Umbilical, from your description (...Vegas seems to limit the resolution of imported still images to the resolution of the video...), my guess is that you're using Track Motion to do this when you should be using the tools in the Pan/Crop window.
In here, the limit is the original image size and not the project size.

Mike

Track motion resamples the image to project resolution before scaling. This is bad, but it's the way it works.

Pan/Crop resamples after scaling, so the images resolution is preserved as high as possible. Are you sure you're using Pan/Crop and not track motion?

The first thing you should do in the pan/crop window is to right-mouse-button click inside the frame and choose 'match output aspect'. After that all your other issues should be non-existent. No need for splitting the image up at all.

Just to state more strongly what others have said:

Do not use track motion to pan/crop photos.

Ever.

Always use the event pan/crop feature to pan, crop, and zoom still photos.

If you were to draw a flow diagram of how things work in Vegas, things happen to the media first (you can apply fX to media in the Project area, and it will affect all media, regardless of what events it ends up in); the events get changed next. Finally, the results of all the things done to the media and events get fed to the track controls. You can then route the output of multiple tracks to various busses that you set up.

I think there may be a flow diagram somewhere that shows all this.

The key thing for what you are doing is that by the time the video arrives at the track controls, it has been reduced to project resolution. If you zoom into the photo at this point, you will end up with far fewer pixels than the project resolution, even if you have a super-high resolution still photo.

Ah, I see. I was using Track Motion instead of Pan/Crop. Darn. I wish I had posted earlier rather than trying these insane work arounds. It doesn't look like there is a way to copy keframes from track motion into crop/pan. So I guess I'll just have to call this one good enough and do it right next time.

"So I guess I'll just have to call this one good enough and do it right next time."

Here's a dime, go call your mother. Tell her you'll never be a video editor...

Sorry Professor Kingsfield. This opportunity was to good to pass up.

Ultimate S and Excalibur are two scripts that can easily add the pans/scans to stills automatically. There's a video of how the Video Scrapbook tool works in Excalibur here.

"Here's a dime, go call your mother. Tell her you'll never be a video editor..."

Now, now, let's be nice, class. We're all bumbling experts and genius newbies here.

In fact, one learns from fellow member's bumblings: I didn't know about the resolution difference between Motion and Pan/Crop. So thanks, fellow classmate Umbilical :)

Sonic, did you miss the quoted first part of the post?

I'm sure you'll agree that an editor worth his salt would never turn his back on a project he knows is not the best he could do and just flip it off with "it's good enough."

Nothing to do with abilities or knowledge, we all learn every time we sit down to edit. It's a question of attitude and pride of craftsmanship. Do the best with what you know, and if you can't give 100% to your craft... go call your mother....

But there also comes a time to cut your losses. It's very possible that the perceived effort of fixing the project at that stage far outweighed the perceived benefit. It may indeed be time to pack that one in and move on.

johnmeyer stated - "You can then route the output of multiple tracks to various busses that you set up"

This only applies to sound tracks doesn't it????

If this applies to picture tracks can you give a quick explanation please?

"You can then route the output of multiple tracks to various busses that you set up"

This only applies to sound tracks doesn't it????Look in the Vegas help menu under Video Bus Track.

Here's some of what you'll find:
From the View menu, choose Video Bus Track to toggle the display of the video bus track at the bottom of the track view. A single bus track exists as a timeline representation of the main video output.

You can use the bus track to animate video output effects using keyframes, add motion blur envelopes, or video supersampling envelopes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you want to do?
Add keyframes to the video bus track
Adding keyframes to the video bus track is just like working with any other video track. Use video bus track keyframes to animate video output effects.

Add a fade-to color envelope
You can add fade-to-color, motion blur amount, and video supersampling envelopes to the video bus track to affect your video output.

Adding and editing a fade-to-color envelope is just like adding an envelope on a standard video track, but it affects all tracks.

Add a motion blur envelope
Motion blur can help you make computer-generated animation look more realistic. For example, if you use track motion or event pan/crop to move a clip across the frame, each frame is displayed clearly when no motion blur is applied. Turning on motion blur adds a motion-dependent blur to each frame to create the appearance of smooth motion in the same way a fast-moving subject is blurred when you take a photograph with a slow shutter speed.

