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Crop or Motion

Specific to Premiere Elements version 15

Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:41 pm

Hello,

I am confusing about "Crop" and "Motion->Scale",

I am using PE 15 on windows 10. I have a 1920x1280 30 second video of a Ring rotating on its axis. The ring occupies about 1/2 of the frame, the rest is white space. I want to show more of the ring and get rid of the white space as much as possible.

Assuming my final output to be also 1920x1280, do I use crop to get rid of the white space around the ring, or do i use Motion->Scale to zoom in.

will output of 1280x720 affect my choice?

Thanks for your help

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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Steve Grisetti » Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:08 am

Are you trying to enlarge the ring so that it fills as much of your video frame as possible or are you trying to trim off the sides of the video so that the ring seems to float in the middle of your video frame without changing size?
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Fri Mar 02, 2018 11:40 am

ring image.jpg
Hi Steve

Thank you for the rely.

The video is shot using a 100mm macro lens and Canon Mark IV 5d (this can shoot 4k video as well), the ring is centered on a turn table and there is nothing surrounding it , it already appears to float as you can see from the attached file

As you can see right now ring occupies only half of the frame, we want it to fill more of the frame. As far as sizing is concerned, we would like the output to be 1080p.

Also, do you do consultation? we want to accomplish several things with the video and would like someone to talk to.
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:45 pm

With your current 1920x1080 footage, I would recommend using Motion>Scale and output to 1280x720.

Here's why.

First: Crop vs Scale. Crop won't increase the size of the ring in the frame. Scale will. Crop won't remove the white area you are trying to get rid of, it merely replaces it with a solid color.

Second: your footage and the video frame size are both1920x1080. In other words, you are seeing the footage at a scale of 100%. If you zoom in using Motion>Scale, you are magnifying the footage past 100%, this will soften the image and make it less sharp. The greater the magnification, the softer the image. You can get away with small amounts, but large amounts are not going to look good. Outputting to a smaller frame size reduces the relative magnification and helps preserve sharpness.

I would recommend the following technique. PRE allows you to create a project with a specific frame size. Create a 1280x720 project. Make sure the "Scale to Frame Size" option is turned off in Properties. Add your 1920x1080 footage and place it on the timeline. If PRE offers to change the project to match the footage, decline. The image will be larger than the frame so you won't see all of it. Now use the Motion Scale and Position properties to adjust to your needs. Output to 1280x720.

In the future, if you want 1920x1080 output and your macro lens can't produce a large enough image, I'd recommend shooting 4K so you can scale down to preserve sharpness rather than scale up and lose sharpness.

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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Fri Mar 02, 2018 10:44 pm

Thanks Bob for the tips, i will try it and let you know..... we have several other things that we want to do with such clips, are you available for paid consultation?
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:16 pm

Hi diageminc,

I want to make a correction to what I told you. What I was describing was the "Clip" effect rather than the "Crop" effect. Not sure why I did that (senior moment?), I've been using "Crop" for ages and certainly know the difference. Crop does make the area outside the crop area transparent, but you'll still have the issue that scaling up the image past 100% will degrade image quality. So, my recommendation still stands.

Crop is useful for a number of situations such as when you want to overlay a portion of one clip over another. The contents of the lower track will show through the transparent areas of the higher clip (the one with the crop effect applied). Transparent areas will render as black if there is nothing below to show through.
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:07 pm

Hi Bob

Thanks, if we magnify the image by 120 to 130% do you think the degradation will be at acceptable levels when the final video is viewed on a youtube or a mobile size screen?


Also,is there a way to do a FAN effect in PE? Please take a look at this video


Our original video is rotating 360, how can we acheive the above?
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Wed Mar 07, 2018 3:14 pm

if we magnify the image by 120 to 130% do you think the degradation will be at acceptable levels when the final video is viewed on a youtube or a mobile size screen?


While large amounts of degradation look bad to everyone, when it comes to small amounts, there is a bit of subjectivity involved. Some people will notice it more than others. Also, it's more noticeable when you use it in conjunction with sharper footage where you have a chance to see the difference. There is no magic cutoff number. Best bet is to export a sample and see if it looks acceptable to you. The size of the screen does make a difference, it's a matter of size and viewing angle. If you watch a 1080p movie on a 60" hdtv from a distance of one foot you will see tons of image defects. If you walk across the room and watch from your easy chair, you'll see far less. Watching on your phone or tablet is more like watching the tv from across the room because of the smaller viewing angle.

