Maximum lines allowed in Title?

[Margthecar]

I want to create a very long title with a list of names that speeds up as it rolls up off the screen (using the moiton keyframe). However, I have not gotten to the motion part at all because I keep running into problems just creating the long list. So what is the maxiumum number of lines? I will then break it into parts and figure out a workaround for my effect, but I really want one long list, not parts for this comic effect I am after.

I first just used the Title button on a black background and input my list of names--about 60 lines. But when I went back to edit it, the computer seemed to glitch and freeze and when I tried to use the arrow to move the list up and down to see the top and bottom it acted like it was copying it and kept pasting portions of the text over and over on top of each other. I tried to get to the motion keyframing and that didn't work right either under these conditions. So I gave up figuring the list was just too long and PrE8 was unable to process it.

I next tried creating a 720x2000, then a 720x1000, and finally a 1440x2000 bmp file in Photoshop with my list of names on it, in the same font and size (30pt) but every time I imported it into PrE to use it, PrE cut the resolution somehow so that when I widened the photo to fit the frame, the text was unbearably blurry. I tried increasing the resolution in PHotoshop up to 300 px/inch and even 1000 px/inch and it made no difference in PrE. Once widened, the text was really unsharp.

Next I downloaded the two Muvipix tutorials on rolling titles and I saw that you CAN motion frame a title and I tested it on a title with only two lines and it worked fine with the small title. Soooooo, I can only conclude my initial 60-odd line title was too long. So how long *IS* too long for a title list? And, as a corollary, is there a way to import a photo with a long column of text into PrE8 and NOT have it be blurry once widened to fit the frame? I figure I am missing something relative to resolution settings, but can't think what it is.

[Chuck Engels]

No limit Marg, you can make them as long as you like.
The Star Wars Rolling Title is very long.

[Chuck Engels]

is there a way to import a photo with a long column of text into PrE8 and NOT have it be blurry once widened to fit the frame?

You can do this in Photoshop Elements and then import the photoshop file into your Premiere Elements project. Just be sure that your Photoshop image is the same size as your Premiere Elements Project size.

[Margthecar]

Chuck,
I cannot do either as you suggest. I have problems either way. I have attached screen captures to illustrate the problems.

One good thing is my memory problem seems to have gone away. I created a title with about 20 lines. The screen capture below shows the BOTTOM of the list. There are about 10 names above it.

title_example1.jpg

Then I tried rolling it upward with keyframes. But it cuts off the top of the list--the part that did not appear in the title editing screen. It only scrolls the page that showed above.It does not start the scrolling from the top of the whole list.

title_example2.jpg

I created a BMP in photoshop at the SD resolution I am using, but longer in length, 720 x 1000, 300 px/inch, and put on text the right size to fill the frame. But upon importing it into PrE and widening it to fill the frame, the text is very blurry and choppy, as seen below. It did not matter what the resolution was in Photoshop.

title_example3.jpg

[Margthecar]

I just noticed something more. If I turn the keyframing off and use the plain roll option on the Titles, all the titles roll fine. The reason I wanted to use the keyframing in the first place is because I want the rolling to ACCELERATE as they scroll up, and that can't be done with the Title roll--it's a constant rate. But it seems the keyframing is limited to just one frame, which explains why it only works on the one frame of the title.

I can see how to easily do this with a long photo and I am very puzzled why the text looks so bad when I import it, so I think that is where the real solution lies.

[Chuck Engels]

Did you render the image on the timeline? If it isn't rendered it won't look very good and even after rendering it might not look too great either. It will however look fine on your TV if this is a Standard Definition project. The problem is that your monitor has much higher resolution than your TV does, so the text does not look all that good because it is at such a low resolution. Burn a DVD with the title, text, graphic, just a few minutes and see how it looks on your TV.

[Chuck Engels]

I just noticed something more. If I turn the keyframing off and use the plain roll option on the Titles, all the titles roll fine.

You could do this with multiple titles and keyframing, if you want the roll to accelerate as time goes on.
That is a little more difficult but definitely something that you can do. You need to have titles that fill only a single frame and do not turn on the rolling option. Create as many identical titles as you need until you have completed your text. Then you will need to keyframe each one and position them so each one starts as the one before moves up on the screen. Hope you understand what I am trying to say there ...

