Best PNG or JPEG settings to use in Vegas, from Photoshop

[Mike Kujbida]

Are your source files on your system drive or another drive?

PNG is, IMO, the best image format to use.

DPI numbers have no use in video as it’s the image size in pixels that matters.
You can find out this information by right-clicking on it in the project Media folder and selecting Properties – General.
Please do that and let us know what it says.

[Steve Rhoden]

I agree with mike, simply use png files in vegas, they handle
that file format the best.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Creative Arts Director and Film Maker.
Project Samples at:
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[Scott Francis]

Source files are NOT on the system drive, there are 4 physical drives and source are on one and I render to another. I do NOT have sizes because there are like 200 pics….I an not looking to fix previous projects but looking forward to others as where I can “optimize” source picture files…thanks!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Theo Van laar]

Since your ourput will be HDV 1080i, your pictures need to be at least 1440 x 1080 non-square pixels (PAR 1.33). Since pictures acontain square pixels, the size should be at least 1.33 x 1440 = 1916 pixels width and 1080 pixels high.

Since you want to apply panning, multiply these svalues by 2. That is usually sufficient for the panning.

And for pictures with transparancy, PNG is indeed OK. For the pictures not containing transparancy, you can just leave them as .jpg.

Theo

[Scott Francis]

Thanks guys,so OK I understand that PNG is the best, and I aware that pixels are non-square in HDV…SOOOOOO

My other questions are still in need of answers:

DPI-if it is NOT important than what should I set it to in Photoshop? 72, 100, 150 etc..it will may file size an issue if I keep something 300 dpi can I change it to 72dpi?

Pixels – if I am working with a picture that is already using square pixels, how do I make them rectangular? Or do I just adjust the height or width to the proper size for HDV (1080 or 1916 per Theo’s note)?

Again I am getting memory errors on rendering based on using pics…so I want to get to the point were it is no longer an issue and basically take all my pics into photoshop make pixel and dpi adjustments and save them BEFORE I use them in Vegas…

Again thanks so much for all your help!!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Bob Peterson]

You have not yet answered the basic question. How big are the photos? Give us an average or typical size in terms of number of pixels both horizontally and vertically. Photoshop will give you this information if you use Image => Size. Further, Photoshop will resize or crop the image using the number of pixels on the horizontal and vertical dimensions. PPI (not DPI) is irrelevant for images used in a video. The only consideration is the number of horizontal and vertical pixels. Vegas will not bog down if you use reasonably sized PNG images.

[Theo Van laar]

If you make the width 1916 px and the height 1080 px, you can keep the square pixels.

The resolution in photoshop should be 72.

And use whenever possible JPG files, since they require less memory then PNG. Also increase the size of the pictures (e.g. 2*2 times ) only for the pictures you want to apply a pan/zoom.

Theo

[Scott Francis]

THE sizes vary as do the dpi!! Here is an example:

2800w x 1868h at 300 dpi

If I change that to 150 dpi it also cuts the pixels in half

HOWEVER I can double the pixels (and hence the SIZE of the pic) and the DPI remains the same!! The size of the file (in MB increases GREATLY and the the size in inches doubles as well)

SOOOO what do I do?

Do I change the DPI, change the pixels, or increase the pixels and reduce the DPI or what?
I hope you can see my confusion, maybe this is just a photoshop issue and I DO understand that DPI related to video…but it is still confusing going from a pic that does have dpi, pixels and PAR to a video format that looks as PAR and pixels only!

ALSO, can I and should I change the PAR in photoshop to a rectangle (1.33)

I hope I did not make this more confusing than before…

Thank you All!!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[John Rofrano]

If you make the width 1916 px and the height 1080 px, you can keep the square pixels.

Actually, that’s close but HD is 1920 x 1080 PAR 1.000. The PAR for HDV is 1.33333333333 to infinity which calculates to 1919.9999999 to infinity which rounds up to 1920 pixels. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Danny Hays]

Also .png files can contain a transparent alph channel where jpegs
can’t if I’m not mistaken. Good for making corner bugs.