,is there a way to do a FAN effect in PE? Our original video is rotating 360, how can we acheive the above?


By FAN effect, I'm assuming you mean rotate 180 from side to side rather than rotate 360 around. Filming it this way is always the best, but you can simulate the effect. You say your footage is rotating 360. Do you have a section of that going from one side to the front to the other side? Hopefully, you do.

I'd work in the expert view timeline mode. Double click on the raw footage in the project assets panel to bring it up in the preview window. Set an in point where the side is square to the screen. Move to the point in the clip where the scene has passed the front of the ring and has reached the other side. Set an out point where the side is square to the screen. You now have a trimmed clip that you can drag to the timeline. Drag the trimmed clip to the timeline twice -- placed one immediately after the other. Right click the second clip on the time line and choose Time Stretch. In the dialog box, select "Reverse Speed" then OK. You will now have a sequence that rotates from one side to the other and then rotates back to the original side. There will probably be an abrupt change as the clip goes through the reversal point. This is because there is no deceleration like you would get with a real filmed reversal. Try it, it might be fine. There is a way to change the acceleration at that point using Time Remapping, but it's crude in Premiere Elements and may be tricky to work with. I would normally do that sort of adjustment in a program like Adobe After Effects which gives significantly more control over the remapping.
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Thu Mar 08, 2018 1:59 pm

Hi Bob

Thanks for the suggestion, so we took this original clip
https://youtu.be/z7VjWcxENCc

and then did what you suggested to make this clip
https://youtu.be/Q2QX4xAZMAQ

we copied the initial points twice, reverse speed on the second clip. And since we wanted this to rotate the other way we copied both the clips, put it on the time line and use "horizontal flip" to give us the mirror rotation.

It is working fine, however at the 35 second mark when it transits from the 2nd clip to the flip of the first clip there is a slight jerking motion, how can one resolve this?

Also, if we want the playback of the entire video to be 30 seconds in length, how do we set it?

Many thanks for your help and time.

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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:46 am

The jerking motion you see is a result of your clip starting at a point where the ear rings and stand are not perpendicular to the camera.

If you look carefully, the clip begins with the ear rings just before they rotate clockwise into the perpendicular position. After the time reversal, the clip will end in the same position as it began having rotated counterclockwise past the perpendicular position. When you add the section with the horizontal flip, the rotation is still beginning before the perpendicular position but the mirroring will make it appear as if it is rotating counterclockwise with the starting position on the other side of the perpendicular point. When you place the two sections next to each other, as happened at the 35 second mark, playback will show the first section rotating past the perpendicular point and then appearing to jump back in time when the second section begins to play.

To fix it, you could go back and trim each of the clips so the face on view begins/ends at the perpendicular point. Another way to fix it would be to overlap the two sections and adjust the starting time of the second section (the one with the horizontal flips) to match the rotation position of the first section. To do that, in the expert view timeline, instead of placing the second section on video track 1, place it on video track 2. Then, slide the video on track 2 to the left until the position of the ear rings line up at the start of the overlap. When aligned, you should get little or no jump during playback.

To adjust the playback time, you could use Time Stretch. Time Stretch applies to individual clips, not the entire timeline. I would recommend that you not try to do that in the same project that you've been working on. Instead, export the video to a file on your computer. Then, in a new project, import the video. You now have a single clip and can easily apply Time Stretch to change the video duration to 30 seconds without messing things up. You can then export your final product to your desired location.
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Fri Mar 09, 2018 11:13 am

Hi Bob

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. Alternatively, can we can shoot the original video two full 360 rotation, then take the starting point where the earrings are facing east and end point where earrings face west, then drag the clip twice onto the timeline and reverse speed the second clip?

2. We also want to adjust lighting levels, at what point in the process should we do the adjustments,?

3. You suggested to export the clip and do a new project to adjust the time, when we export the first clip what should be our export settings, our original clip is 1080 59.5fps , so as not to degrade the quality further when we export the 2nd time.

4. We tend to import the clip and work on it rather then doing it by opening a "project", what is the advantage of having the work flow where you do it by project?

