NTSC DV video is 720x480. Therefore your scanner should be set to a dots (pixels) per inch (dpi) setting high enough to capture at least this many pixels. What confuses many people is the relationship between dpi and total pixels. However, once explained it is not confusing. Here goes.

If you have a 4x6 photograph (four inches by six inches) and you scan at 200 dpi then, since there are 200 dots in each inch, and one side is four inches, the total dots (pixels) in that direction will be 4x200 = 800. Similarly, the other dimension will have 6x200 = 1200 pixels, so the resulting image will be 800x1200 (or 1200x800, depending on which way you hold the photo). If you import this into Vegas, the software (Vegas) will, in essence, throw out the extra pixels (downsample) to get to the final 720x480. Thus, if you start with a 4x6 photo, then 200 dpi scanning will be plenty good enough.

However, what if you start with a 35mm slide? The image area in a 35 mm slide is 36mm x 24mm. Since 1mm = 0.03937 inches, this means the image area in inches is approximately 1.4 x 1.0 inches. If you were to scan this slide at 200 dpi, you would end up with an image that would only be 280x200 pixels, far fewer than the required 720x480. If you brought this into Vegas, the software would try to add (interpolate) the extra pixels, but it would look horrible. Thus, when you scan negatives or slides (physically small images), you need a scanner that can capture at a much higher dpi resolution. In this case, 600 dpi would get you pretty close.

This is a pretty basic introduction, but the point is that the larger the physical image you are scanning, the lower the dpi required. Scanning at a super-high dpi level when the original is physically large takes forever and causes every program that uses the image to take longer (including Vegas). For various reasons (beyond the scope of this already too-long post), it is probably a good idea to scan at a slightly higher resolution than that required to get exactly 720x480 pixels. A good rule is 1.2 to 1.5 times higher.

There are many other aspects of using still images, and others will doubtless chime in, but this at least should let you acquire your images at a sensible resolution. Once you have them captured and you start bringing them into Vegas, I'm sure you'll have other questions. Search this forum using "slideshow" as a keyword. Also try keywords "scanning," "scanner," "photo," "photos," and "photograph.

Thanks John for a great explanation. I'm also about to scan in many photographs for my parents 50th anniversary project. I was thinking of scanning in these photos for both preservation and to use in project to present at my parents 50th so I was thinking of scanning these at 400 dpi since I may do more with them later (zoom or crop etc). One of the comments I read here is that Vegas slows down with higher density photos...should this be a concern? What is the best format (jpg, gif, psd, etc.) to store photos in? And the best format to bring them into Vegas?

To johnr2:

I was thinking of scanning these at 400 dpi since I may do more with them later (zoom or crop etc).

A lot depends on the size of the original (see my first post). Also, if you are going to do things beyond video, then you need another piece of information. Here it is:

If you eventually want to print the result, then you need to know that you need at least 150 dpi at the final output size for the photograph to look decent. This is a bare minimum, and for really fine work (something beyond drug store photo quality), you'll want to print at 200 dpi. Some printing processes can even show quality improvements at scan densities up to 400 dpi. You definitely do not want to go below 150.

So what does this mean? It depends on how big a print you want to make, and how big your original photograph is. For instance, if you are starting with a 35 mm negative (1.4 x 1.0 inches, as calcluated in my previous post) and you want to make a 4x6 inch print, and you want to have at least the minimum number of pixels, then you need 4x150=600 by 6x150=900 pixels. To get the required dpi, you then take this total pixels required (calculated at the size of the final print) and divide by the size of the original, in this case 1.0x1.4 (I reversed the order of the 1.0 and 1.4 so the "long" dimensions match). Since 600 divided by 1 is 600, (and 900 divided by 1.4 is pretty close to 600), the required minumu dpi is 600.

If you want to be able to create larger sizes, like an 8x12, then you will need to scan at twice this resolution, or 1200 dpi.

I have scanned well over 30,000 slides and negatives (including large format negatives), and many thousands of prints. For 35mm material, I have standardized on 1200 dpi. This produces outstanding 4x6 and 5x7 prints, and pretty darn good 8x10 or 8x12. As I am scanning, if I find a particularly good picture, I will scan that at 2,000 dpi, and if it is a work of art, I'll scan at 4,000 dpi (Nikon Coolscan 4000ED).

What is the best format (jpg, gif, psd, etc.) to store photos in?

When I scan photos, I always scan in TIF. It is a lossless format, and if I need to do any cropping, color correction, editing, etc., I can do all of this, and do it during many different editing sessions, without any loss of detail (due to compression losses). By contrast, each time you save a JPEG file, close the editing session, and later re-open and then save that same JPEG file, some quality is lost due to accumulated compression errors.

