctly you will have no problem moving all around your images like a real PBS pro.
And don’t forget to Save As…in case you need to do it again.
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DPI does not matter for video.
At all.
See : https://generalspecialist.com/2007/08/dpi-in-video-totally-useless.asp
and
https://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html
DPI is *only for printing to paper*. Video is displayed in *pixels* so change the size in pixels to your desired size while respecting aspect ratio.
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