On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 18:19:17 -0800, "Paul Tauger" <ptaugerspamtrap@cox.net> wrote:

>"Neuman - Ruether" <d_ruether@hotmail.com> wrote in message

>news:3e422f22.4093203@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...

><snip>

>

>> The results: Premiere was unacceptable;

>Did you use the Motion tool or Pan and Zoom Transform. I'll assume the

>latter, since it's well known that the Motion tool loses resolution when

>zoomed.

>

>One thing I've found that makes a world of difference is resampling the

>still in Photoshop (or something similar) so that it's largest dimension (if

>not square) equals the Premiere maximum of 4,000 pixels. I then import the

>resampled still as a TIFF, as opposed to JPEG or BMP.

>

>Obviously, resampling doesn't create detail where detail doesn't exist.

>However, when I do this, all pans are smooth with no jerkiness, and digital

>artifacts are, at worst, held to a minimum (honestly, I don't see any of the

>"swimming" which accompanies zooms on smaller stills).

You have "hit the nail on the head", I think - as

I thought about it, it appeared the differeing results

depended more on how the original image was "treated"

by the various software choices. Within Premiere,

doing what you suggest, or adding some directional

"better Gaussian blur", smooths the result - and I

suspect the output of all five programs tried would

look about the same after appropriate adjustments

were made to the original images... BTW, in general,

I prefer to import graphics into Premiere at double

size for best results, and when you need to crop the

image in Premiere with the "image pan", it does make

sense to bring it in as big as possible...

>> AE was worse (!!! - yes, I know this is

>> unlikely, but I thought I had found the

>> quality settings, etc. to optimize it,

>> short of applying directional blur...);

>> Vegas Video produced the smoothest result,

>> though also the least sharp; Moving

>> Picture was the next smoothest, and a bit

>> sharper; Imaginate was a bit less smooth

>> (though quite good), but sharper yet.

>> In the last three cases, sharpening the

>> motion-video results to match in sharpness

>> pretty much equalized the motion-artifacting,

>> so the differences in the last three appear

>> to come down to the amount of auto-blurring

>> of the original image that is built-in.

>> None looks as good as a photo moved properly

>> in front of a good camera, though, but all

>> of the last three are useable with images

>> with minimal contrasty edges (this is rather

>> limiting, though...). The easiest to use

>> are Imaginate and Moving Picture, with Vegas

>> Video OK (I can see why people like this

>> editor - with a few interface screen layout

>> changes [or dual 21" monitors...;-)], I

>> could easily like this program for general

>> editing...), Premiere a bit "klunky" (image

>> pan), and After Effects unacceptably poor

>> in its interface. Imaginate and Moving

>> Picture are both $200, rather pricey for

>> the limited uses. I prefer the interface

>> of Imaginate (though Moving Picture is not

>> bad), and it gets you more directly to

>> a result (I would probably sharpen most

>> of the output of Moving Picture), but I will

>> look further for other differences that may

>> be more important. Vegas Video has their

>> good pan-zoom tool built-in, though I found

>> it too soft for my uses (sharpening the

>> results works, though), and it is more

>> "finicky" to use than Imaginate or Moving

>> Picture. I suspect that the results from

>> all of these, with optimized pre and post

>> manipulations of the images, would be very

>> similar - and, given the nature of the D25

>> medium used, all have problems balancing

>> image sharpness with motion smoothness.

>> Some are easier than others to use, and

>> cheaper. Well, these are my preliminary

>> observations...;-)

>> David Ruether