Once I have made all my edits and I want to archive onto a CD or DVD, I do a batch conversion from TIF to JPEG (JPG). I use a very high quality setting for my JPEG images. I use ACDSee Classic for my conversions (fast, cheap, wonderful program) and set the quality level above 90, usually between 92 and 96.

For importing into Vegas, I use the JPEG images. However, if I need to create a transparency (alpha) channel (which I do with my photo editing software), then I save as a PNG.

I read here is that Vegas slows down with higher density photos ...

I just finished a slideshow (which also included live video). It had 60-70 photos, and many of these were scanned at higher than necessary resolution (because I scanned them using the guidelines above, long before I knew I'd need them for a video project). Vegas handled them just fine. Of course one trick you'll have to learn when you use photos from film (which has a different height/width aspect ratio) is to right click on the image in the pan/crop dialog and set the image to match the output aspect ratio. This will get rid of the black borders necessary to make a rectangle (the photo) fit the (almost) square 4:3 TV aspect ratio.

You can see the slideshow (for a few more weeks) at:

Slideshow

You need Real Player to view it.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody.

I'm not sure how I can adjust the the resolution I'm scanning them at, but it seems I can only adjust the DPI. All of my pictures (for now) are 4x6. So 200 DPI should be adequate according to you guys.

However I mentioned that I'm using the HP scanning software and I have it set to automatically adjust color levels and brightness/contrast.

Should I use a different program?

The HP software automatically resizes my pictures so they aren't exactly 4x6 but something like 3.8x5.9 (just for example).

Is that OK?

Also, John, your slideshow is *very* impressive. Hopefully mine can come out 1/10th as good.

Now all thats left is for me is to figure out how to do good panning/zooming...

Check out this article to, lots of great scanning tips!

http://www.guides.sk/scantips2/index.html#menu

"Of course one trick you'll have to learn when you use photos from film (which has a different height/width aspect ratio) is to right click on the image in the pan/crop dialog and set the image to match the output aspect ratio. This will get rid of the black borders necessary to make a rectangle (the photo) fit the (almost) square 4:3 TV aspect ratio."

Will this distort the image to the TV aspect, or resize on center to fill??? DGrob

Hmmm, one last question I think...

In my slideshow I will be doing a lot of zooming (and panning). Should I scan in higher than 200 DPI since I will be zooming in?

(again, all my pictures are 4x6 inches)

Read the issue that discusses slideshows in my Vegas Tips, Tricks, and Scripts Newsletter

Thanks for the link, I read your article.

You say in the article that you scan everybody in at 300 DPI no matter what the size is.

However, you didn't say if you plan on zooming in on an image if you should scan at a higher DPI. That's really what I'm wondering... I'm using 4x6 inch pictures and I'll be zooming in on the faces, etc, etc.

Higher resolution won't make your zooms look better. Your touch with keyframing the movement in the panning and zooming process is what your human viewers will notice.

Having a picture fade in while zoomed on faces and then panning out to reveal the bigger scene is one of my favorite techniques. Depending on the type of pictures you have, your viewers might be as interested in places as people.

Ahh, good tip. Thanks.

For my slideshow, there will only be one viewer (my girlfriend).

A problem (?) I'm having is that I can't be very creative with my pans and zooms, because almost all of my pictures only have my girlfriend and myself in them. So every picture is almost the same zoom in, pan, zoom out, etc etc...

I've fooled around with the color correction video effect and I've made some neat effects where the flowers look very vivid but you can't see anything else. Kind of a neat effect. I'd like to get a shot where my girlfriend and I look "in color" but the rest of the picture is black+white..

Any other techniques I could possibly use?

2Road, i'm curious about your "higher resolution won't make your zooms look better." When you zoom in on a smaller area of the picture you will want higher resolution so that you don't end up with pixellation. Ideally, you should have enough pixels to match the frame size at the tightest zoom. So if you zoom into an area of the picture that is, say 1.5x1 inches, then you should scan at around 500dpi in order to have this area still be at least 720x480 pixels. If you were only to scan at 200 then this area would be 300x200 pixels and you would have a noticeable mozaic of pixels in the video.

In general, you need enough resolution so that the smallest area you zoom in on has at least as many pixels as the video frame size.

My experience has found that if you are contemplating any kind of zoomming/panning that a minimum of 1200dpi should be used on 35mm
slides and 1200dpi on the pictures if they are 3 x 5. All of mine are .jpg and I can fool around with the zoom and pan without any noticeable degradation. If I were doing it professionally I would set the dpi at 2200. However, my record of monetary achivement is in the minus direction as I am no Warren Buffet.

