Project with videos and pictures with the black borders

[robertcallahan]

Hi,
I'm using Premier elements 2022 for the first time and I'm working on my third project. Most of the pictures and videos are from my iPhone 13pro, with some of each coming from another person's device. I bring all the media into Elements and make my edits, including re-sizing. My exported project will be watched from youtube, computers and phones.

I have a couple of questions. When I create a new project I get to choose the format and I've used 1920 by 1080, but I'm not sure if there is a better option for me. When I export I've used devices mobile with HD and they play good everywhere.

My major issue is the black lines on the project. This is not a real problem with video as I normally do landscape and that fits good. The problem is with the pictures as they are all different sizes, although when I crop I stick to the original photo ratio. Because I have a mix of portrait and landscape will I always have the black lines? I read another post and someone mentioned that they edit all to the same size, I'm not sure how that works with landscape and portrait. I've also tried to re-size in the project but that leaves me with less then good pic.

So 2 questions:
1) what is the best project format to use?
2) how do I process the pictures to get get rid of all the black side lines.

Thank you

[Steve Grisetti]

1) The settings for your project are based on one of two things. Either a) the resolution of the video you're editing or b) what you plan to output your video as. In most cases, you're better basing your project settings on the video you're editing. Your MOV video could be any of a number of resolutions and codecs. If you use a video clip as the first in your project, the program will do its best to match your project settings to your video. If not, there are also manual ways to set up your video project.

2) The program by default automatically resizes your photo and videos to fit the frame of your video. Since your video is 16:9 widescreen and your photos are 4:3, most of the times your photos come in with black space on either side. If this bothers you, you can go to the program's preferences (under the Edit menu on a PC) and, on the General page, uncheck the Scale to Frame Size option. Do this BEFORE you add your photos to your project, since this preference will only affect media you add after your change the preference.

Once you've changed this setting, your photos will likely come in much larger than your video frame, but you can resize them by selecting them on your timeline and, in Applied Effects, change Scale.

If you've got more questions, it's probably best to ask each in a separate post. As you can see, the answers can get kind of complicated, so it's best to focus on one question at a time so we can give you more in depth answers.

[robertcallahan]

thankyou, first post. next will be one per. on the second item it looks like no good way since the portrait size becomes too big to scale down to work. Is there a way to accomplish this during the original crop in elements by not following the pic ratio or will that just cause the same problem once I bring in the pic?

[Chuck Engels]

In my opinion it's really easier to crop and resize the image in Photoshop Elements first and make it as good a fit as possible for what my project resolution is going to be. Completely getting rid of black bars or borders isn't always possible so adding artistic borders or image movement (Ken Burns Effect) would be very helpful.

[sidd finch]

You might consider just adjusting the parameters of your first photo to fit the screen. Then select copy and on each photo on the timeline do a paste attributes. You can always select all the photos at once and paste attributes. That way you do not have to move between multiple programs.

Sidd

[Steve Grisetti]

Chuck and Sidd have great suggestions that are simpler than mine.

If you want your photos to fill your video frame, pre-trim them to 1920x1080 in Photoshop Elements before you bring them into your project. Then you can leave Scale to Frame Size checked and still get full-frame photos.