Aeolan Kelly
Forum Replies Created
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I should clarify something in my response too. When I say “no” in my first sentence, I mean “no” to bigger pixel dimensions translating into better quality images onscreen. DPI is a print term only, and irrelevant to video. The bottom line is that if your images originate with a small frame size, no matter what their dpi in print, they’ll remain low-res in video when you import them into your project and have to resize them to match your video footage or other stills.
This becomes a problem if you want to put moves on your images, like zooming into certain areas, etc., because the smaller the frame size of the original image, the more pixellated it will become when you zoom in on it. This is what I mean when I compare blowing up the image in Photoshop to raising the volume of an audio clip as opposed to the levels. The frame size is what really affects your quality of stills in FCP. It’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to collect all your stills at a compatible frame size as the majority of your video footage without having to rescale them yourself in photoshop or FCP.
I like vectorizing my still images because it offers me more options as an editor. If I need to rescale a still, vectors enable me to scale my stills up and down without losing quality. If I need to make a still image bigger in FCP but retain high res, I create my desired frame size in Illustrator/Photoshop, and re-import into FCP. A practical example of why I do this came up on a doc, where I needed to repurpose a particular still that we’d used in the edit as background to use in the titles. The director wanted to blow it up a lot, but when we did that, the quality was awful. That’s when I first became aware of this kind of workaround.
There are also softwares that will convert your stills into higher-res versions of themselves for you (as opposed to going through the Illustrator steps I mentioned in my other comment), but I just go with the tools that are already in my Photoshop suite.
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Final Cut Pro 7 For Non-Editors
https://practicalfcp.publishpath.com -
“So… can I just ignore the dpi as it is just a print thing- and resize the pixels so that each image is bigger- ( and by extension, the dpi is bigger) and will these bigger pixel dimensions mean better quality on screen?
No. It is akin to turning up the volume on audio that has lots of background noise, instead of raising the audio levels. As the other commenter noted, SD to HD will always make your images look lower quality anyway– are you editing in SD or HD?
Either way, if you can access an SD monitor and an HD monitor for your cutting room, you’ll have a fairly good idea of what your final product will look like, compared with your original footage. If you can only get one monitor, consider what your final delivery format will be and go with that. For example, if you’re going to be projecting in HD at festivals, definitely have an HD monitor so that you don’t get any rude surprises about what your SD footage will look like once it’s being stretched across the much higher-rez HD signals.
As far as your stills, the only way you can make your smaller dpi images look better when you resize them in FCP is to vectorize them. For this, I use Adobe Illustrator, though there are other programs than can be used to accomplish this. A vector file allows you to enlarge and reduce your image without loss of any quality. This requires some work, and the process in this case isn’t failsafe– you’ll almost definitely have to bring your pictures back into Photoshop and finesse them a bit to make them look acceptable. This may require some painting in the backgrounds, or blurring areas to create smoother lines– it all depends on the quality of the original image though. When you’re starting from a low-res image to begin with, you’re fighting an uphill battle. I’d give this a shot though, esp. if you’re going to be projecting onto larger screens.
Here’s one way to convert your .psd files into vectors:
Right-click/control-click on the file you want to vectorize, and select “Open with,” then select “Illustrator” from the options. Choose to convert layers to objects or flatten all of the layers into a single image in the “Photoshop Import Options” dialog box that appears. Choose “Flatten Layers to a Single Image” option for most photographs. Click “OK.”
Alternatively, you can open your file in Photoshop first then flatten it there. I strongly suggest making a copy of your .PSD file first, by control-clicking it and selecting “Duplicate” from the pop-up. Flattening layers isn’t something you can undo after you have saved your file as a flattened image in Photoshop. Then, open your flattened .PSD file in Illustrator.
Select “Object,” then”Live Trace,” and “Tracing Options” from the menu at the top of the page. Select “Photo High Fidelity” from the Preset drop-down in the dialogue box, and set the Max Colors slider to “256.” This will create paths as close as possible to the paths in your .PSD file. Click “Trace.”
NOTE – if you don’t see the “Trace” option, click “Okay” to close the dialogue box, then click “okay” in the menu bar and see if it appears there. This may vary somewhat in different versions of Illustrator.
From the “Object” menu, now select “Expand.” This will convert the trace into paths, thereby vectorizing your image.