JJK

Most of the pictures I get are a minimum of 3x5 and I can zoom in on those and still have good quality. Naturally, if you are scanning the tiny "wallet size" pictures or, possibly, slides or negatives, you may want to go to a higher resolution. 300 dpi has just been a good number for me for "all around" usage but adjustments may be needed if the source is too small. And, yes, 300dpi is overkill for 8x10's but by leaving it alone I don't have to worry about setting it back for the smaller photos.

And, yes, I zoom in on virtually every picture.

Chienworks: For me, going PNG to DV to MPEG-2, the resolution doesn't end up making a lot of difference on my TV or Computer in the finished project. One thing that does make a difference is glossy finished photos versus matte finished ones. For scans destined to become DV slideshows, the glossy prints rule.

Sofakng,
As for ideas to break up the patterns, don't forget about transitions. Vegas has a bunch of them. Also, try creating a collage or two (using PIP). Or, overlay a picture slowly traversing across the screen. Split screen with facing fade-ins is a nice effect also. But don't overdo the effects. It's been my experience that what really impacts the special lady is the picture (you'll hear the oohhhs and ahhhs) and music that plays in the background. Also, just the fact that you took the time to "make" something special for her will touch her heart. Good luck with it!
Randy

To sofakng:

In my slideshow I will be doing a lot of zooming (and panning). Should I scan in higher than 200 DPI since I will be zooming in?

I read the various responses to your question, and I think they might leave you a little confused. Some were saying it doesn't matter, some were saying you need to scan at really high resolution. The answer is actually relatively easy to calculate. If you go back to my previous post, I showed how you can mathematically calculate that you need to scan at approximately 200 dpi if you are going to use a 4x6 photo in your DV video slideshow. However, if you are going to zoom into that picture, then you will only be using a portion of the pixels you scanned and eventually (actually pretty quickly) you will run out of pixels and the result will be pixelated. For example, if you are going to zoom into the upper quarter of the picture, then you will only see half the number of pixels in the horizontal direction and half in the vertical direction. This is therefore one half the number of dots per inch. You therefore need to scan at twice the dots per inch.

Any other techniques I could possibly use?

First, watch a lot of PBS television. They have great documentaries that use lots of still photos. A good PBS film to look at for amazingly creative use of stills is Ken Burns' baseball documentary (which originally aired on PBS, and is now available as a 10-DVD set, which you can rent on Netflix). Aother is "The Kid Stays in the Picture," about legendary film producer Robert Evans. This film uses cutting-edge still photo techniques, some of which I've been able to duplicate in Vegas. These were described in a recent article in one of the video magazines (can't remember whether it was DV, or one of the others). Basically, it involves taking the photo into your photo editor, and then creating a separate layer for each major element in your photograph. For instance, you put the picture of your girlfriend on one layer, and then put the background on another layer. You temporarily remove the foreground object from the picture (in your photo editor) and then use the clone brush to fill in the background. Next, you bring the foreground object (or objects) into Vegas on one track, and the background on another. You then use something like 3D PluginPac to rotate and move each layer separately. You can get an amazing feeling of depth, somewhat like looking through a kid's 3D viewer. If anyone is interested, I can post the result on my web site.

There are many other, much easier effects (many of these I used in that sample slide show I linked you to in my earlier post):

1. Use the lens flare on pictures taken outdoors, and change the flare as you zoom.

2. Use film effects as you zoom. The combination of zooming and the dust, grain, hair, jitter etc. that the film effects provides, makes the image look like it is really moving.

3. Put one picture inside of another. You can move one picture over the other; make one picture zoom up from another picture, or merely have a small portion of one picture appear in the background of another. If you watch the Netflix trailer for the baseball series, and you observe closely, you'll see what I mean. Here's the link: Netflix Baseball Trailer

4. Use keyframes to make complicated moves. You saw this in the slideshow on my site. You can move left, right, up, down, zooom, rotate, tilt (with 3D plugin), etc. And you can do all of them at once.

5. Keyframe special effects. I already mentioned using the lens flare, but go through the list of other special effects. Again, go back and look at my slide show. I used the spotlight effect on one pic and moved it over the subject's face. On another, I keyframed a selective blur so that all but the subject's face became blurred. You can also keyframe from black and white to color or vice versa. Another effect that would be fun, but which I haven't tried, would be to keyframe the whole picture, except for one color, to black and white. This technique is described in a recent post (about three weeks ago). It uses the Secondary Color Corrector. If you have a vivid color that is important to the picture, this could be quite effective. (Actually, since this is a still photo, you could do this in your photo editor (go to black and white except for one part of the image) and then simply transition from one version of the photo to another).

