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Photos sharp in viewer, blurry in canvas

I have a project that intersperses photos with live action. The photos are variously digital shots (jpeg) and scanned shots (tif).

I select a photo in the browser, double click to open in the viewer, set the duration and insert in to the sequence. The photo is now visible in both the viewer & canvas windows - in the viewer it is sharp, in the canvas slightly blurry.

The output (on DVD viewed on a TV) is 'acceptable' (more blurry than I'd like) and I've lived with it for a while, but I was wondering why the apparant quality loss?

I've tried converting both types to .psd with the same results. Any help appriciated.

Thanks.

PowerPC G4, Mac OS X (10.2.x), FCE 2.0.3

Posted on Jan 6, 2007 7:41 PM

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5 replies

Jan 6, 2007 11:41 PM in response to maria.oconnor

I was wondering why the apparent quality loss

The reason is that when you double click the photo in the browser to open in the viewer, this shows the original imported material; instead the canvas shows the photo in the timeline, after its conversion to DV: 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL).

A degradation of the original digital shots is inevitable given the conversion and the different resolution. Whether it is acceptable or not depends on the original quality of the photo, the type of monitor you are viewing them, and your expectations...

You can also check the final results without burning a DVD, if you connect an interlaced monitor (TV) to the Mac through the firewire link and a camcorder or any other digital to analogue converter.

Piero

Feb 6, 2007 1:47 PM in response to PieroF

Piero wrote:
A degradation of the original digital shots is
inevitable given the conversion and the different
resolution.


What is the best way to minimize the blurring? Should I resize the picture to my intended export resolution using a different program before i import it? Does motion do this better than FCP? Only use 3+ megapixel photos? other ideas?

Feb 7, 2007 3:56 PM in response to craigheydenburg

I have experienced this problem and have used the following:

If the still image is adjusted in the Timeline, by using the motion tab in the viewer, which changes the pixels within the image (eg., changing the scale, aspect ratio or rotation) this sometimes causes significant blurring. To avoid that, I make my images at least 144 pixels per sq. inch (2 x 72 which is the resolution of DVD video). This (I think) allows the extra pixels to be used in the changing rather than new interpolated pixels being created by FCE. However, if the image is simply moved (left/right/up or down) or is cropped, these do not seem to affect the image quality.

If the image is unacceptably blurry, I find using the Unsharp filter (Video Filters > Unsharp Mask) restores the sharpness.

Photos sharp in viewer, blurry in canvas

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