Resizing photos to 1000 x 750

[mfl1]

This may or may not be a stupid question. Steve's advice is, when bringing photos into PRE, to resize them first so that they're no larger than about 1000 x 750 pixels. Does the 1000 pixel side have to be the width and the 750 the height? If so, then vertical photos will have a width far shorter than 1000.

This question arises because I'll be resizing in Lightroom, and the options are (1) to make the width 1000 and the height 750, or (2) to specify "dimensions" of 1000 x 750, in which case the program will make the longer side 1000.

Thought I should ask before I get too far down the road. Thanks.

Marvin

[Bob]

Video frames are rectangular with the horizontal width being the larger dimension. In a still photo, that would be called "landscape" orientation. If you want to use a still photo that is taller than it is wide, i.e. "portrait" orientation, you have to make a decision. You can scale the photo so that the full height will show in the video frame, in which the width of the photo will not fill the width of the video frame. Or, you can scale the photo so that the full width of the photo will show in the video frame, but only a portion of the height of the photo can be displayed. You can also scale the photo larger than the video frame and use the position and scaling controls to move about the photo and show different areas over time -- called pan and zoom. It's your creative choice.

The pixel dimensions of photos from digital cameras are generally very large compared to the pixel dimensions of the video frame. While Premiere Elements can scale them down to fit, that increases the amount of compute time needed to process the movie and the extra memory required for large photos can cause problems -- especially if you have quite a few. You can run out of available memory and can even hang or crash the program. The 1000x750 pixel guideline that Steve advises is intended to reduce the memory requirements of the photos to help reduce low memory problems and provide more efficient processing while providing a reasonable size to allow for pan and zoom. If you want to batch scale the photos, you can use your option (2) to specify "dimensions" to make the longer side of the photo fit. That has enough leeway to fill the frame horizontally, if you wish, and adjust the position to display the portion you wish to show.

The 1000x750 size is based on a standard definition NTSC TV which has an aspect ratio of 4:3 -- 1000x750 has exactly a 4:3 aspect ratio. If you are using a wide screen project setting, you will need to use an aspect ratio of 16:9 instead. That's approximately 1334x750 pixels if you keep the vertical dimension the same.

High definition video will require larger size photos. HD frames also have a 16:9 aspect ratio, but the size of the frame is larger -- up to 1920x1080 pixels. If you are planning on using pan and zoom, it would be reasonable to scale down the photos to 10 to 20 percent larger than that depending on how much you plan on panning or zooming.

Recent versions of Premiere Elements handle still photos and memory much better than earlier versions. But, it's still a good idea to resize them to a more appropriate size before using them in your video.

[mfl1]

Thanks very much, Bob. Suppose I set 1000 as the dimension of the longer side, even for photos in portrait orientation, and some portion of a photo is outside the video frame. At that point, if I wish to use the entire height of the photo in the project, without panning/zooming, is there a way to shrink it in Premiere Elements? At that point, do I use the "scale to frame size" setting that I've previously unchecked?

Thanks for your help.

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm actually covering this in one of the tutorials we'll be releasing soon. But you can batch resize your photos using Photoshop Elements. Look under the File menu for the Process Multiple Files tool.

To use it, just keep Constrain Proportions checked and set only either the horizontal or vertical size. I usually set horizontal to 1000 with 72 ppi.

[mfl1]

Thanks, Steve.

[Bob]

"Scale to frame" will scale the photo to fit the longest dimension of the photo within the frame. Your portrait orientation photo will fill the vertical dimension of the frame, but there will be transparency on the left and right sides which will show as black if there is nothing in a lower numbered video track beneath it.

"Scale to Frame" is fine if you do not intend to pan or zoom the image, or, if you do not want to manually scale the image larger. If you use "scale to frame" and subsequently scale the image up, the image will be degraded. If you think you may want to scale up the image, don't use "scale to frame". Instead, select the photo on the timeline and show the properties panel for it. Under "motion", there is a scale property where you can manually scale the image to the desired size. There is a tutorial on using "scale to frame" in the free downloads learning section. I normally leave the preferences set to not scale to frame and manually scale my photos. Should I ever decide to use "Scale to Frame" on a specific photo, I can right click on that photo and select "scale to frame" from the context menu.

[mfl1]

Many thanks, Bob.