Photos Look Like Crap

[David Roth weiss]

[lou egress] “When I import still photos into final cut and splice them in with moving images, in the final exported AVI, the photos in the sequence are of very poor, pixelated quality. Why is this and what should I do?”

Lou,

First, welcome to The Cow.

Next, you’ll need to tell us more about what you’re doing before we can help you.

For instance, why are you even discussing exporting an AVI? FCP is a Quicktime based editing system.

Are you just starting out with FCP? If so, there are some very nice tutorials I can point you to that will help you get started properly.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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[Lou Egress]

Hi David,
I worked with final cut in high school but it’s been about 5 years
so I’m rusty. But actually its final cut express, sorry I might have
posted in the wrong place. When I export the project, I select .avi
using the quicktime conversion option.

I’m working fine with the program, I’m just trying to get a little
help understanding how to best insert still images into the
sequence and maintain the quality of the image. -lou

[David Roth weiss]

Well, that explains a lot Lou.

First FCE is very limited in that it limits you to working with in the DV codec, which hits text, graphics, and photos with a huge compression hit. So, your pristine photos are going to get absolutely hammered in FCE. You could try to edit using AIC, or Apple Intermediate Codec, which is I believe the only other choice you have. That’s not a great codec either, but it should be better than DV.

If you really need something better you’re going to have to get Final Cut Pro, which has many picture friendly codecs to choose from.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Adam Smith]

I’ve never used FCE, but here’s a few basic FCP things to try:

• Size the photo as close to what you need before importing.
• When repositioning the photo, use round numbers (250 instead of 249.6) for the center coordinates.

The DV codec surely isn’t doing you any favors, but I’d do some testing to narrow things down as well. Probably the easiest is to do the two steps above with a fresh sequence (set properly for your video), leave the photo centered and static, and export a quicktime movie without changing any export settings.

-Adam

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor