iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import

Okay, Patt, here's the short version for iMovie HD:

1. In the menubar, select the command iMovie HD > Preferences. In the Playback settings, set the Quality to "Highest (field blending)".

2. Turn ON the Ken Burns checkbox. Before importing the image, set the KB zoom and duration to whatever you want.

3. To prevent iMovie from upscaling the image -- which reduces quality -- the images must be AT LEAST the MINIMUM size (in pixels) shown in the charts above. The minimum size depends on the type of project. Note too that a larger image size is required if Ken Burns zooms in on the image.

4. Import the image.

5. As you view the images, keep in mind that iMovie never shows you all the image quality that's actually there. (As we say, iMovie is a movie editor, not a movie player.) The image won't look perfect, but it should look pretty good. For the best view of it, choose Window > Show Full Video Resolution.

6. In the iDVD tab, press Create iDVD Project. You don't have to worry about iMovie adding jaggies because the rendering has been done by Ken Burns.

7. The DVD that's burned should look fine played on a TV.

If you've already pressed Create iDVD Project and iMovie has added jaggies, those images must be re-imported.

Karl

I have read this thread front to back, twice.

Sorry to bother you all (especially Karl & Silly Rabbit) when you've already devoted half your life to the discussion on imovie and still images.

I'm experiencing the same 'jaggles' effect with still images.

In previous versions of imovie, I swear I didn't have a problem. The stills were soft-focus (slightly), but hardly surprising given the lesser image quality of a dv movie.

However, I just can't resolve the problem in imovie 5.

What am I trying to achieve?

Ok.

On previous movies, I used to create an imovie slideshow from still frames from the movie as part of the film (not an exported standalone .mov - I'd use iphoto). I've been trying to do this in imovie 5, but no joy - the images downgrade so much when I place them in the timeline there's no point.

Here's what I'm doing - maybe you could tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

First off, equipment.

I'm working on a dual 2ghz G5 with 21' cinema display
Film shot on a 3ccd mini dv camera.

Second, what I'm doing

I'm positioning the playhead at the frame I want to create a still of. It looks fine - no jagged edges.

I go -edit - create still frame - and voila - the exact same frame, as a still frame in the movie, is horrible. Jagged edges and even more blurry.

Why should this be? Surely if the frame, already in imovie, is fairly sharp - imovie should have no problem creating a .dv still as an exact replica? Why is it changing before my eyes?

I've tried saving the frame as a jpg and pict, and reimporting - but no difference. You open it in Preview or iphoto and it's jagged.

Interestingly, if you take a snapshot of the window using cmd-shift 4 and put it on the desktop - perfect. Try reimporting it though? Jagged.

I then tried importing different high quality still shots from my digital camera via iphoto - jagged.

I tried resizing them in iphoto first to the correct resolution and ratio, then importing - jagged

I tried putting KB on - jagged
I tried KB off - jagged

I haven't even begun rendering the movie for idvd - so haven't 're-rendered them' either.

It's driving me nuts!!!

HELP!

Mat

I agree, Matthew, that images exported from iMovie to a jpeg or pict, then imported, come back looking pretty horrible.

I don't expect screen captures of the iMovie window to be a lot better, for the iMovie image on screen is never top quality.

I get the best results by 1) making sure the iMovie window is set to "Show Full Video Resolution", so it's the best possible viewing size, then Save, then 2) open the project.mov in QuickTime Pro and do a screen capture of the frame. (Set the movie to play High Quality, with Deinterlacing turned OFF. That shows the best image to capture.)

Then, be sure to CROP the captured image to 720x586, the ideal size for this purpose. Be sure not to resize the image. I like using Photoshop's marquee tool for cropping.

When THAT image is imported, there's a little fuzzying of the image, but no jaggies. iMovie's sharpen effect (set about 1/4 from the left end) sometimes improves it nicely.

When I view the results in the (new) project.mov, it's hard to tell the original frame from the copy.

Karl

Matthew, here's another take on the issue.

The image quality of iMovie's Create Still Frame command isn't good, nor is the quality of the image created by exporting the frame with the File > Save Frame command.