5. If we want to insert a logo at the end, should the logo be 1920x1080

Thanks so much for your time and help, you have taught in few posts what other experts could not tell us in all the tutorials we watched
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Fri Mar 09, 2018 5:28 pm

1. Alternatively, can we can shoot the original video two full 360 rotation, then take the starting point where the earrings are facing east and end point where earrings face west, then drag the clip twice onto the timeline and reverse speed the second clip?

Yes. In fact, that is what I meant earlier when I said "You say your footage is rotating 360. Do you have a section of that going from one side to the front to the other side? Hopefully, you do". If all you want to do is this fan effect, you don't really need to film two full 360 rotations. You only need 180 rotation beginning with the earrings facing east and ending with the earrings facing west. This makes a very clean and easy edit.

2. We also want to adjust lighting levels, at what point in the process should we do the adjustments,?

Not sure what you have in mind. What you've shown is called product photography -- what you would see in a catalog or online sales site -- and is designed to put the focus on and sell the product. Product photography keeps the lighting simple. Typically, the background would be white and the product would be sharp in focus across the entire product. Editorial photography, on the other hand, is what you would see in a magazine layout or TV ad. There, you can use dramatic lighting and props to make a attractive layout. It's more about branding and image.

I'm assuming by adjusting levels, you mean increasing the lighting to make the background whiter. If so, that should be adjusted prior to filming. Be careful not to over expose the jewelry. However, you light it, don't change the levels during the shooting.

Lighting jewelry for photography is a whole course in itself. I don't have time to dip deeply into that topic.


3. You suggested to export the clip and do a new project to adjust the time, when we export the first clip what should be our export settings, our original clip is 1080 59.5fps , so as not to degrade the quality further when we export the 2nd time.

Export to the same settings as the original footage.

4. We tend to import the clip and work on it rather then doing it by opening a "project", what is the advantage of having the work flow where you do it by project?

This is a work around for dealing with the limitations of a consumer level video editor (e.g. Premiere Elements) that only supports one timeline per project rather than a commercial/professional level editor (e.g. Premiere Pro) that supports multiple timelines in the same project. Exporting the project bakes in all the edits so that when you bring it into a new project you only have one clip. It's just an easier way to deal with the complexities in your project. If you had a professional level editor like Premiere Pro, you could imbed the complex timeline into another timeline in the same project where it would look and behave like a single clip. You have the same advantages as exporting and reimporting the timeline without actually having to do the export or baking in the edits.

Your project was complex -- multiple clips some time reversed, some horizontally flipped, some both, and potentially an overlapped section to correct the timing issue. On top of that, time stretch to shorten the duration of the entire project. Most of that could still be done in Premiere Elements in a single project. Time Stretch is problematic as it does not apply to the entire timeline. You could apply it to each clip individually, the problem comes when the clips are not all the same length or you need to shorten or overlay a clip. This makes it more difficult to match the new frame rate across segments and you can end up with some variation in frame rate that may be noticeable. Can it be done? Yes, but it takes more care and effort.

Your project complexity was largely the result of not beginning the filming with the earrings facing east. Filming beginning with facing east and ending facing west, will result in a much simpler project and you should be able to do everything in one project in Premiere Elements.

5. If we want to insert a logo at the end, should the logo be 1920x1080

The sample you showed earlier had a logo watermark in the lower right corner and a full screen logo at the end. That's fine. The end logo is stand alone and not overlaying anything. Make the full logo image match the project frame size (e.g. 1920x1080 for both). If the logo image is smaller than the project frame size, there will be transparent areas that will render as black when you export the final project. You probably don't want that.

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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby diageminc » Fri Mar 09, 2018 7:16 pm

Hi Bob

Thanks for the tip. We would like the final video to show the earrings going east to west and then going back from west to east. We do adjust lights during shoot, however sometimes we need to brighten the overall video and hence we use PE Lighting->Brightness to accomplish this.

Here are the steps that we plan, please advise if these are correct and in logical order:
1. Put a east to west clip on the timeline
2. Adjust the Brightness/Contrast of the clip
3. Time stretch to 15 seconds
4. Copy this clip and paste it next to the original clip
5. Reverse the just pasted clip
6. Put the logo image at the end.
7. Export to 1080.

Thanks for your time.
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Re: Crop or Motion

Postby Bob » Fri Mar 09, 2018 7:38 pm

Looks good.

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