How to fit a still image to fill the video frame

[D. Eric franks]

Personally, I think the best size for still images is “very large”, maybe up to 4000 pixels on a side. This will slow Vegas down a tad (but not much), but it gives you a lot of creative flexibility with zooming and panning and whatnot.

How to zoom and pan and fill the frame? Use the Event Pan/Crop tool. The button is on the right side of the clip. This can be tricky to get it exactly right at first, but lock the aspect ratio when you do get it perfect and then do your thing.

To simply fill the frame when a picture is almost filling, but not quite and that’s all you want to do, you can use the Track Motion tool. This is not the preferred method most of the time because it works at project resolution and not at image resolution, but it is very useful for minor cropping and fixes.

[John Rofrano]

> How to crop the image so it fills the frame?

Open the Pan/Crop tool for the image’s event and right-click on the frame and select Match Output Aspect. This will crop the image to exactly match the video aspect.

> …and what is the best resolution to use?

I recommend 2x the project resolution. For a Standard Definition project of 720×480 PAR 0.91 (which is 655×480 square pixels) that would be 1310×960.

~jr

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

[Bob Peterson]

I also use a resolution which about twice the size of the project’s resolution. However, I do not generally use the match aspect control. Instead, I crop all still images to the desired size in Photoshop. Photoshop’s crop tool can be set to a specific pixel size in both the horizontal and vertical dimension. That means that I can choose the crop which I desire, and deliver a cropped image to Vegas which will exactly match the project size. It does take a bit of experimentation to find the exact pixel size needed. If Photoshop is too expensive, Photoshop Elements has the same cropping ability.

I also save the cropped images as PNGs since Vegas handles PNGs without much effort.

[Bruce Hildebrand]

Thanks, just what I needed.

I recommend 2x the project resolution. For a Standard Definition project of 720×480 PAR 0.91 (which is 655×480 square pixels) that would be 1310×960.

Just curious, what is PAR 0.91? and why is the vertical dimension the same and the horizontal smaller?

Bruce Hildebrand
204 475-1618
gbhildebrand@shaw.ca

[Bruce Hildebrand]

Thank you. I needed the zoom refresher and Track Motion is new to me.

Bruce Hildebrand
204 475-1618
gbhildebrand@shaw.ca

[Bruce Hildebrand]

Thanks. I have been trying to crop in Photoshop but using the 720×480 dimensions, thinking that would fill the frame. Rofrano gave me the dimension:

For a Standard Definition project 720×480 PAR 0.91 (which is 655×480 square pixels) that would be 1310×960.

Bruce Hildebrand
204 475-1618
gbhildebrand@shaw.ca

[John Rofrano]

Just curious, what is PAR 0.91? and why is the vertical dimension the same and the horizontal smaller?

PAR stands for Pixel Aspect Ratio. In Video, pixels are not always square. Sometimes they are wider or thinner than they are tall. This is why the first dimension is the only one that is affected by PAR. DV video uses a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9091 (or 0.91 rounded) mean that DV pixels are 0.91 thinner than they are tall.

Pixels on a computer and thus computer images are square. In order to match an image to video you need to convert the video dimensions to square pixels. Therefore 720 x 0.91 = 655. This means that your images should be 655×480 to match the video and look correct (i.e., not stretched). DV Widescreen has a PAR of 1.2121 so 720 x 1.2121 = 872.7 (or 873 rounded). If you want an image to look correct for DV Widescreen video you should crop to 873×480 (or multiples of that).

~jr

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

[Jason Schwartz]

Thanks John!

Without help like this I couldn’t begin to use this software. Thanks a million.

[John Rofrano]

You’re welcome Jason. Glad I could help.

~jr

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