Portrait photos imported into avid are stretched – how to avoid?

[Kenton Vannatten]

Your client is right to give you a hard time.

a) photos should not be “imported” into Avid (especially if you’re going to do any kinds of zooms/pans on them. Avid Pan & Zoom is designed to maintain aspect and quality.

b) if these are graphic images (ie logos, etc) then use one of the “Maintain” options in the Import settings to keep the aspect correct.

Kenton VanNatten
Avid Editor (for hire)

[Chris Foogs]

Hello Kenton – thanks for that (helpful?) reply.

I’m glad you feel I should be getting a hard time…

So perhaps you would be kind enough to walk me through getting a high resolution scanned photograph into avid in a way that preserves its quality?

And I am stupid, so baby steps would be appreciated. Many thanks.

[Kenton Vannatten]

You can use Avid Pan & Zoom.

P&Z is an effect, you point to the image file and then you can make adjustments to the image with regard to position and scale. Because it merely points to the actual image, then you’re using the full image quality of the original image and not a compressed version (as you do when you import it)

One caveat is that the image can not be larger than about 3500×3500 pixels or so. If your image exceeds that size you will need to use an image editing software (ie, Photoshop) to resize it down.

The process of using Pan & Zoom is too involved to explain here, there are likely tutorials all over the web on using Avid Pan & Zoom that will be able to give more detail.

Kenton VanNatten
Avid Editor (for hire)

[Job Ter burg]

I disagree with Kenton. In 16×9 projects, there is NO way to maintain pixel aspect ratio, it will always screw up imports. Pan & Zoom is not always necessary, and is a memory eater.
I’ve used the following workaround: switch the 16×9 SD project to an HD project, import the graphics (maintain aspect ratio), switch back to SD, transcode the imports to SD.
Only HD projects can convert from square pixels to a 16×9 image, in SD projects, the conversion is always done based on the pixel aspect ratio for 4×3 display. It is one of the stupidest things in Avid these days, and something that has lacked proper addressing for at least 10 years.
So as far as who deserves the hard time here, I am of a different opinion…. 😉

[Gary Hazen]

You could run the pics through PS before importing them.

Create a new doc using the NTSC D1 Widescreen square pixel preset.
Drop in your pics, scale down and reframe if necessary.

When importing to the Avid use “scale to fit” in the import settings.
This will convert the pixel dimensions from 864 x 486 (square pixels) to 720 x 486 (non-square pixels).

Alternatively, you could scale the widescreen image to 720 x 486 in PS before saving the file. And then use the maintain setting in the Avid import settings. Some argue that PS does a better job of scaling an image. I think it’s subjective. Either workflow will result in a proper anamorphic image.

In addition to dealing with the mismatched par’s, passing the images through PS is also good for cleaning up of the images. In the long run it will save you time in the edit.

I’m not going to say that you deserved to get beat up by your client, but I will say what leaves your shop is your responsibility. The problem with photos and aspect ratios is that sometimes it can be difficult to spot errors in aspect ratios. A perfectly round logo that turns into an egg on the montior is easy to spot. A photo of Bob in accounting isn’t quite as easy. You don’t know Bob – is he fat or skinny? Of course your clients know Bob very well. They know he’s been on the South beach diet for months and is in fact skinny – except of course on the video they just received.

[Bruce Rawlings]

not being a graphics person I use stage tools, quick simple to use and foolproof for any project.