Here's how to get a good-quality still from an iMovie clip. Essentially, we create a single-frame clip in iMovie, export it to a DV movie, then use QuickTime to export the DV movie to a single high-quality image. This requires QuickTime Pro ($30, from Apple).

CREATE A SINGLE-FRAME CLIP:

1. Option-drag the target clip to the Clips pane. (This duplicates the clip without duplicating its Media file.)
2. Select the clip in the Clips pane.
3. Drag the playhead in the preview window to the target frame.
4. Choose Edit > Split Clip at Playhead. Discard the clip you DON'T want.
5. Tap the right arrow key (to advance the playhead one frame.)
6. Choose Edit > Split Clip at Playhead. Discard the clip you DON'T want, leaving the single-frame clip.

EXPORT THE SINGLE-FRAME CLIP TO A DV MOVIE:
7. Select the single-frame clip.
8. Choose File > Share. Click on "QuickTime"
9. Turn ON the "Share selected clips only" checkbox.
10. In the Compress movie for popUp menu, choose Full Quality.
11. Click Share. Name the movie "Frame of Joe" or something.

USE QUICKTIME PRO TO CONVERT THE SINGLE-FRAME DV TO AN IMAGE:
12. Open the movie Frame of Joe in QuickTime.
13. Choose Window > Show Movie Properties. (Command-J)
14. In the list that opens, click on Video Track, then the Visual Settings tab.
15. UNcheck "Preserve Aspect Ratio"
16. Set "Scaled size" to 720 x 528.
17. Turn ON the High Quality checkbox, turn OFF "Single Field" and "Deinterlace". Play the single-frame movie. The quality should be good; if it's not, re-set the checkboxes and try again.
18. Choose File > Export. Choose "Movie to Image Sequence" from the Export popup menu.
19. Chick "Options...". In the Format popUp menu, choose "PICT"
20. Click OK
21. Name the image, then press Save. This creates a single (numbered) pict file. (Normally, the Sequence command creates many images, one for each frame in the movie, but ours is a single-frame movie.)

IMPORT TO IMOVIE

22. Import the pict file to iMovie (after configuring the Ken Burns settings so there is NO zoom.) The quality should be good.

ANOTHER WAY

Another way is to export the single-frame clip as an image sequence from iMovie itself. Trouble is, iMovie exports to 720x480 instead of 720x528, so the image size is wrong for re-importing it. If you have Photoshop, you can resize the 720x480 image to 720x528, then import it to iMovie.

Karl

I'm also having trouble with resolution of my final file. This is my first slideshow project and it's been a frustrating learning experience. After spending hours and hours creating the show, suffering through poor resolution, reading all these posts, implimenting solutions, and attempting to find a good solution, nothing seems to be working. My files are very high res images but at the freezing point between crossover dissolves, the images instantly pixelate until the dissolve begins again. Isn't there a resolution preference or something that will affect the final dvd or movie file? It really shouldn't be this difficult.

I have gone through many steps outlined in this thread and even checked the quality on television but still see low resolution where there shouldn't be.

Double-check it all, making sure you haven't missed something.

. My files are very high res images but at the freezing point between crossover dissolves, the images instantly pixelate until the dissolve begins again.

Royce, that's what happens if you grant permission for iMovie to render UNrendered stills after you click the Create iDVD Project button. That's when iMovie adds the jaggies to the images -- the still portion of the image, not the transition. The transition looks okay, but the rendered portion of the still does not.

To prevent that, turn on the Ken Burns checkbox before importing the images, which forces Ken Burns to render them. Then iMovie won't ask later.

That, or refuse iMovie permission to render them and iDVD will do it. I prefer the quality of the KB rendering, however.

This note, part of this thread, discusses the jaggies:
Karl Petersen, "iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import" #32, 11:37am Apr 25, 2005 CDT

Search the forum for "jaggies" for other threads.

If you determine this is the problem, note that there is no way to repair the damage except to re-import those images.

Karl

I have a two fold question. I want to import graphic designs made in Illustrator. I have saved them for the the web in both JEPG and GIF formats. When I import them into iphoto and imovie they are blurry.

Also is there a way to keep iPhoto from increasing the size.. I would like to have a very small picture that I can move across the screen without taking up the whole screen. This might also help with the resolution problems.
Thank you greatly
Mark

I have no experience displaying Illustrator graphics in iMovie, baus, but I suspect it's similar to the issues faced importing text. The image is fragile and doesn't survive resizing the image at any stage.