There is LOTS more, but you can read the help file itself to get the rest.

That 'Video Bus Track' information couldn't have come at a better time.
Thank you very much.

I'm sure you'll agree that an editor worth his salt would never turn his back on a project he knows is not the best he could do and just flip it off with "it's good enough."

Baysideas, I gotta say, you just came across as a total douchebag there. I'm sure you're a nice guy, but it would seem that you've never worked on a project with a deadline and a very short timeframe for work, now it may seem that laziness has caused this guy to not give it his all, but for all you know it was required by the very next day and he still needed to render it out, or maybe it was 450 photos long and he was only getting paid a small amount for the project and had other work backing up. Your comment was incredibly rude and seemingly completely unbased, and I felt insulted just seeing you say that to someone on these forums.

I regularly work on projects that have a 2-day turn around or less sometimes because of the nature of the work I have to do for some clients, and while you may not agree that if you don't lose hours of sleep, shut out your family and friends, and make the rest of your clients wait, just to make some photos look better you're not an editor worth his salt, I think you're acting very naive. While I strongly approve of the idea that you need to work hard at your job and give it your best, sometimes you have to let go ( in fact it could be said that if you can get to the point where you don't see how to improve your video then you're not an editor worth his salt because you should constantly be wanting more out of your work and have to only let go of it because you run out of time). I certainly struggle with making my productions look better and better in the time I have alloted to do them, but at the same time I have deadlines and often very tight ones, along with a wife and a kid on the way, and I have to make sure I know what comes first. Perhaps I should call my mother and give up right now too, but I'm pretty sure I'll just keep doing what I love and making my clients happy in deadlines that make them even happier.

Sorry for the rant but what you said just came off so condescending and rude that I just wanted to make sure that the intended recipient of your comment doesn't feel that all of us agree with what you said, and I'm sure you're normally a nice guy and maybe didn't mean it to sound so rude, and text can very easily be misconstrued, but maybe you should try and think a little more in the future how what you're saying sounds, and how you almost certainly don't know all the circumstances behind the situation before making such statements as before.

Dave

Thanks to forum members who called out baysidebas for his comment. Baysides, I don't think I need your wisdom as an editor, especially if it is mean spirited and unhelpful. It's really not what I was hoping for from posting on the forum. I'd appreciate an apology.

Dave, I'll take your comments in the spirit that they were given. I'm not going to try to impose my work ethic on anyone here. Certainly only you can be the final judge of your actions. But you're going overboard in trying to justify someone else's actions, and you're attempting to do this by speculating about facts, reasons, not in evidence.

My comment wasn't an attempt to insult, maybe just to shock him a little into re-evaluating his approach to his work. If it came across otherwise, for that I'll apologize. Yes, as you point out, we all have to make compromises and sometimes let go of a project due to deadlines, it's just that it didn't come across that way. It came across as "it's too much work to do it right, so I'll settle for an inferior result. Maybe no one will notice." That, my friend, lowers the bar for everyone and only serves to devalue the effort of all those striving for excellence.

Baysidebas, can't you see how hypocritical you are being here? I think you need to take your own advice.

"But you're going overboard in trying to justify someone else's actions, and you're attempting to do this by speculating about facts, reasons, not in evidence."

I think that Dave's assumptions were reasonable. You on the other hand really know nothing about my project or my work ethic. You are trying to justify your mistaken rudeness by harping on one line of text that you have little context for. If you really need justification for my saying "that it is good enough", you may notice if you read my original post, how much work I originally put in to making this effect work. I admit I was banging my head against a wall, but in the end it did work, and it was "good enough". You really have no ground to stand on in trying to correct my supposed laziness.

I regret that you have started this flame. Now its my turn to make some assumptions about you. It seems to me that you feel the need to act as some overbearing father figure by handing out discipline in the form of abusive language. It also seems you fancy yourself an intellectual and so have a hard time admitting you are wrong.

Hopefully this will shock you into re-evaluating your approach to posting comments on the forum.