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Level 1

8 points

Degraded image quality in iMovie

This topic has been discussed in several other posts, but I haven't found a completely satisfactory answer yet.
I recently started using iMovie, and I've noticed that when I bring still images into the program, the image quality is immediately degraded. They are very pixelated and fuzzy compared to my original images. I realize that the preview I'm seeing in iMovie does not represent what I will see on screen when the movie is burned to a DVD, so I have made several test DVD's and the problem does not go away.
The photos I'm using were taken with a 5.1 megapixel digital camera on the highest quality image setting, and I'm bringing them directly into iMovie (not using iPhoto at all.)
From there I'm bringing the project into iDVD for burning to disk. I have tried choosing "Best Quality" burn settings rather than "Best Performance" settings when burning to disk, but so far that hasn't done any good. I've allowed iDVD to render the still images, and I've also tried it without rendering them. No difference.
Before I bought my iMac, I was making movies with Roxio software on a PC, and I never had this problem before. The still images I used in my previous movies (taken with the same camera) all look crystal clear, even when burned to DVD and viewed on a 56" television.
Any advice would be appreciated. If this is simply beyond the capabilities of iMovie, I'd like to know so I can stop banging my head against the wall. Thanks.

- Tom M.

iMac 2.33Ghz Intel, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jan 16, 2007 1:44 PM

44 replies

Jan 20, 2007 8:19 AM in response to Tom_M

As someone suggested, I resized the photos in the ntsc format to the 640x480 in iphoto, opened imovie, placed the newly resized photo into the movie clip viewer, but it still didn't fix the blurred/out of focus photos that were once crystal clear in iphoto. Has anyone asked Apple directly how to solve this issue? I just think imovie program can not handle pictures correctly no matter what any of us try. Has anyone used Final Cut Express? Does that program have the same problem that imovie has? Thank you to all who have responded. You are very well versed in the world of Apple.

Jan 20, 2007 8:34 AM in response to hoperanch1

As someone suggested, I resized the photos in the ntsc format to the 640x480 in iphoto

How did you resize the photos?

Did you use iPhoto's File > Export command to export to new photos that are 640x480? Or did you use iPhoto to constrain to 640x480, then crop the photos to that aspect ratio? Constraining to 640x480 sets the aspect ratio of the photos to 4:3, but it doesn't change the dimensions to 640x480.

To get the effect we want, the photos must be exported to 640x480.

Finally, where are you assessing the quality? The image we see in iMovie will not be improved by resizing the photos, only the image on the TV when played from the DVD. iMovie never shows us all the quality that's there. We can't go by that.

Karl

Jan 21, 2007 8:54 AM in response to Karl Petersen

Karl,
It sounds like I did it wrong. In iphoto, I clicked "edit">"4x3", saved it and pulled the photo up in imovie, placed it on the clip viewer, and it still made the photo (original was 2816x2112) look out of focus. So, how do I properly make the photo into a 640x480? I have not seen anything allowing me to do this. Another question, is the 640x480 called resolution or pixil resolution, or what is it called? Thanks.

Tom_M Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 21, 2007 9:50 AM in response to Karl Petersen

<<Large, high-resolultion photos are of no advantage for iMovie slideshows. In fact, they tend to cause problems. Use iPhoto to export such photos to 640x480 (for NTSC) or 768x576 (for PAL). That's the natural resolution for DV, lots easier for iMovie to work with. Your TV image will look better than forcing iMovie to work with a high-resolution image.>>

I tried your suggestion, and it made a definite improvement. However, the image quality I'm getting is still not very good. An additional problem has also appeared. Some of the photos that I burned to a test DVD look like they're moving or flickering when I view them on a TV. (And no, I did not allow iMovie to render the images before bringing them into iDVD.) I've read on some other threads that the solution to this is to "blur" the photos a bit using Photoshop before importing them. I tried this and it got rid of the flickering, but now my photos are, well... blurry.
Anyways, this weekend I reached the end of my rope with iMovie, and went out and bought the Pinnacle Media Suite for Windows. I installed it, imported some of the photos that were causing me problems, and burned a test DVD. All the photos now look great on my TV, without any noticeable pixelation or flickering. And I didn't have to resize or blur any of the photos before importing them!
iMovie might be great software in some ways, but it seems to me that it just isn't very good at making slide shows of still images to watch on a TV. The Pinnacle software was pretty expensive (almost $100) but it does what I need it to do.
Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

Jan 21, 2007 10:35 AM in response to hoperanch1

So, how do I properly make the photo into a
640x480?

Use iPhoto's File>Export menu command.

1. Select the photos you want to export.
2. Choose File > Export.
3. In the window that opens, click on the File Export tab.
4. Click the "Scale images no larger than" button, then set the size to 640x480.
5. Press Export, then choose the destination folder.

You can re-import those photos to iPhoto if you like, or use iMovie's import command to import them directly to the project. (First configure the import settings in the Photo Settings window.)

We can use the both "resolution" and "pixels". "Pixels" is more precise, I suppose, because "resolution" is used to mean so many things.

Karl

Jan 21, 2007 10:39 AM in response to Tom_M

Please tell Apple, Tom. Here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/imovie.html

I agree; it's absurd that Apple's commitment to iMovie ends when the TV commercial is done playing. The problems we face shouldn't exist, and when reported, should be fixed.

