Posted by PTravel on 07/03/06 01:20

"RP" <RobertPerezLaw@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1151880839.872775.178940@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
>> > How would you recommend I scan these in and then re-size? I'm using
>> > standard DV so I've been scanning them all in and then resizing to
>> > 720x480 but I suspect this is suboptimal.
>>
>> Definitely suboptimal. You want the ability to zoom in and out of the
>> pictures. To do that, you'll want a minimum of 720 x 480 pixels when
>> fully
>> zoomed in -- obviously, this translates to considerable more as you zoom
>> out. For example, with images at Premiere Pro's maximum, you can zoom in
>> by
>> a ration of about 4.5x before digitization (blocky artifacts) occurs.
>
> Ah, I think I'm seeing it all come together now. It helped to do some
> quick research on scanning (www.scantips.com <-- was particularly
> helpful), clarifying for me the pixel display issues that previously
> baffled me. Your response makes perfect sense now. Most other sources
> I've read indicate that it's a waste to shoot for the 4096x4096 limit,
> but I guess they're assuming I'm not going to need all that much
> headroom and that storage is at a premium. In my case, storage isn't a
> big issue, it's not like I do this for a living. I do want to preserve
> my zooming in capability, so I will give myself some headroom, but I'm
> guessing I'll probably be ok with something like 2000x2000 which, if I
> understand correctly, should allow me roughly a 4-1 zoom on images that
> can comfortably downsample to 720x480 and still fit without cropping
> (I'm assuming the correct axis to multiply is the 480, which I guess
> will produce some "reverse letterboxing"). I hope this makes sense, it
> sounds confusing the way I say it, but I think I get it.

Ummm. . . I'm not sure -- let me take another pass at it. Suppose, for
example, you have a still that consists of a medium shot of two people. In
the video, you want to start zoomed in on the face of one and gradually pull
back to reveal both people. You want the available pixels for the zoomed in
close up of the first person to be at least equal to 720 x 480. If not,
Premiere Pro will have to resample and you'll get a degraded image -- it
will look blocky and blurred. When you've pulled back (zoomed out) and now
have both people in the frame, Premiere Pro will simply resize down to 720 x
480. Accordingly, a 2000 x 2000 pixel still will let you zoom in by a ratio
of just under 3x, i.e. 2000 / 720 = 2.7x.

>
> I guess another issue occurs to me as I write this. Seems to me that
> Premiere Pro is going to need to preserve the original 2000x2000 image
> and build that into the final production irrespective of how much use
> it actually gets at that size in the film.

Not exactly. Premiere will resize the image to fit the 720 x 480 frame.
720 x 480 is the standard frame size for D-25 NTSC, i.e. what your camcorder
produces.

> This has at least two
> implications: 1) final output is larger (no biggie, really);

Final output will be exactly the same.


> but 2)
> performance is slower due to file management and downsampling. Is that
> an appreciable issue on decent hardware (my Alienware Area 51 - 7900)?

Shouldn't be an issue at all. As with any effect and any still, Premiere
Pro will have to render. The power of your machine, as well as the amount
of memory it contains, dictates how long rendering will take. Once the
project has been rendered, you can output it to your camcorder in real time.

>
> This is all a lot more complex than I originally thought when I asked
> for Premiere Pro for my birthday lol, but fun as hell. Thanks, guys.

The learning curve on Premiere Pro can be a little steep, particularly if
you don't have a lot of experience with video editing. However, I've found
there comes a point after a surprisingly short time where it all comes
together.

>

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