Questions About Using Stills

cocacolaman wrote on 10/11/2004, 10:34 AM

I've searched this forum and read the applicable parts of the Vegas 5 manual, but I'm still very confused about what settings to use with stills.
I have about 1,500 five megapixel (2592x1944) photos which I would like to include in a slide show. I plan to do little panning, and I understand how to get the photo's on the timeline with crossfades. I'll also be including some brief (about 20 seconds each) low quality video clips.

What I can't seem to understand is whether I need to adjust the stills in some way before placing them on the timeline (I've seen many references to 655x480 as being ideal for stills) and what project and output settings will work the best for the slide show.

I would greatly appreciate any insight/direction on the following:

1. Do I need to modify the photos (shrink, change aspect ratio) in any way prior to placing them on the timeline? Or doesn't it matter?

2. Should I set project properties to NTSC Square Pixel (640x480, Upper field first), NTSC DV (720x480, Lower field first) or somthing else? I did short test renders using both templates and I could not see a difference on a TV screen. Maintain Aspect Ratio was on for both test renders.

3. I will be outputting the project to DVD. I assume I should render using the DVD NTSC template? Any problem using the NTSC Sqare Pixel Upper field first project setting and rendering using the default interlaced Bottom field first, or doesn't it matter whether they match?

Thanks in advance. This is a great forum from which I have learned a lot...but obviously not enough!

Peter

Comments

randy-stewart wrote on 10/11/2004, 11:53 AM

Peter,
I'm no pro but from what I've used and seen used on the forum, recommend you save the pictures in something less than the huge file they are now so that they don't take forever to render. I normally scan in 4x6" pictures at 300 dpi and save as a .jpeg large file which usually produces a less than 500K file size for each photo. However, I've heard that Vegas likes the .png format best so you might use that. Recommend, under your option 2 above that you use either of those two project properties formats as both should work fine. Hope this helps a little. I'm sure others will chime in with better advice.
Aloha,
Randy

JJKizak wrote on 10/11/2004, 12:27 PM

Depending on the length of the stills don't know if you can get that
many into a two hour show. Try to keep them capped at 500k.
I usually set mine for 10 seconds. and pans usually go much longer.
After you put them all on the timeline use the match aspect ratio script and it will match the whole bunch at once to the proper ratio, then readjust the ones that are vertical to center up the subject matter. If you convert the png's to jpeg the 5 meg png's will be reduced to about 500k jpegs. I have done about 550 pics for about 1.5 hrs and the render time and memory suck is extensive on stills. But whatever floats your boat.

JJK

johnmeyer wrote on 10/11/2004, 1:31 PM

What resolution and file format should I use for still photos?

NTSC DV video is 720x480 pixels for each frame of video. If you multiply these two number together, you get the total number of pixels, which for this case is 0.34 megapixels. Your still photos should have at least this many pixels. If your pictures come from a modern digital camera, they will almost certainly contain more pixels than this (most modern still cameras are at least 1-2 megapixels).

If the photo comes from a scanner, then total number of pixels in the picture is the scanning dpi times the length and width of the picture. For instance, if you scan at 300 dpi and your have a typical 4x6 print, then the result will be a 1200 by 1800 (which is 2.1 megapixels). Vegas does a very good job of “down-sampling” pictures that contain more pixels than required. In addition, if you plan to zoom into the picture using the keyframing feature in the pan/crop tool, then you will want to have more pixels. The reason for this is that if you zoom into that 1800 by 1200 picture so that the zoom box is only half the width and half the height of the original picture, you will now be displaying only 900x600 pixels, which is pretty close to DV resolution. If you zoom in just a little more, you will have fewer than 720x480 pixels, and Vegas will have to duplicate and interpolate between pixels, which will make the picture get fuzzy.

As to file format, Vegas can read lots of formats, and if the pictures have already been created, and if Vegas can read the format in which they have been stored, then just use them and get on with it. However, if you plan to edit the pictures in PhotoShop (or similar application) or if you are scanning them, then the preferred format is PNG. This is because PNG supports alpha layers, which lets you preserve and use any layers you might create in PhotoShop. The Vegas code seems to work more quickly with PNG than with some other formats (such as TIFF, which can sometimes get slow).

The only time you might want to consider changing the resolution of your pictures prior to bringing them into Vegas is if you have hundreds of extremely large photos (3 megapixels and up) and you don’t plan on zooming. Vegas can sometimes bog down in this situation.

cocacolaman wrote on 10/11/2004, 3:01 PM

Thanks all for the good input.

Guess I should have been a little clearer about the photos. I took them with a digital camera. The file format is .JPG. The files are large...the photos are 5 megapixels. And there are lots of them I would like to use...around 1,500.

Sounds like I need to find a way to reduce the file size. Is there an automated way to do this, as manually shrinking 1,500 photos would take a very long time? I don't have Photoshop...just Photoshop Elements.

Thanks again for the help.

Peter

Former user wrote on 10/11/2004, 3:08 PM

Find a program called Irfanview. It can batch convert photos and is free.

Dave T2

cocacolaman wrote on 10/11/2004, 4:17 PM

Dave T2,

Thank you very much for pointing me to Irfanview. Its quick and easy to use...even for me.

Thanks again.

Peter

bw wrote on 10/12/2004, 6:29 AM

If there was an award for the 'best' bit of software in the world I reckon that Irfanview should win. it is just so usefull to have.