Select “File” and “Save As” from the application menu, enter a name for your new file and select either “.ai” or “.eps” from the Format drop-down. These are the common vector file formats– “.ai” is the proprietary format for Illustrator, and “.eps” is a more universal format which can be edited in other vector programs.
So, after all this, you may still want to bring your file into Photoshop again (do make another copy first, as a backup), and add some blurs, etc, to even out the more pixellated areas. I don’t know if Photoshop Elements will let you do this, but it’s worth a try at least.
I wouldn’t panic if your attempts to vectorize your images aren’t perfect, for if they are slightly lower-res to begin with, they’ll probably match the SD footage more closely.
If they’re really grainy and unviewable, another option might be to either scan high-res versions of the pictures, or take photos of them with a digital camera set to a high res capture mode. I know in a doc it’s not always possible to return to all your sources, but suggesting that as a last-ditch effort if all else fails.
Hope this helps!
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Final Cut Pro 7 For Non-Editors
https://practicalfcp.publishpath.com -
Hi,
Sounds like your video card is freaking out– that’s the green screen you’re seeing. What kind of card do you have in your machine?
Assuming you are using the card your computer shipped with, try turning off the icon view in the bins and the timeline. I know you want to see everything, but if you have thousands of clips in there, all of them showing a real-time preview of your footage, that’s eating up a lot of RAM and likely contributing to the crashes. At best, it will just slow down the project. At worst, it will crash a lot.
I describe how to trash the correct prefs below, but if that doesn’t help your situation, try using the Finder in your workaround.
In FCP, open a bin with the clips you want to view, and turn off icon view. Arrange your FCP windows so that you can also see an open Finder window containing the Quicktimes that correspond to the clips you need to review. Select icon view in the Finder, or use Apple + 1. If the icons are too small, either use the slider at the lower RH side of the Finder window to enlarge them (I think that’s a feature in OS 10.6, can’t recall), or Control-click anywhere in the Finder window to get a pop-up, and select “View Options.” Here, you can increase the icon size.
You can see your footage at a glance this way, by looking at the original Quicktimes, and then enter your notes about the footage back in FCP, in the columns in the bins. This method is a workaround I particularly like because it uses different memory than FCP does. In other words, there is certain RAM delegated to just powering FCP, but the Finder has its own delegation.
When you trash your preferences, make sure you’re really trashing the correct files. First, save your project, and if you don’t already know all your settings, take screen grabs of them. On a mac, do Shift + Apple + 3 for the fullscreen, or Shift + Apple + 4 to select only a portion of the screen.
Back up your project as well. Completely trashing the FCP prefs will reset all selected user preferences, system, and A/V settings back to the defaults, so make sure you know what your current A/V and system settings are, to recreate them. This won’t erase your keyboard or column/window/button/etc. settings, just reset the defaults in FCP so that you have to select your customized pre-sets again.
Find the FCP prefs here:
HD>Users>Library>Preferences>Final Cut Pro User Data.
In here you’ll find the folders containing keyboard profiles, window layouts, etc., and you’ll also see three small files that resemble FCP project files. In your system, they’ll be called
Final Cut Pro 6.0 Preferences
Final Cut Pro Obj cache
Final Cut Pro Prof cacheThrow out these three files listed above, and restart your computer.
Another issue you may face with so much footage, also relating to playback issues/dropped frames, is that FCP gets crabby with really long sequences. This of course depends on what is in them (lots of graphics, lots of different file formats, lots of still images, etc.). For example, if you are cutting a doc and you have 45 min in one timeline of just assembled or rough-cut clips, you’ll probably be fine, unless you have all the preview icons/waveforms selected as well. That will slow down the seq a bit, even on a powerful machine. If you have that same 45 minutes and lots of fx, mixed formats, stills, complicated renders, etc, you’re looking at even more slowing down.
Whenever I’ve cut features in FCP, I ended up having to break them up into smaller sequences, and then combine them later for viewing/output, etc. This includes cutting on super-fast systems on a SAN, with all the bells and whistles under the hood. But for my own everyday workflow, I didn’t want to be slowed down and having to trash prefs/restart constantly, which is what happened during long projects once I was past the assembly stages.
