Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Using photos with a different ratio... HELP! 1

Status
Not open for further replies.

Hopchic

Technical User
Aug 26, 2002
9
US
I am doing a really important project for my company and am having trouble with one thing--much of the project involves showing photographs, imported into Adobe, over a Jumpback background. The photos are not the same aspect ratio as the frame, and Adobe automatically adds black borders to the photos that I can't seem to get rid of. If I don't use the motion feature, I can make the borders white and then chroma them out. But I need the photos to move--to zoom in from small to big--and when I do that, Adobe adds back in my white or black borders. So my question is: how do I get rid of the borders on my different-aspect-ratio pictures once and for all? How do I do it with the motion option activated. Please help asap. Thanks. Hopchic
 
What version of Adobe are you using?

If you are using 6.5, you can right-click on the picture within the timeline, and check maintain aspect ratio. This will keep the picture with its original aspect ratio, rather than warping to fit within the frame of your project. Be forewarned, however, that because of maintaining the aspect ratio, you will have a default background color (selectable) showing unless the aspect ratios of the picture and project match exactly.

In the same menu under video options is the motion menu. Here you can have the picture zoom in, zoom out, rotate, etc.
 
I'm using 6.0, and do have "maintain aspect ratio checked"--the problem is the background. I want to get rid of it, whether it be black or white. I can get rid of it using the transparency method, but then the background reappears if I also apply motion to it. So I'm still stuck. Any further ideas?
 
Hi Hopchic,

Okay, let's say you have a viewing area of 720 x 480 pixels, and a background thing happening all the time, some sort of loop or whatnot. Now, you have another asset, a 3" wide x 5" tall photograph, scanned at 300 dpi, which makes the file 900 x 1500 pixels.

Obviously, you can just drop the image on the timeline and tell Premiere to display it using the original proportions and there'll be space on either side. Premiere renders that space in different ways. You also want to zoom and pan around on the image (say, for example, that it is a map).

Okay, there are two problems for you to solve:

The first is how to zoom and pan around. That's easy -- use "Image Pan". It's really very nice. If you want to do something fancy such as rotation, then it's going to get a little messy. If you use Image Pan and the dimensions of your frame get smaller than 720 x 480, then you're going to see some blurring, simply because Premiere is trying to create information where there is none. Now, your image is 900 pixels by 1500 pixels, which means at the maximum lossless zoom, you can move your little 720 x 480 viewport around quite a bit. The image is about four times what you can cover.

The second problem to solve is what to do when you zoom so far out that you see the edges of the image. Very ugly.

What I recommend is that you rebuild your photo image in the following way: In Photoshop, place it in a largest-size-Premiere-can-handle image (in theory, 4000 x 4000, but in practice, I've found this to be much smaller when there are alpha channels involved). Make an alpha channel. Make the alpha channel black for everything you want that's transparent. Make it white for everything that you want that'll show on the timeline. If you want a feathered edge, then feather the transition. Here's a page that shows how to prepare a file in Photoshop with an alpha channel:


Import that file as you would any other graphic file. Try placing it in the timeline. If it crashes Premiere, then make the file smaller and try re-importing it.

Once it's on the timeline, right-click on it and choose Video >> Transparency. Select alpha-channel and click OK.

Test it out by holding the ALT key down and clicking the ticker over your timeline. Your image should appear, with a transparent background. Use Filters >> Image Pan to move around on it. Use Duration to make it last as long as you like.

Howzzat?

Cheers,


[monkey] Edward [monkey]

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?
 
If you apply Alpha Channel transparency to the image with 'maintain aspect ratio' on V2 or higher, the edge (coloured) area will become transparent.

If you use Motion to shrink and move the overlay image, you can retain this transparency by selecting 'Use Clips' in the Motion window Alpha settings.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top