stills in browser

[Bret Williams]

In the photog world the benefit of RAW that the data can all be changed without any detriment to the image. The file can be reopened and readjusted. You’re actually changing the display characteristics of the image. You’re just saying interpret the blacks darker, the blues more red, the whites more yellow, etc.

If you try to do this to a compressed jpeg, then just like video it has to be “rendered” upon output. Meaning it has to be run through the jpeg compressor again upon saving.

Since we’re doing that anyway to whatever stills you bring in, RAW or otherwise, I don’t see any point in you brining in RAW. Plus, to edit raw, you have to have specific software that can adjust the raw parameters. FCP has these adjustments for particular formats of video, but I don’t believe it has them for stills. So any adjustments to color and such is just a standard color effect, downstream of the raw data anyway. And FCP is recompressing the image to the resolution and codec of the timeline anyway.

Yes, images of that size are very taxing on FCP. Since they’re probably 10x the file size of a jpeg, they require more memory and processing power. Because they’re twice the resolution they need to be, they require more memory and processing power.

If you have a lot of these, batch processing them first to pngs or jpegs in photoshop at half their horizontal dimension would be a good idea. You can color correct them in FCP if you like if that gives you more flexibility, but I’d do it to the final product just like a video. Not in the browser.

[Bret Williams]

I have psds and pngs in my browser right now. Neither can open in timeline.

[Bret Williams]

Take that back. I found a few of the psds could. But not the pngs. Must be a format thing. Could be some are from CS6 or less from the client, and the pngs are CC from me or vice versa. Definitely something going on.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Bret,
Been doing some searches about raw stills. Ripple training has a tutorial on a work flow in which any changes you make in photoshop (non destructive) is added to the same file in FC. But consistently all the articles indicate the need for a different application to send the files to FC. They mention that FC can not manipulate the raw stills directly. However, and again I’m talking without any experience except for the last week, When I put one of these raw files on a timeline, the color correction in FC seems to work just fine. FC does not have as many of the controls I see on these dedicated programs but I am able to adjust exposure, color, saturation, add filters, etc. Did 10.1 add the ability to work with raw stills? Or am I not really taking advantage of all the raw data that is the whole point of starting with raw files? The promise seems to be that since the image isn’t baked as it would be with jpegs that you can adjust settings that normally would have had to take place when you shot it.

Not really sure what this implies. If I shot with a certain F-stop, ISO, and shutter speed which are the variables that effect exposure, raw files can have the pixels manipulated in a way a baked image cannot? F-stop also controls the depth of field and I don’t see that changing because its raw. Shutter speed can’t be changed after the fact, it was only open so long – that is the imaging chip was only exposed to the incoming light for so long. What exactly gets baked if you let the camera process the image as a jpeg? That is left untouched as a raw file? And other than more control in dedicated programs, what can’t FC do exactly? I’ve exported changes I’ve made in the timeline using save as still and my changes are there in the exported image. I don’t own any more capable program except I now downloaded resolve lite. No one seems to mention this as an option other than for color correcting (not processing raw files). If I need to I will get photoshop or aperture or the like. iPhoto has the ability to process raw files but with more basic tools than the pro apps. Still for the time being if I need to is that a reasonable option?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Craig Alan] “If I need to I will get photoshop or aperture or the like. iPhoto has the ability to process raw files but with more basic tools than the pro apps. Still for the time being if I need to is that a reasonable option?”

Pixelmator has some good tools that will take you beyond iPhoto and it’s very cheap:

https://www.pixelmator.com/

Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Dave Gage]

Bret,

As a slight aside to the topic here…

I haven’t thought about this since the beginnings of FCPX, but although it can handle many formats, is it still assumed that the default photo format should be a .png? I seem to remember someone saying that since FCPX outputs stills as a .png that this would be the format it “likes” best.

Thanks,
Dave

[Bret Williams]

I don’t know. But ever since pngs came around and you could save a multilayered psd as a png and the transparency was perfectly preserved (without the need to go into the channels palette and cut your own alpha channel) I’ve switched to them. Jpg has always seemed to be the least compatible on many ways. It’s compressed, so it has overheAd to decompress. And in the past with different AJA and matrox and BMD boards I got different results. Sometimes they wouldn’t preview to the client monitor unless placed in the timeline. However, in my last days with legacy, any time I loaded a png in the viewer, it would crash. And it happened just the other day on a machine where I’ve just run legacy for the first time, making that the 4th system in a row over 3 years that I’ve seen that behavior.