[Margthecar]

Gosh such great ideas. The titles were not rendered, so I did that. The BMP file text did not improve on the screen after rendering. I then burned the BMP title to a dvd alongside a title made in the Title screen for a direct comparison. Unfortunately, the title from the BMP file is much poorer quality than the title text generated by PrE. It's like the letters have horizontal lines missing. Any other ideas?

[Margthecar]

chuck,
I am leapfrogging the replies here. Yes, I totally understand what you mean about keyframing one screen at a time and having them match up. I just finished some very tricky keyframing sequences and got lots of practice at it, so what you are suggesting almost seems kind of easy. At this point, I think that is my best option, unless you can think of some easy explanation for why my BMPs seem to have such low quality in PrE8. I really want to get this movie done and the credits are the last thing. So I will go ahead and give the one-frame-at-a-time keyframing a try.

[Chuck Engels]

BMP files are not the best option for graphics in Premiere Elements.
Use Photoshop files (PSD) in Photoshop Elements and make sure that the graphic size in Photoshop matches the project size in Premiere Elements.

[Margthecar]

Chuck,
I chose BMP because of the non-compression, but I later was thinking like you and did the same import of the original PSD file but had the same problem with poor quality. I also tried an interlaced PNG format thinking that might explain the missing horizontal lines but that was even worse! So I don't think the file format is the problem. I gave up and had to finish this thing, so perhaps someone will have another idea for another time.

I could not get the keyframing of single frames to work the way I wanted it to work because the frame before had to match the speed of the next frame scrolling or the text got out of sync. This does not work for the acceleration effect I was after. I ended up compromising by breaking my titles into three parts and just did a slow, medium and fast scroll for each part. Not as slick as I envisioned but my audience won't know
Thanks for your help.

[Chuck Engels]

Was the resolution of the PSD the same as the resolution for your Premiere Elements project?
What Font and what size font did you use? The font can make a difference and the size can make a huge difference.

[Margthecar]

Okay. Let me preface this by saying my Photoshop skills are pretty weak. In particular, the relationship of font size to pixels per inch mystifies me. Anyway, here goes.

In both cases, my photo size was 720 x 1000 pixels and I used the font, Adobe Caslon Pro, which is the same one that is default for my PreE8 titles. For reference, in PrE8 I use font size 30 to get about the width of text per line that I want.

In Photoshop, after creating the file in the right size, I drew a text box about the same size but a little narrower to mimic the SafeZone of PreE (I eyeballed it) and input a couple lines of text as a test. Initially Photoshop defaults to 72 px/inch resolution. At 72px/inch, the 30pt Adobe CAslon Pro more or less fills the line width the way I want it. But when I import the photo into Pre8, it looks blurry and choppy.

So I tried 300 px/inch, but then I have to reduce the font size to 12 point to get it to fit the same as above for the same image size of 720x1000. And again when I bring it into PrE8, it is blurry and choppy.

I don't know enough about Photoshop to understand how I can achieve BOTH a 720x1000 frame size AND a large font with high px/inch. It seems they are mutually exclusive. I don't know why I can use the 30 point font in Pre8 at 720 frame width and it looks good, but the 30 point font in Photoshop does not.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

To progressively speed up the titles - could you not export the title sequence as a single .avi then re-import it and then apply keyframes/time stretch to achieve the effect that you want? (I haven't tried this....just a suggestion.... )

I could not get the keyframing of single frames to work the way I wanted it to work because the frame before had to match the speed of the next frame scrolling or the text got out of sync. This does not work for the acceleration effect I was after. I ended up compromising by breaking my titles into three parts and just did a slow, medium and fast scroll for each part.

Ooops! Maybe I should have read the posts more carefully.

[Margthecar]

To progressively speed up the titles - could you not export the title sequence as a single .avi then re-import it and then apply keyframes/time stretch to achieve the effect that you want? (I haven't tried this....just a suggestion.... )

Hmmm, you know, this probably WOULD work. I forgot about the idea of exporting the avi and then reimporting it to apply more effects to it. I have done this before for other reasons. But for my titles, I got stuck down the other paths. I think what threw me at the getgo was that when I first made my very long list of credits on the title page, I had some sort of computer memory seizure (see first post) and I just assumed PrE could not take a long list, so that got me down the external photo path.

Then it turns out PrE CAN take a long title list (my memory problem seemed to go away with a restart) but after so many wasted hours I just compromised with what I have, which works okay. But for next time.....I need to remember the export avi/import avi trick!