Black bars and squashed shapes. Aspect Ratio/Export assistance required.

[David Bogie]

Welcome to the family.
You need to base your entire workflow on your video output format and then work backwards from there. Video is usually rectangular pixels so all photos must be stretched. In FCP, this is automatic when you drop them into your sequence but you have chosen a square pixel format. Attempting to bring outrageously huge photos into a video editor is a problem we see often around here so you can search the forum for lots of suggestions and tips.
Be sure to use the FCP online help and simply look for PIXEL ASPECT RATIO:
CCIR 601 NTSC 4:31 video non-square:720 x 486. In photoshop:720 x 547
CCIR 601 NTSC 16:9 anamorphic video non-square: 720 x 486. In photoshop: 853 x 486
DV NTSC 4:3 video non-square:720 x 480. In photoshop:720 x 540
DV NTSC 16:9 anamorphic video non-square:720 x 480. In photoshop:853 x 480

The most often suggested step is to process all of your frames in Photoshop, scaling them down to a more useful size and correcting the pixel aspect ratio. Photoshop is a good place to level out your exposures because every DSLR will drift a bit, even when locked down on totally manual aperture and shutter speed.

You might want to visit this timelapse site to investigate several workflows for huge collections of still images: https://timescapes.org/

bogiesan

[Jeremy Cassar]

Thanks for your response mate.

I will try to get my head around your post, as well as any additional information, and get back to you.

I’m sure batch scaling down and batch correcting pixel aspect ratio of the photos won’t be a problem, it’s just knowing the correct settings that confuses me. But I shall try your suggestions!

The other thing to be noted is that I’m in Australia and almost universally work with PAL footage, as opposed to NTSC. Not sure if that matters at all. in terms of how you’d respond to my initial question.

In any case, thanks for your help and I’ll let you know in a few hours how I fared!

Jeremy

[Stephan Walfridsson]

In additon to what Bogie said, the source of your problem is that the aspect ratio of your original images (not pixel aspect ratio) is 3:2. Video images has either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio.

So when you add your images to the (16:9) sequence FCP respects the aspect ratio of your original images and compensates by shrinking them down so that you use the full height of your source image. But this results in black on the sides as your source images are more square than the sequence imagesize. So you will have to crop top and/or bottom of your images to make them fit.

Stephan

[Jeremy Cassar]

Thanks Stephen.

So basically what you are saying is that the only way to go about it is to rescale images in final cut pro, thus losing image information? If so, then it seems a batch convert in Photoshop is a better option? Apologies if I’m missing something.

[Jeremy Cassar]

David I tried a test resize in photoshop.
All i did was change the pixel size to 853×486
When dragging it into FCP, the aspect ratio comes up as NTSC – CCIR 601, as you’ve said.
Do you know how I find out the PAL equivalent? I’m guessing considering I’m in Australia the photos should be PAL? Sorry if i’ve misunderstood.

Cheers mate.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Cassar]

Sorry David, and to add to that…
When dropping the frame into a sequence with NTSC CCIR 601 pixel aspect – there are no black bars, as you’ve said, and the image looks awesome. So that’s solved that problem.
The only thing left to do now is to figure out the correct aspect/settings for PAL, as opposed to NTSC. IN Australia that’s the standard format, and I am not sure whether using NTSC will cause problems when sending the file to the festival.

Once that’s sorted – looks like everything will be in order!

Thanks sir.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Cassar]

P.P.S –

When i bring the NTSC frame into compressor it squashes it a little – looking more like 4:3. I’m not sure why it is doing this.

All help greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[Jeremy Cassar]

David I apologise if this post is repeating myself but I just replied and can’t seem to see the post in the thread.

I tried your suggestion and converted a single image to 853×486 in photoshop. I dragged it into FCP and the browser lists the image as NTSC – CCIR 601, as you’ve said. Dropping it into a sequence with the same settings results in the image displaying perfectly, so thank you. But unfortunately there still exists two problems.

Firstly, and correct me if I’m wrong, which I might be, but I think because I am from Australia and we use the PAL format here, I need the image and the sequence to be in PAL as opposed to NTSC. Do you know how I would go about doing the same process you’ve described, but PAL instead of NTSC?

Secondly, when I try to export said frame in compressor, the image is displayed in 4:3, and not in the aspect displayed in the Canvas window. So even if I stuck with the NTSC (which I am pretty sure is a bad move?), when exporting I still have aspect problems, and as I’ve said, I’d prefer to convert all the jpgs to video so it’s easier to edit.

Looking forward to your response. Thanks again. Apologies if those posts end up showing up.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Cassar]

Steps taken:

Converted test lot of images from their resolution to 720×480.

Imported them back into Final Cut Pro, then matched their settings with a sequence (had to change them all to PAL from NTSC), then dropped them into the timeline.

Images fill the frame perfectly.

However before batch resizing all 12000 images, I thought i’d test the export, using the same settings from the timeline.

Unfortunately the exported image is squashed horizontally.

Is there another step I need to do to the images in photoshop so that it will export correctly? Or is it a setting within Final Cut Pro?

Cheers.

Jeremy