A Titillating Tickler on Titling (page 3)

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Non-square Pixels

A graphic created in a graphics editor (e.g., Photoshop) will look distorted when brought into editing software and displayed on your TV. This is because your editing software uses what is called non-square pixels that look more like a tall rectangle, rather than the square pixels that graphics editors use. You'll want to create a frame size in your graphics program that is equivalent to the video frame size you'll be editing with. If you are using newer graphics programs such as Photoshop CS or After Effects 6, there is a preset built into the program that does this automatically when you create a new document.

Otherwise, you will need to do some converting. If you are editing a DV-NTSC 4:3 video aspect ratio (720x480), create a 720x534 canvas at 72 dpi in your graphics editor (for other video sizes, search the Web for non-square pixel images). When you have finished creating your image, save it as a Photoshop file (.psd) in case you need to make changes in the future. Now re-sample (don't resize) the image by going to Image>Image Size and change the Pixel Dimensions to 720x480, keeping the Resolution at 72. Make sure Constrain Proportions is unchecked and Bicubic is selected from the Resample Image pull-down. Save as a new file. It may appear stretched in your editor but will look normal on a TV set.

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Alpha Channels for Compositing

If you make your title in a graphics program like Photoshop, you must make sure you have an alpha channel attached to your image before it is exported. Make sure it is actually exported with your image, check that your editing program imports the alpha channel (most do automatically but check the preferences) and be doubly aware that it is displayed properly in your project.

As far as creating and exporting, we will use Photoshop as our example, as it is the most used image software. When creating a new title to be composited, make sure you open a new file with a transparent background (check the Transparent option in the dialog box that appears when you create a new file). Once you have made the image, create a new channel in the Channels window, second button from the right at the bottom of the window (usually grouped with the Layers window). Creating this new channel is putting an alpha channel into the image that the editing software will need in order to assemble the transparency of the image. (However, you might not need to make this channel if you're using newer editing software applications, as many of them can automatically detect the transparency built into the .psd itself.) We then save as a Photoshop file and make sure the Save Layers button is checked. Now, as long as your editing software is set up to accept alpha channels, you should be in good shape.