Photos for Video

rockstar991 wrote on 11/11/2001, 9:16 PM

I'm new to this, so pardon me if this is a no-brainer or if it's covered somewhere that I couldn't find.

I'm putting together a family video that will consist of a bit of video, but mostly photos that I will be scanning into the computer.

My question is what is the best resolution/size/format to scan the pictures in at, or does it even matter? Do .jpg files work, or do I need to use something better such as .TIFF or Photoshop files? Does the pixel size or dpi resolution that I scan the originals at make a difference when I finally go to print it to tape?

Thanks in advance.
Jeff

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/12/2001, 12:09 AM

I've done lots and lots of what you're describing, and it's a lot of fun, if
quite time consuming. The results are impressive though since you can
use all sorts of transition effects between slides.

I use .jpg just about exclusively because of the smaller size of the files.
I do save them with very little compressions though. I use Micrografx
Picture Publisher 8 to scan and edit the photos, and save them with a
compression setting of 5 on a scale from 1 to 100.

The resolution of video is usually 640x480 or 720x480. There isn't any
need to scan your photos with a much higher resolution that that. I usually
scan 3.5x5 and 4x6 pictures at about 300dpi, which gives me some
room for cropping, then reduce them to 480 pixels high or 640 wide,
whichever is smaller, then sharpen the image slightly.

Keep in mind that television screens are always wider than they are tall,
so when you choose pictures that are oriented vertically you have to
decide whether to crop down to a small section, or show more of the
picture and have it not fill the screen side to side. In some cases, i'll
scan at a higher resolution so that i have more room to "play with" as i
experiment with the best cropping.

One thing that you can try and that sometimes gives a very good effect
is panning. If you have a photograph that is a lot wider than 640 or a lot
taller than 480, you can use the pan/crop functions of Vegas to have
the picture initially display a smaller portion, then slide across the screen
to display another portion. This adds a nice sense of movement to the
album if used well.

Hope these suggestions help!

Cheesehole wrote on 11/14/2001, 3:28 AM

i do this stuff too and agree with chienworks.

the stuff comes out great at DV quality! make sure to learn the animated zooming/panning functions and add some life to those still photos. some people thought i had a video camera when i showed them my photo movie.

my advice on the scanning is to scan it at a high resolution. there is a point where you just can't squeeze any more detail out of the photograph. i would go up to that point. then save your files as PNG's for lossless compression. disk space shouldn't be an issue if your system is set up to handle video. the higher resolution will allow you more flexibility when you are doing the animated zooms and pans.

if you are going back to video tape or something, you should apply a median filter to your video before rendering. try very low settings just to soften it up a bit. it will help avoid ugly 'zipper' problems with zooms/pans on an interlaced device like a television.

have fun!

- ben

FadeToBlack wrote on 11/14/2001, 5:00 PM

rockstar991 wrote on 11/17/2001, 1:58 PM

Thanks to everyone for their great input!

Jeff