6. Change backgrounds. Use your photo editor to cut out the background, and place just the subject on the Vegas timeline. Then, use dissolves and transitions to place other backgrounds behind the main image, while zooming, moving, etc. over the foreground image.

7. Animate the photograph. I had a great pic I took back in 1964 of an iceboat on Lake Delevan, WI. I used my photo editor to remove the boat from the picture, and then cloned the cutout with ice and snow. Given the nature of the lighting and the fact that ice looks pretty much the same, the photo sans iceboat looked perfect. I then put the background and iceboat on two separate tracks, and keyframed the boat across the ice while zooming and rotating both tracks. It looked pretty good -- the iceboat really looked like it was sailing -- although if I were to do it today with Vegas 4.0, I'd add the film effects, with plenty of jitter to really make it look "live." (Of course, an iceboat is an unusual object, in that on smooth ice it doesn't bounce up and down much. This effect would not look very realistic for a boat or car. Might work for an airplane, though.).

8. Transitions. Generally transitions are the province of the amateur editor. Less is more. However, when it comes to doing a slideshow of still photos, you can be a little more aggressive. One of the other people in this thread suggested using transitions, and I heartily agree.

Finally, if you have time, you can combine video and stills. I actually got a spontaneous ovation when the following effect came up on the screen when I showed this during the screening of the slideshow wedding tribute at the reception.

I had a series of four still pictures taken twenty years ago of my niece blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. I put these four pictures on a timeline, did simple dissolves between them, and zoomed slightly over the entire duration. However, it seemed to be missing something. I wanted to "kick it up a notch."

What I did was mount a piece of black paper on the wall. I put a candle in front of the black paper. I then put my camcorder on a tripod, started it, lit the candle, and then used a candle snuffer to extinguish it. I then brought this footage into Vegas and, using Chroma Key and a few other tools (I can't remember the exact steps), I was able to get just the smoke, with none of the black background. I then put three copies of this on three different tracks, offset them in time (so the smoke started at different points), and zoomed and panned them to make each one appear directly over each candle on the cake.

The audience consisted primarily of artists from San Francisco's "media gulch," many of whom do this stuff for a living, so they appreciated the effort more than most.

Hope this helps.

I'd be very interested to see and hear more about how to land a workflow for building stills like those in TKSITP. And what a graceful source of information you are johnmeyer.

I kept thinking when I watched that doc, what lessons could be learned by the choices made by its makers. The treatment of the stills, the use of RE's own voice reading his own story-- what other aspects have I missed?

ie. what other elements go into making a still-based, long form (more than 10 min) program unforgettable?

bestx3,

bt

I love this forum. I'm about to embark on my first "slide" show using Vegas. Can't be that difficult, says I. Scanned some 30 photos from negatives at 1600 dpi. Imported them to Vegas only to find a black space at the top and bottom of anything I brought to the timeline. Been casting about in the pan/crop area for a couple of days, now, trying to figure out how to make the pic fill the preview screen.

Opened the online menu and did a search on "Photo" which brought up a step by step on how to scan photos from within Vegas. Couldn't find any other help on this by searching the menu (which is why I don't use my online menu much . . . I'm guessing that the tip I found here by searching the forum on the term "slideshow" is in the manual somewhere . . . God only knows what search term might find it.

Anywho, the purpose of this post isn't to slam the manual, but to praise the value of this fourm. Two days of trying to find the answer on my own were fruitless. 15 minutes on this forum, and I've confirmed that the solution offered works. Thanks SOFO, and, of course, thanks Johnmeyer for a response that went beyond the actual subject of the post.

I love this fourm.

Caruso

I think a book could be written on this thread alone. Thanks especially for John Meyer's comments. Fantastic info.

Thanks,
John Romein

John Meyer, I'd love to see that candle sequence, if it's possible. What a brilliant idea!
(Please don't use the Realplayer format. That company is so aggressive on the marketing activities that not only does it seem like they are taking over my machine but they are inviting the rest of the commercially aggressive world inside, too. I've thrown out Realplayer and I will not reinstall it. Wmv or Mpeg, please.)
Tor

It's posted on my web site at this link:

Tribute

This is a seven minute video, and the effect is about halfway through. Unfortunately, this is in Real format. If I get some time, I'll try to post just the candle clip in WMV format, but I've got to leave right now for a meeting.