Your idea of having one FCP project for clips and one for timelines is smart– I definitely use that myself when grappling with long-form projects. Eventually, when I get to the final stages, I may export the entire film overnight and then have a viewing version that I can produce quickly for the execs/director/production, etc. That way I don’t have to worry about playback issues or dropped frames during a viewing with the people who are paying for everything!
Hope this helps!
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Final Cut Pro 7 For Non-Editors
https://practicalfcp.publishpath.com -
Hi,
This answer is a bit late to the table, but try holding down the “Option” key when emptying the trash.
Make sure you’re closed out of any open applications. If that doesn’t work, restart your computer, make sure any auto-launch applications are closed, and try holding down Option again while you empty the trash.
You have to hold the Option key down the whole time you are executing the command, but you can let go once the trash begins to empty.
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Final Cut Pro 7 For Non-Editors
https://practicalfcp.publishpath.com -
Have you tried DivX for creating your .avi files? They have a free download you can try to make sure it fits your workflow before you cough up all the cash.
https://www.divx.com/en/software/mac/pro
They do have a caveat– ending some support for the software at the end of this month, which isn’t great timing. However, they did say they were going to still do patches, etc.
They have a tutorial on how to use it with FCP here:
https://rovicorp.force.com/Show_DivxB2C_Article?id=kA540000000CaUn&language=en_US&url=Using-DivX-Pro-with-Final-Cut-ProHope this helps!
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Final Cut Pro 7 For Non-Editors
https://practicalfcp.publishpath.com -
There is no difference in the quality of your export. As far as nesting creating problems, that depends on the length and complexity of your timeline, and what you’re going to do with it afterwards.
In my experience, there are times when nesting is very helpful, and speeds up my workflow immensely, particularly when I’ve worked in on-air promos with projects for regular clients. However, the way editors organize their projects is very subjective.
For the most part, I’m inclined to agree with Shane Ross that it can cause issues. Usually though, I’ve found that those problems are more of an organizational nature than anything else. My biggest peeve about nests is that if you have to add length to them, you have to copy and paste the entire nest (or its contents) into a new sequence, lengthen them there, and re-paste it back into the main timeline. Not always, it’s just easier if you have loads of overlapping cuts and video tracks.
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You can also nest your entire sequence into another timeline, and apply filters to the resulting nest. Then you can load the nest into the viewer and manipulate the effect settings there, and they’ll be applied to your entire edit. If you decide you don’t like the filters, you can just create a new nest and repeat the workflow, or you can disable the filters by unchecking them in the tabs in the viewer. You can also delete the filters altogether and add new ones. In doing this, the filters will only be applied to the nest, not to the individual clips, and if you need to change or get rid of them later, you don’t have to worry about going through every clip and deleting only the attributes you don’t like (that’s a very time-consuming process, especially if you other filters on individual clips).
To do this, create a new sequence and drag the icon of your edited sequence into the new one. When a dialogue box pops up asking if you want to change the settings of this new timeline to the old one, say “yes.”
When working with nests, if you doubleclick the nested sequence, it will simply open the original sequence back up in a new timeline. The idea here is to treat the nest as a standalone clip, so that you can apply one filter to the whole thing and be done with it. Assuming your edit station can handle the real-time processing, this is a fast way to preview the effected look of the overall project, while still being able to make changes in the original edit.
To load the nested sequence into the viewer as a standalone object, control-click or right-click on the icon of your nested sequence (either in the timeline or in the browser) and select “open in viewer.” Then you can go into the tabs in the viewer and play with the detailed settings on the filter(s).
An alternative to nesting and putting a filter on the nest is exporting the picture-lock to Quicktime (File>export QT movie, not QT conversion), then re-importing it. When the dialogue box comes up asking what kind of settings you want to use, select “current settings,” and un-check “recompress all frames.”
By exporting it as a standalone FCP referenced Quicktime, you ensure that the frame size and codecs are the same, and the new file should just drop right into the timeline on top of your audio. Do this on a different track if you’re nervous, and disable the view option on the video track of your cut sequence. It’ll work either way. The difference between this and nesting your sequence though, is that you won’t be able to just step into the nest and make changes to the edit, you’ll have to go back to the original sequence, make your changes, and then re-export the video and re-import it. This second method is also helpful if you are on a laptop, or if your video card doesn’t have the power to process all the effects. Though it takes a little longer, it can save you a lot of headaches on a lower-end hardware system.