Stills in Premiere 6.0 « Videomaker Community Forums

nobody
Member

Ok, I know this is probably childs play to the editing guru, but i am having a terrible time getting still shots into my timeline uniformly. I run Premiere 6.0 and my video frame size is the standard 720 x 480. The problem is that when I scan pictures of various sizes at (600dpi or higher) they never come out right on the time line. They are either pulled out of proportion by expanding to the frame size or there is an awful black border on the top, bottom, or sides. Is the trick in the scanning process? If so What? Is the trick in placing the pics to the time line? If so what? Thanks for any advice or tips you can give... Oh yeah, I typically use windows XP or a generic twain software to scan. Maybe it's in using a better scan software? If so what is a good one?

Posted 8 years ago #
mrvideo
Member

Having wrestled with this subject for many months a year ago I'm 100% confident that the best advice anyone could give you is to start by upgrading to 6.5. If you can't do that you're opening a can of worms, because version 6 has a bug in handling pixel aspect ratio which was never fixed in that version. Jeremymoore.com has a section describing it and the fix for it, but it's a lot of work and if it isn't your only option don't go there. I did work my way through it, including installing his fix but I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not to say I didn't appreciate Jeremy's pioneering, I very much did but I'm SO glad 6.5 got it right.
Having said that, to begin to make it right without the fix you need an image editor capable of creating a blank DV frame sized image (720X480) and allowing you to drag a picture into it and resize it with a tool like free transform (Photoshop for example, maybe PaintShopPro too). If the image you're working with isn't in the 4:3 aspect ratio something will be lost in stretching it to fill the frame - top-bottom or sides. It also has to have enough native resolution to be stretched without breaking up. If it is larger than DV you can shrink it without loss but you can't make it bigger without degrading it some. If you have this capability and want to pursue the solution, post again and I'll go into more detail.

David Hurdon
http://www.contentshop.tv

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

If you right click on the photo on the timeline, I believe there is an option to maintain aspect ratio.

What I had to do was to make sure and scan the image with a 4:3 ratio, and then it filled the screen.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Thanks for the input! I was planning on upgrading to 6.5 so I am elated that this problem will go away. I was able to overcome the problem to some extent by applying the "Image Pan Filter". This allowed me to focus in on specific portions of the picture as well and maintain an aspect ratio. The cost of course is render time. Thanks again for all your help.

Posted 8 years ago #