That means, I suspect, that you have to create the Illustrator image that's the size it will be in iMovie, export it to a JPEG or GIF that size, then import it to iMovie at that size.

For the size to use, see the charts here:
Karl Petersen, "iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import" #14, 08:46pm Apr 19, 2005 CDT

Like text, the result can sometimes be improved by using iMovie's Sharpen effect. Then remember, as always, to not just the image quality by what you see in iMovie.

Also is there a way to keep iPhoto from increasing the size

Not sure what you mean there. iPhoto shouldn't be increasing the dimensions of your Illustrator-exported image.

iMovie has no way to move a small image across the screen, except what you can do by panning across an image with Ken Burns. Trouble is, iMovie will enlarge the image before panning across it. (Perhaps that's what you meant earlier. It's iMovie doing that, not iPhoto.)

To get the effect you want, you may have to layer the small image over a black background image that's correct size to import into iMovie. That will preserve the image size, and allow you to pan across it.

Karl

Karl,
I read and reread the entire thread. But the jaggies have me. I am a new user of iMovie and just wanted a nice slideshow as I used to create in Pinicle studio. I only get jaggies. The pixel size of the photo's is 3456x2304. The only way it looks remotely good is when I use the 720 setting, but then I can not make a watchable DVD - right? The KB motion makes the bricks in building look like they are moving. It also may have been an issue with how I exported it - I did a share and above it says not to do that, but the images in the viewer looked really bad prior to that anyway. Any thoughts?

Hi Karl,

Am another one having some issues here. Up until now I've been producing perfectly good slideshows in iMovie by doing the following :

1. Opening iMovie.
2. Clicking on the Photos tab.
3. Selecting a photo.
4. Checking the KB effect, and applying start and finish points for each photo.
5. Dragging the photo into the timeline, where iMovie imports the image with its KB effect.
6. Dragging that into an iDVD project within iDVD.

Is that pretty much the correct methodology?

However, I have just recently had problems with a particular client's photos - they basically look dreadful played back on a tv - all a bit fuzzy really.

I tried reducing them by about 50% - they were about 1500x1000 - , I tried cropping then to 4:3 iDVD in iPhoto first, I tried both together - but really no joy at all.

So then I looked at iPhoto - I hadn't really before as I was so used to using iMovie. iPhoto slideshows, then shared directly to iDVD fixed the image quality issue, but I got tripped up here by fit to music bug - in iPhoto the music runs out a few seconds/single slide before the end.

Not a huge problem, but once its imported into iDVD, the first second or so of first track (of two) of the playlist starts again - really not good.

So then I tried exporting the iPhoto slideshow to a .mov file, and importing that into iMovie so that I could maybe tweak that.

However, the problem here was that the slideshow that ran for 6.5 mins in iPhoto, now runs to 8.5 mins in iMovie, with the music finishing a whole two minutes before the end of the slideshow.

So really no idea what's happening here.

Its really getting quite frustrating that whatever route I seem to go down, I'm running into one issue or another.

Any pointers appreciated.

Cheers,
Iain

Welcome to the forum, ziwi!

The pixel size of the photo's is 3456x2304.

That's not a 4:3 aspect ratio, which makes me ask about the history of the photo. Was it imported to iMovie "as is" from the camera? Cropped before importing it? Is it a scanned image? A "Raw" photo?

When we import a 3456 x 2304 photo to a DV project (with a Ken Burns zoom setting of 1.00) iMovie HD adds a black border to the top and bottom. If it DOESN'T do that, please say.

The only way it looks remotely good is when I use the 720 setting, but then I can not make a watchable DVD - right?

Not sure I follow you there...about not being able to make a DVD. We can make a DVD that includes any size photo imported to iMovie. The quality of the DVD is affected by how we handle the photo, but you may mean something different. If it's important, please say more.

I did a share and above it says not to do that, but the images in the viewer looked really bad prior to that anyway.

If you ever pressed the Create iDVD Project button and allowed iMovie HD to render the (unrendered) images, the "jaggies" will have been added to the video. They cannot be removed. To get rid of them, it's necessary to re-import the image. So don't use such video to evaluate quality.

