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my jpg stills distorted during compression on FCP
I shot a film with a 5dm2 (24fps) and stills with the same camera. I have made a film in FCP and have included many stills in the film. They look great in the viewer. Some of them are keyframed as well. I compress the video, according to all Vimeo suggested settings for FCP. ALL of the stills, in the compressed film come out terribly distorted and elongated. I went back and checked the attributes on the stills and saw that FCP had added, without my knowledge the “distort” filter. So, then, I went through every still, and removed the “distort” filter, recompressed and the same thing happened… all stills are distorted after working 2 days on trying to fix it. I am willing to redo ALL of the stills, if someone would just give me the correct, direct information on exact size, dpi, pixel ratio, and format. I have been trying to fix this for weeks to no avail. There must be solid information on what to do with my stills in Photoshop before importing them to FCP – but I cannot find it anywhere.
Information I need:
save as: format?
pixel dimension?
document size?
scale styles (check box?)
constrain proportion (check box?)
resample image (check box?)
PLUS: any advice on keyframing stills?Also, my film in FCP is widescreen rectangle, and when compressed becomes a square, which also may be contributing to the problem… Please help! I would really appreciate it. Thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom.
Best,
Annie -
12 Replies
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I save jpg’s as PNG files in PhotoShop first.
However,72dpi
RGB
Square PixIf you are making moves on the stills, Motion or AE do this much better then FCP. But, for moves, make the still larger then the size you are working in.
If no moves,
Make the stills the same size as your video. 1920×1080 for example.
I find stills that are WAY larger then needed, end up not looking so good after making a move on them in FCP…
Compressing your final video should not create distorted stills while the video looks fine.
Export “Current Settings” of you finished edit. Check that file before compressing for delivery.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
“Export “Current Settings” of you finished edit. Check that file before compressing for delivery.” how do u do this? I am not sure what u mean. I am sorry, but I am new to this….
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Finish the edit.
Make Sequence settings the highest.
Fully Render.
Choose File-Export.
Use Current Settings.
Export to desktop.
Leave FCP.
Double click movie file on the desktop.
Play Video, how does it look? Good? Drop into compressor or Episode or Squeeze.Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Yes, you are organizing a big mess, but you haven’t mention yet the only thing that matters:
Which are your sequence setting?
rafael -
ok. when I export to quicktime move – not compressing it, it turns out great. the only problem is that I need to compress it, (I think) to upload it to Vimeo. and when I use their suggested settings it looks awful. so, how to I make it a QT movie and THEN drop it into compressor?
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You export the movie file. It looks good.
Yes, you must compress it for Vimeo.
Drop that file into compressor.
Make file for upload.Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Chris, I am embarrassed to ask this, but how do I drop it into compressor? Unfortunately, I don’t even know where compressor is!!! Is it an application on my machine? oh, boy… I have a lot to learn. I really appreciate your help, tremendously…
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Compressor is an app that comes with FCS.
You’re going to have to learn howe to use it if you want to compress video for delivery.
There are tutorials online and you have the manual. It has presets for you that make it easy.Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
I guess that is what I used to compress it for vimeo the first time, when it got distorted. It said “Export-> quicktime conversion” so, I will see if I can figure out how to use it so that it compresses it using the “as sequence” settings. I thought you said that I could “drop it in” compressor, but don’t know how to do that. and my fear is that, since I changed my setting when I compressed it for Vimeo, that those settings are now in place. I tried to see if I could figure out what my current sequence setting are, but can’t figure that out either. I am definitely learning how to walk here.
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Just by what you said regarding the 16:9 widescreen ratio (rectangle) then compressing to a standard 4:3 (square) is definitely contributing to the distortion of your images. First, you need to find whether your recording/shooting in widescreen or standard format before setting your export options in FCP.
Let me get this straight, you’re trying to export a video that incorporates still images on a separate track than the actual movie file, creating a video overlay effect? Second, are the jpeg images distorted and not the video or are they both distorted?
I could be way off with the movie file and using a second track if you’re essentially creating a slideshow with nothing but still images. If that’s the case, you need to make sure both export features in FCP and whatever compressor you’re using have consistent aspect ratios of either 16:9 or 4:3.
Now that I think about it, no matter what the case is, make sure FCP export dimensions are consistent with your compressor!
May I ask what format you’re compressing to?
What’s the name of the program you’re compressing with?
What’s the image size of your still images vs. the video size that you’re exporting and compressing to?
Do you have to use a .Jpeg or can you go with a .Png?
I may need additional input to give you a more solid answer, but this is all I can think of for now.
Brad Kutmas
Bunn-O-Matic Corporation
Instructional Design Specialist
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