Karl

Morris's

Level 1

0 points

Jan 21, 2007 10:55 AM in response to Tom_M

This topic has been discussed in several other posts,
but I haven't found a completely satisfactory answer
yet.
I recently started using iMovie, and I've noticed
that when I bring still images into the program, the
image quality is immediately degraded. They are very
pixelated and fuzzy compared to my original images. I
realize that the preview I'm seeing in iMovie does
not represent what I will see on screen when the
movie is burned to a DVD, so I have made several test
DVD's and the problem does not go away.
The photos I'm using were taken with a 5.1 megapixel
digital camera on the highest quality image setting,
and I'm bringing them directly into iMovie (not using
iPhoto at all.)
From there I'm bringing the project into iDVD for
burning to disk. I have tried choosing "Best Quality"
burn settings rather than "Best Performance" settings
when burning to disk, but so far that hasn't done any
good. I've allowed iDVD to render the still images,
and I've also tried it without rendering them. No
difference.
Before I bought my iMac, I was making movies with
Roxio software on a PC, and I never had this problem
before. The still images I used in my previous movies
(taken with the same camera) all look crystal clear,
even when burned to DVD and viewed on a 56"
television.
Any advice would be appreciated. If this is simply
beyond the capabilities of iMovie, I'd like to know
so I can stop banging my head against the wall.
Thanks.

- Tom M.

I have had a similar problem when exporting a slide show created in iphoto, edited etc in imovie and then exported into idvd - some images were a bit 'fuzzy' at the edges. You could try this, it certainly improved the quality for me: go to share, click on the quick time icon then select compress movie for full quality and then save in the folder you want. Try also searching in the imovie help menu - I'm sure that's where I got the answer. Hope it works
from.

imac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Jan 21, 2007 1:15 PM in response to Karl Petersen

Thank you for the quick iphoto class, I keep learning more and more each time I work with the programs. I'm going to attempt this later to see how well the pics come out in imovie.

Jan 21, 2007 1:25 PM in response to Karl Petersen

"(First configure the import settings in the Photo Settings window.)"

One more thing, where is the "import settings" for iphoto? Thanks.

Jan 21, 2007 5:15 PM in response to hoperanch1

"(First configure the import settings in the Photo Settings window.)"

It's the Photo Settings window in iMovie that controls how photos are imported to iMovie. Click the Media tab, then the Photos tab, then the Show Photo Settings button.

Karl

Jan 22, 2007 7:44 AM in response to Karl Petersen

Karl,
I have imovie HD, so when I went into the "Show Photo Settings" button the only thing that showed up was "Ken Burns Effect" with the zoom and duration options. There was no import option to conifigure to the 640x480. Is there another way to configure photos?

Jan 22, 2007 8:36 AM in response to hoperanch1

Karl,
I have imovie HD, so when I went into the "Show Photo
Settings" button the only thing that showed up was
"Ken Burns Effect" with the zoom and duration
options. There was no import option to conifigure to
the 640x480. Is there another way to configure
photos?

See my earlier reply describing how to export your photos from iPhoto to photos that are 640x480. You will import THOSE photos to iMovie.

1. Export the photos from iPhoto as described above, to new 640x480 photos.
2. Configure your import settings in the iMovie Photo Settings window.
3. Import the 640x480 photos to iMovie.

Karl

Jan 22, 2007 4:47 PM in response to Karl Petersen

Karl,
Tryed what you suggested, but some of the photos still came up looking out of focus (the same ones as before) and some were crystal clear (same as before) in the clip viewer in imove. FYI, I used the >"file">"import" to get the photos into imovie. Thanks for trying to solve my delemma. Any other ideas or should I just quit trying?!?

Jan 22, 2007 5:13 PM in response to hoperanch1

Did you edit the photos in iPhoto, Photoshop or anywhere else? Have you changed the contrast, for example, or done any other editing?

Sometimes "improving" the photos causes them to look pretty terrible in iMovie.

Normally you should export the ORIGINAL version of the photo — as you first imported it to iPhoto — to 640x480, not a version you've cropped or edited. If you edited it in any way, select the photo in iPhoto and select Photo > Revert to Original to return the photo to its pristine condition, THEN export it.

Sometimes photos just aren't very good photos. Importing them to iMovie won't improve them. 🙂

Karl

Jan 26, 2007 4:35 PM in response to Tom_M

...it took me an hour just to decide on which thread to post (you understand from here my competence-very low)! Wow! Here is the problem. I have to understand which way to go to import three 35mb presentations i made on keynote (with quite a lot of animations) to imovie to make transitions between them. I tryied with the first to import to imovie as a quicktime/best quality, but the movie lost far too much of his appeal. Now i'm at the point of thinking about importing the 2nd keynote presentation as a DV PAL, because i actually am importing these 3 presentations to burn a master and right after make a lot of copies to distribute to some clients of my job. As my main target would be to keep all the possible quality, am i doing right or a best quality/quicktime is my best way to go? Thanks for help Max

p.s. i also thought about skipping the imovie passage to see if the very beatifull keynote rendering remain untouched. What about this?

Degraded image quality in iMovie