Sharing to a QuickTime movie is a very different process than creating a DVD. Exporting the iMovie project to a QuickTime movie introduces many other factors that affect the quality of the image. These include the codec you choose to compress the video, the level of compression, the dimensions of the exported movie, and lots of other things. So to evaluate quality, avoid going down that road. It's too complicated. Entire books have been written about that.

If you exported to a Full Quality movie, don't forget that movie is not what its name implies -- full quality -- when played in QuickTime Player. The name refers to the movie containing all the data that's needed to preserve the full quality of the video in the project. But to actually see that quality, you must turn on the High Quality playback setting in QuickTime Player. QuickTime Pro is required to do that. By default, the Full Quality movie does NOT play at High Quality. So don't judge the quality of the iMovie project there unless you've adjusted those settings. Turn High Quality ON, Deinterlace OFF.

Don't forget too that iMovie HD never shows you all the quality that's there, so don't judge the quality of this book by its cover.

All that is a long way of saying we have to be very careful where and how we judge image quality. If you know you're doing all that correctly, then I suggest modifying the photo so you know the image size is okay and not contributing to "making the bricks move".

I'd first try cropping the image to 720x528 in Photoshop or iPhoto. Do NOT resize it; crop to a section of it. Test how well that imported cropped image behaves in iMovie. If the bricks continue to move, try blurring the image a bit.

Lines in images that acquire "jaggies" (e.g. bricks?) can appear to move. Video can also "shimmer" when the image is very sharp. I remember someone reporting eyelids in a photo would appear to open and close. Blurring helps that.

Karl

Is that pretty much the correct methodology?

You got it. That looks correct.

I tried reducing them by about 50% - they were about 1500x1000 - , I tried cropping then to 4:3 iDVD in iPhoto first, I tried both together - but really no joy at all

After cropping to 4:3, the image should import well unless the Ken Burns zoom was set higher than the (cropped) size allowed. The minimum cropping size is determined by the Ken Burns zoom you plan to use, as described elsewhere in this thread. If that wasn't a problem, I'm stumped. The cropped images should "just work".

So really no idea what's happening here.

The relationship between iPhoto slideshow settings and iMovie is too complicated to explore in this thread. My experience is the iPhoto settings have a huge impact -- sometimes an unexpected impact -- on what arrives in iDVD or iMovie. Experiment with those settings; they affect a lot. They are a nest of snakes, however, so keep one eye on your feet.

The audio in an iPhoto slideshow can also affect how the slideshow behaves -- stretching the slideshow to fit the audio, for example. The audio adds a complicating factor that should be avoided when the slideshow is destined for iMovie. I suggest disabling the iPhoto audio and adding the audio later in iMovie. You want to do all your audio editing in iMovie anyway, for that's where the powerful editing can occur.

Hope something here helps.

Karl

Cheers Karl,

Like I say, I've had no problems so far, and generally been pretty happy with the results. But for some reason this one photographer's photos weren't playing ball, and were producing the poor results so many have posted about on the forums.

Thought I'd gotten round it by using iPhoto, except I then ran into the audio timing problem. iMovie is great for trimming or fading audio - but if you get audio to fit a slideshow with a reasonable 5-7 seconds per slide with transitions then you don't really need to.

I've just experimented today, and exported an audio free iPhoto slideshow into iMovie and added audio there, but on burning the DVD the image quality was reduced again - not as bad as a straight iMovie slideshow, buit not great.

And I don't know what happened with my other iPhoto slideshow that I first sussed the fit to audio problem. In iPhoto the music ran out just five seconds or so before the end.

But when I exported it to iMovie, the music lasted just 6.5 mins of the total 8.5 mins...

Iain

Going back to the KB thing.

I don't tend to zoom in too much - partly because I don't think you really need to, and partly to be aware of zooming in too much and loosing quality. So really mostly between 1.00 and up to about 1.80.

So if the originals are around 1500x1000 they should be, and usually are fine.

One thing I tried was reducing them down to nearer PAL resolution before impoprting them into iMovie - this helped a bit, even with a bit of KM applied zoom.

Iain