Pixled Still Photos

[Chris R]

I am using an iMac, i5. I started a project in December and was having problems with still photos looking fine in the preview window but so pixled in full screen mode as to be unusable. After much pain I did something that changed a setting and those photos now look fine. After a break I am back at the project and all of my new photos have this same problem again. For the life of me I can not determine what the difference is. The file size is fine, and I can see nothing different in any setting. I render often and that is not an issue either. I am pretty frustrated at this point. Thank you.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Hi Chris and welcome to Muvipix.

Can you let us know the pixel dimensions of the photos?

[Chuck Engels]

Also your project setting and the resolution of your monitor

[Chris R]

The iMac monitor resolution is 1920x1080.
The settings are the default. D1/DV NTSC, Timebase 29.97, display 30 FPS, Drop timeframes, ect. I don't know enough about that to mess with anything there.
The image pixel sizes vary. In December I batched several hundred to the 1000dpi and I am having trouble with those. The ones I have used recently I forgot to do that and they are original size-around 2400dpi and I am having trouble with them. Size does not seem to matter. I went back and shrank a couple to 750dpi, changed their formats from .jpg to the adobe format, no change.

I realize that the larger sized images can be responsible for the frequent crashes I have been having when I render. That can be redone. But even the small images appear fine in the preview window and horribly pixeled in full screen viewing, while the ones that I messed with before do not have this problem.

Another problem, perhaps unrelated, is that I can render this thing to death and every time I save and exit the program I need to render again the next time I open it. It is like PE9 does not remember I just rendered.

Thank you.

[Chris R]

Another thing I have noticed is that the images are only pixeled in full screen mode while the clip is running. If I freeze it the images are clear.

[Chuck Engels]

Is there a red line above the images Chris? If so press enter and render the timeline, that should fix the problem.

[Chris R]

No. I render it quite often. It does not seem to matter.

[Steve Grisetti]

Well, don't forget that video resolution is roughly the equivalent of 640x480 pixels -- no matter what resolution your original photos are.

So, if you're looking at your video at full screen, you're looking at it at twice and tall and twice as wide as it's true resolution. And that could well explain the pixelation.

In truth, full 100% video resolution will take up only about 1/4 of your computer monitor.

No matter how large your TV is, if it's playing a DVD, it's only playing essentially a 640x480 image (actually 720x480 non-square pixels). But your TV isn't nearly as high-resolution as your computer monitor -- and you're not looking at it from two feet away.

If you've got a hi-def TV, it's likely doing some compensating to make your video look higher rez than it is.

[Chris R]

So are you suggesting that I ignore the full screen mode and the preview pane will be truer to the finished product?
I changed the playback quality from automatic to highest and that actually seemed to fix the problem...and then the program was crashing about every 5 seconds so I changed it back.

Thank you

[Steve Grisetti]

Oh, you're judging the quality by what you see in the Monitor panel? That's different. I thought you were judging the DV-AVI or DVD output.

In that case, you may or may not see the true quality of the output. As you've found, the Monitor has a number of quality viewing settings.

If you're have performance problems when you switch to Best viewing settings, that's a whole other issue. It could indicate a driver or firmware issue or a lack of computer hardware resources.

But it has nothing to do with your final output.

Just trust that your final output, as a DV-AVI or DVD, will look as good as a 640x480 image can possibly look! (Especially if you right-click on each photo on your timeline, select Field Options and then Flicker Removal.)

[Chris R]

Sorry for not being clear. With the various entry level programs I have used in the past what you see in the full screen viewing on the monitor is pretty close to what you will see on your tv-allowing for some color adjustments between the two. I am pretty nervous about wasting months of time for an unusable product.
What I see in the preview pane is fine and I am replacing the majority of the .jpgs that I used at the 2500 resolution with 1000 resolution copies. I hope that will reduce the incidents of crashing while rendering.
Finally, I do not see any flickering during playback in the preview pane. Should I simply check that as a precaution?

Thank you

[Steve Grisetti]

I always do as a matter of course. I'd rather be safe than have to go back and fix it after I burn my DVD.

[Bill Hunt]

Chris,

In Video, DPI/PPI have no meaning. They are used for printing, or display on a computer's screen with an image viewing/editing program.

What does matter in Video will be the pixel x pixel dimensions. PrE can Scale your images, BUT there are two problems with this: the Scaling algorithms in PrE are not the best, and the program and system will still have to push around a lot of pixels, that will be unused.

This article: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/450798?tstart=30 will give you some background and some tips on Scaling in PS/PSE, before Import.

Also, when working in SD (Standard Definition) Projects, one is working with pretty low resolutions, as Steve says. When one views the SD material on a high-rez computer's monitor, the quality difference will be readily apparent. To accurately judge DVD quality SD material, one should use a calibrated, separate CRT monitor.

Now, with a BD (HD - High Def) Project, that material is much closer to the resolution of a computer's monitor.

Good luck,

Hunt