[Dave Gage]

[Bret Williams] “But ever since pngs came around and you could save a multilayered psd as a png and the transparency was perfectly preserved (without the need to go into the channels palette and cut your own alpha channel) I’ve switched to them.”

Yep, they seem to be trouble free in FCPX for my experience. I was just wondering if the thinking had changed on their use.

I still can’t really email .pngs to people that may be on Windows. Whenever I email a screenshot I always convert it in Preview to a .jpg first so I don’t have to go through the process again later when they complain that they can’t “see” the picture.

[Craig Alan]

[Bret Williams] “And FCP is recompressing the image to the resolution and codec of the timeline anyway.”

Wondered about this. When I highlight a clip on the timeline and get info in the inspector the info is about the original clip with no mention of any compression or timeline codec. Where can I see that metadata?

The slight advantage I see in FC when I color correct the raw image over its jpeg version is with raw I don’t start with any baked in decisions. If I toggle between them I can see the difference. In the ripple training, the actual image changes in photoshop were not destructive; it was added like a filter.

[Bret Williams] “So any adjustments to color and such is just a standard color effect, downstream of the raw data anyway. And FCP is recompressing the image to the resolution and codec of the timeline anyway.”

I don’t have any orange lines on the timeline.

I tried a simple timeline with one p2 video clip, one jpeg, one raw of the same shot and shared as a master file. It exported as a 1080p movie and did so very quickly, no obvious rendering at all.

It played back fine in QT. The stills were not corrected in any way and the raw was only a little different.

When I first imported the stills, FC did slow down until the background task was complete. I am not having any trouble with working with these raw files. They seem to be treated just like anything else I’m working with and the file sizes are certainly not any bigger than my video clips. They are about 5-6 times the size of the jpegs from the same camera which I shot with in case raw wouldn’t work in FC. Since FC color correction can be toggled on and off I don’t see anything being changed to the original files. In the finder the dates are still the dates when the shots were taken. I’m going to ask black magic if resolve can process these. I wish adobe didn’t have this cloud subscription thing. The ripple training on raw is very user friendly and I’d love to add some of the touch up ability of photoshop to my edits. Not really wanting to go that cloud route.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Bill Davis]

General fact – video screen rasters are nearly always WAY lower rez than modern photo rasters.

So re-sizing is a mess from square one.

And I don’t think it’s as simple as the above discussion makes it out to be – because of the target screen resolution that is in play for ALL video – even 4K – and the way that the Mac OS handles screen processing of stills.

Some examples.

I took a DSLR still from a studio photoshoot I did two weeks ago (5DMkii RAW 22.5Megapixel master) and exported two versions out of Lightroom.
One at 1920X1080 with the pixel raster density set to 600 dpi. (Test for X-1) and one four times as large a raster 7680X4320 but half the pixel raster density 300dpi (Text for X-2)

I dropped each into a FCP-X storyline set at 1920×1080 720p.

Understand that Version 1 is 848K (kilobytes) in size. While Version 2 is a whopping 10M (megabytes)

Here’s the photo at full size in the X editing interface – trust me that at this apparent size, you can’t tell ANY difference between the two files at all as you might expect.

Now the fun begins.
If I push in to 800% enlargement – the difference is notable.

But what about at 400%?

This is a perfectly functional zoom level for moves on stills – and it’s extremely difficult to see the difference.

Here are both files at that zoom level. I won’t say which is which.

Now I know that all these are smaller screen caps (click to enlarge them somewhat) – and any differences would be enhanced by looking at full screen caps – but on the other hand if the stills are in motion – then the moving video raster will be blurring the apparent resolution anyway. So I bet it’s a push.

Test on your own, but just know that with modern compression and the modern code in X, it’s perfectly sensible to use much, much smaller file sizes and still get really good results.

Remember, the difference in file sizes is more than 10 TIMES – 848k verses 10megs

Maybe with the new MacPro this won’t matter. But if you’re doing a 300 photo show – it’s definitely orders of magnitude different.

FWIW.

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