Also note that you're using a widescreen project setting but your photos are 4:3.

So you'll either need to make your photos small enough to fit in your video frame and have black bars on the right and left or make your photos fill the screen and lose the tops and/or bottoms.

Why not use a 4:3 project setting so that your video frame is the same shape as your photos?

Thanks for the responses. I have checked the settings in the preview window and have 'Simulate device aspect to fit preview window' and 'Scale video to fit preview window' both checked.

If I use a 4.3 project setting as you suggest, Steve, how will this affect the movie when I watch it on a widescreen TV?

If I use a 4.3 project setting as you suggest, Steve, how will this affect the movie when I watch it on a widescreen TV?

You'll have black bars on both sides of the picture, unless your TV allows you to zoom in. In that case you'll be in the same situation as you were, except you'll have the option of seeing the whole picture.

Thanks, Tog. I was afraid that might happen. Trial and error is a very time-consuming way to learn and I had hoped that someone might be able to suggest a project setting which would allow me to work without problems on the timeline and then play the final DVD satisfactorily (no black lines) on a widescreen TV.

If you don't want the black lines you can do one of the following:

1/ stretch the image to fit the screen;
2/ clip the image to fit the screen;
3/ 'pan' up or down the image, so that it is all shown over the period of the pan;
4/ provide a moving or stating background image to act as a sort of frame to the main image.

The best choice really depends upon the image, although I don't recommend method 1/.

No matter what you choose, you're going to have to compromise in some way because your photos are not the same shape as your video frame.

In other words, you can either have your photo not fill you screen, or you can have it fill your screen but its top and/or bottom will be cropped off.

I'm not really sure the reason for this phenomenon, when the picture shape doesn't match the frame shape, why people get so overwrought about making it "fit".

Back in the day if you wanted to put a photograph into a picture frame and it wasn't the right shape you either cropped the photo to fit or put a mat around it to fill in the extra space. Whether your intent was practical or artistic, in the end you just got it done.

Now with digital electronic imaging, we're faced with the exact same situation of fitting the picture into the frame, somehow, and yet people expect everything to fit exactly, somehow, without cropping or matting (leaving empty borders around the image). Just get it done, by cropping or matting, and be done with it.