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still photo picture quality
I’m working with an anamorphic sequence, bringing in some tiff photos to the timeline. When I try to zoom in on one of these images, the picture quality becomes fuzzy in the monitor and canvas. But, when I double click on the image clip, the picture quality looks sharp in
the viewer. All the timeline settings are at “dymanic”, and since I am working with the new FCP Studio, these images are not requiring rendering. If I zoom in on a video clip in the timeline, the picture quality looks great in both the viewer and canvas. The picture quality only differs with still photos.As an experiment, I exported a Quick Time movie of the sequence to my desktop, and played the clip through the Quick Time viewer, and the still photo images look fine.
What the heck am I doing wrong? I need to get the photos looking good in the monitor and canvas so I can work with them, create movements, colour correct and so forth.
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13 Replies
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turn your video processing in the Sequence to High.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
rsvp@biscardicreative.com to reserve seats.
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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It sounds like your resolution is set at 72dpi. It looks good in normal mode but will get fuzzy or pixilate when zoomed in on.
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72 dpi is fine, it’s what you should use. The problem is the images are not properly optimized in Photoshop. I usually go twice the width of the frame or 1440 pixels. I guess in this case it would be 1928 or thereabouts. This is large enough for nearly any pan/zoom but small enough so that FCP doesn’t choke on it or add undue flicker or other artifacts. This last part is most important.
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[jbrad2] “It sounds like your resolution is set at 72dpi. It looks good in normal mode but will get fuzzy or pixilate when zoomed in on.”
72 dpi is all you need for video. It’s the frame size that matters when you zoom in. If you want to zoom in on an image, it needs to have a very large frame size, like 1500 x 1500 to allow for a clean zoom in.
Higher dpi is just for the printing process.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
rsvp@biscardicreative.com to reserve seats.
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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For a pan you’re right, but for a really good zoom 150dpi is better. It won’t fit on the track complete but you can use the 72 dpi for the big picture and the 150 dpi for the zooms.
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I stand corrected. Thanks Walter.
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Walter,
I always appreciate you validating my suggestions, thanks.
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[jbrad2] “I stand corrected. Thanks Walter.”
This is always a confusing topic so it’s no biggy. Whenever I scan items for use in video I actually scan them at 1200 – 2400 dpi to ensure that they will be huge when I drop the resolution down to 72. But the real key is I have graphics with frame sizes of 2000 x 2000 or larger.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
rsvp@biscardicreative.com to reserve seats.
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Thanks for all the comments. However, after toying with this a bit more I am know suspicious I have a software bug. By adding a bit of movement to the still clips, a red render bar “sometimes” appears…hit and miss. When I get the opportunity to render the clip, the picture quality smartens up.
If I recall, in previous versions of FCP, any time I dropped a photo clip into the timeline, a red render bar would appear. I just upgraded to FCP Studio, and wondered why the render bar was light grey. If I play with the clip a bit by adding movement, or colour correction, sometimes I can then render the clip, sometimes not.
Sometimes if I change the time line playback settings back & forth, that will prompt a red render bar, but only sometimes. There is no logic to this glitch.
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[mcguffin] “Sometimes if I change the time line playback settings back & forth, that will prompt a red render bar, but only sometimes. There is no logic to this glitch.”
That’s not a glitch, that’s Dynamic RT. Just turn that off in your timeline if you always want to force a render. With Dynamic RT, FCP attempts to do everything in realtime. Everything will look fairly lousy in realtime and the reason for Dynamic RT is to allow the editor to keep working and just render later.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
rsvp@biscardicreative.com to reserve seats.
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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