PICTURE QUALITY HELP!

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Level 1

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PICTURE QUALITY HELP!

I have been trying to make a simple homemade music video with iMovie HD and iPhoto. I have been making pixel art to use as stop-motion frames. The problem is that when I import the small 10x10 pixel images, the preview is blown up and made blurry like a JPEG file. But, I saved the images as PNG files. I have tried almost everything fro about a week now, and frankly, I am thinking of just giving up.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.8), Brand New!!

Posted on Jun 8, 2007 11:57 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,972 points

Jun 8, 2007 12:57 PM in response to Cocoa Bean

Cocoa Bean

When you import a pic into iPhoto, the app makes a thumbnail. Oddly, in your rather special case, the thumbnail is bigger than the Original. This, I'm afraid is the source of your problem and I really don't know what you can do about it.

What happens when you double click on one of the thumbnails in the iPhoto Window?

Regards

TD

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

215,718 points

Jun 8, 2007 1:45 PM in response to Cocoa Bean

The smallest video/movie size created in iPhoto is 240 x 180 pixels. Your 10 x 10 pictures will get expanded to the size chosen and, as you've experienced, look terrible. You need to create your frames at the size you want the movie file to be.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

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Answer 3

Jun 8, 2007 3:55 PM in response to Cocoa Bean

I think we might be confused here.

How big were the PNG files in pixels?

How are you getting them into iMovie?

If your movie is not HD, your images need to be 640x480. You might have to export them from iPhoto and import them in iMovie as individual frames.

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Answer 4

Cocoa Bean Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 14, 2007 6:41 PM in response to Keith Barkley

The pictures were anywhere from 10x5 pixels to around 20x20. They were also in JPEG format. And, when I imported the pictures into iPhoto, the preview is blurry and shows up blurry in the timeline.

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Answer 5

Old Toad

Level 10

215,718 points

Jun 14, 2007 7:13 PM in response to Cocoa Bean

Those pictures are extremely small! For any type of reasonable movie you need images that are 640 pixels x 480 pixels in size. No wonder they look blurry, iMovie is scaling them up to fit that size. You have to create then in the 640 x 480 size to begin with and then you'll get what you're expecting.

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