importing to FCP from Photoshop

[Tom Matthies]

Are you editing at DV resolution? Titles will look a bit fuzzy after rendering although, with the right graphics, the quality can be pretty good. If possible edit at a higher quality setting, DVC50 or 8-bit uncompressed will look better and not be too taxing on your storage. It also depends on your typefaces and size. Serif or highly detailed typefaces will go soft pretty quickly. Obviously, tiny type will fall apart as well. If you’ve repositioned the type/graphic, it’s usually good to position it vertically on an even scan line, not a fractonal value. Sometimes just nudging it up/down a pixel can solve, or at least minimize the problem. Avoid scaling your graphics if possible. Compising them, more or less in place, will give you the best results. Also, highly saturated colors will fuzz out more than clean white or black characters. Gradients aren’t usually too much of a problem, but again, highly staurated colors, especially with text overlaying them, can have problems. Stick to a “good” format to save and import your graphics. I usually use .PSD, .PNG, .tiff,. or .pict with good results. Try to avoid j-pegs or bmp’s when possible, expecially ones using higher compressions. If you have PhotoShop CS, use one of the preset templates for DV video and avoid the conversion necessary to import into a video program.
Just a few thoughts…
Tom

[Russell Hill]

I found this to be helpful.
https://www.geniusdv.com/photoshop%20final%20cut%20pro.php

[Russell Hill]

I found this to be helpful.
https://www.geniusdv.com/photoshop%20final%20cut%20pro.php

[Bryce Whiteside]

KenStone.net
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html
>Graphics – Photoshop
NEWER REVISED: The Basics – Preparing Photoshop files for FCP – Ken Stone
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_ps.html

OLDER: Photoshop Titles – Tom Wolsky
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_photoshop_files.html

LarryJordan.biz
Technique: Prepping Still Images for Video – Larry Jordan
https://larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_image_prep.html

Getting PhotoShop Images to Look Good in Final Cut – Carl Jacobs
https://larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_pixels.html

If your gradients look bad, I am guessing you are editing in DV or once in FCP you are interpreting your alpha wrong if you want your gradient semi-transparent.

HTH,
Bryce

Don’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…

PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion

[Bryce Whiteside]

From one of my posts in Feb. 2005
https://tinyurl.com/crqkr

The trick to bring in Photoshop layers in registration is as follows:

1. In Photoshop create a new layer at the top of your layers and name it Ref or Reference and make sure it is selected.

2. Create a one pixel selection in the upper left hand corner. Hint-zoom all the way in and try and make the small Marquee Tool selection.

3. Go to the Navigator and move your view window all the way to the lower right and hold the Shift key while making the Marquee Tool in the lower right hand corner-you are adding to your first selection that is still in the upper left hand corner.

4. Fill the selection, the two points in the upper left and lower right hand with Black. Hint-Opt+Delete to fill with the foreground color or Cmd+Delete to fill with the background color.

5. Type 0, 1 to make the layer 99% transperant or 01% opaque.

6. In the layer menu hold the Opt key down and select Merge Down from the upper right hand pull down menu (the little arrowhead pointing to right you see at the very top of the Layers Window) over your layer of rasterize text. Then for each layer of rasterized text place your Ref layer just above it and repeat holding the Opt key down and selecting Merge Down from the upper right hand pull down menu making sure you Ref layer is the one selected. What this does is make each layer of rasterized text have the same canvas size and registering the position of your text or any layer element in the Photoshop document. Holding the Opt key while selecting Merge Down prevents the Ref frame from destroying itself when Merging Down. It in essences merges a copy of itself down.

7. As a rule of thumb I then place the Ref layer at the top of the document, select it and type 100 to make my two pixel dots in the upper left hand corner and lower right hand corner visible so I can see them if I zoom in to make sure they are there.

If you work in SD ITU-601 you could alway have a template .PSD file with a canvas size of 720 x 540 with your Ref or Reference frame already in there along with a SafeTitle layer. If you work in DV you want a canvas size of 720 x 534. If you use these numbers, FCP will automatically recognize number and resize to 720 x 486 or 720 x 480 respectively. If you use a larger canvas size make sure it is in the TV 4 x 3 square pixel aspect ratio. Let’s say your .PSD canvas is 1440 x 1080 and FCP doesn’t recognize that aspect ratio, go to Motion>Distort>Aspect Ratio and type in -12.5 to achieve the video pixel aspect ratio of .9. Don’t ask me why the Aspect Ratio of -12.5 works in FCP, but I do know that is the number FCP automatically calculates when you import a 720 x 540 .PSD canvas into FCP.

HTH,
Bryce

Don’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…

PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion