Premiere Motion Filter Not Smooth on Stills

[Chris Long]

Hi All
I'm working on a project using black and white stills that I scanned in from Photoshop. They are TIFFs sized at (or just under) the 4000 ppi maximum. I've applied the Motion filter on a few for a Ken Burns look, and after rendering the timeline, the playback is still not perfectly smooth. A little inherent jerkiness and hesitancy here and there. I've tried the Easy In/Out setting on some of the moves, and the Slow In/Out on others, and the problem remains. In fact, the little jerks that happen are in areas of long, slow moves of constant velocity--probably they are more apparent there, too.

I searched the forums for help, and have tried a few things, but it stays the same. I resampled the MP3 sound file I had underneath it to 48K/16, but it didn't change. I exported the sequence to an AVI to see if it would clear up in a final product, but it is identical there, too.

[John Britt]

I've noticed this problem as well when using the Premiere 6.5 Image Pan effect on my stills. They are usually either jpg or psd files around 1600x1200 in size.

The "jerkiness" is usually more noticeable on a TV than on the computer monitor, which led me to think that it had something to do with interlacing (or maybe a lack thereof). But I've had no luck figuring out the real cause (or solution).

I'm glad Chris asked this: none of my clients has ever mentioned the "jerkiness" and my wife swears she can't see what I'm talking about when I show her an affected spot -- I was beginning to think I was imagining it!

[Mark Jefferson]

Instead of Motion, why not try the Transform filter? For basic motion, the Motion setting works OK, but if you want more control, you need the Transform filter. It is located in the Distort section of the video filters.

Cheers,
Mark Jefferson

[Lloyd Coleman]

I use Premiere Pro and the motion controls on still picture a lot and generally have had very good outcomes with it. I have found the following to be helpful:

1. Size your still pictures to an appropriate size. This makes it easier for Premiere to deal with footage, especially if you are using multiple pictures and effects. Video is only 720 x 480, so to have a huge file just makes the software work harder without better results. If you are zooming in on a picture, make sure that the area zoomed in to is at least 720 x 480, which will require a larger picture to begin with.

2. If the picture seems jerky, try clearing and then re-setting the key frames. I will do 50-100 pictures in a row that turn out perfect, and then have one that looks jerky. I haven't been able to figure out what the difference is with that particular picture so I just clear and re-set the key frames and it usually clears things up.

3. I have found that the final outcome looks better on a TV than on my computer monitor (opposite of what was posted above), and have been very pleased with the outcomes.

4. Make sure all unnecessary programs are turned off while using Premiere, you disk is defragged, you scratch disk is different than your program disk, etc.

[Paul Tauger]

You didn't say which version of Premiere you're working in. I haven't tried it in Pro yet, but in 6.0/6.5 I got silky smooth Ken Burns effects by doing the following:

1. Resize all photos so the largest dimension is _exactly_ 4,000 pixels. Premiere's internal sizing functions result in jumpiness. Premiere doesn't appear to resize if you start with an image that is 4,000 pixels in size.

2. Save as a TIFF -- never JPG, BMP, etc.

3. After importing into Premiere and dropping on the timeline, apply the Image Pan Transform, _not_ the Motion filter. The Motion filter loses resolution when zooming in. The Image Pan Transform does not, at least until you exceed standard video resolution. For a 4,000 x 4,000 pixel image, this means you can zoom in 4000/720, or 5.5, times before getting digital artifacts and blockiness.

4. Hold down the ALT key while sizing and positioning the window with the mouse -- this constrains the window to the correct video aspect, i.e. 4x3 or 16x19, depending on what you're doing.

Until I started doing it this way, I used to get jumpiness and digital artifacts.

[John Britt]

Paul

A couple of questions if I may:

OK, so #3 and #4 are already done, so that leaves the other two as possible causes. That said, I'm a little confused on #1 and #2, though...

#1 -- If DV resolution is 720 pixels by 480 pixels, then why use images that are 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels? If I have to more than double in size all of my 1600x1200 pics (the highest resolution my digital camera will get), won't this create artifacts and degrade the quality of my image? Even Photoshop's bicubic interpolation has a breaking point...

#2 -- Do you suggest not using JPGs simply because of the quality of the .jpg compression, or is there a specific way that Premiere deals with TIFFs that is better than JPG?

Of course, I could just do it myself and see what happens... BUt any input is appreciated...


Thanks

[Paul Tauger]

If DV resolution is 720 pixels by 480 pixels, then why use images that are 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels? If I have to more than double in size all of my 1600x1200 pics (the highest resolution my digital camera will get), won't this create artifacts and degrade the quality of my image? Even Photoshop's bicubic interpolation has a breaking point...

In order to move across the image, the image has to be bigger than a DV frame. Imagine a large picture moving past a window -- the window is 720 x 480, but the picture must be larger. I just finished a project that used even smaller images than yours (mine were 1.9 megapixels). I resized all of them and got great results.

Do you suggest not using JPGs simply because of the quality of the .jpg compression, or is there a specific way that Premiere deals with TIFFs that is better than JPG?

I suspect it's the way that Premiere handles JPGs, though it may be the format itself. All I can tell you is that, after much trial and error, what I've described has worked consistently for me.

[Chris Long]

Thanks for the replies, everyone--

Mark, I have tried playing with the Transform filter (in Distort) and my computer, for whatever reason, HATES it. Freezes up when I try to play with it, and sometimes crashes. Not good, and not sure why. Very odd.

Paul--in Premiere Pro, the Image Pan filter has been discontinued in favor of the Motion controls.

I hate to think that Lloyd is right, and I have to redo some of my work, but I'll try it for sure. Just as soon as I deal with my flooding basement....I'll post back when I can say something of use.

Thanks again for the replies--it's really disappointing that it just doesn't magically work the first time. Sigh...

[Tom Kronberg]

I noticed your Radeon 7500 card is a bit behind the rest of your system. The rest of your system looks fast, but it may be possible this is the chokepoint causing your problems?

[Rob Easler]

Chris, I may be able to help a bit. I used Premiere for quite a while and always had the intermitent problem you describe. It was very frustrating. I will tell you how I stopped it but first you have to listen to the commercial...once I switched to Vegas I never ever had the problem again. Never another jerky photo pan problem, no messing with picture sizes etc. Vegas is AWESOME for photo montages. Anyway, I found a consistant fix for the "jerks" was to apply a rotation on the picture of any amount. Even a 1% rotation setting will do it. You can then pan in to cover any border exposed by a slight rotation. Give it a try. It worked like a charm in P6. It's a shame one has to resort to an underground fix like that. All users didnt have the problem but it comes up regularly for at least the versions prior to PPro.

[Chris Long]

This is a fascinating possibility, Rob. I'll try it soon and see how it works. Sounds just goofy enough to work. Thanks!

And Tom--you may be right, but others seem to have the same difficulties with even newer cards. People have told me that the card doesn't matter too much, that it's the rest of the system that does the work in DV. Nevertheless, I have been looking at upgrading it; if for no other reason than to be able to play games faster... ;^)

[Chris Long]

No luck with the rotation trick, I'm afraid. I tried it at different settings, from 1 to 4%, and they all jerked in the same way. Some settings seemed to jerk even a bit more--which tells me (I think) that it does have some effect on the still, but I haven't found the right percentage yet. I'll keep plugging away.

[Rob Easler]

Sorry, it worked for me but let me clarify how I used it. I used keyframes, one for the start and one for the finish of the clip. Don't apply the same % to both keyframes they must be like 0 on the first and 1 on the second or whatever.

[Chris Long]

Well, I finally found the time to burn a test DVD-RW with a rendered version (mpeg2) of the sequence I was struggling with, and it plays fine on my TV (as Lloyd had mentioned earlier, in his #3). Looks smooth and quite nice. Go figure.

So the proplem (if in fact this single test is enough to draw conclusions from) is with the previews and such on my computer, and I should simply ignore it while editing, with the hope/knowledge that it'll all be fine when I get it on the final DVD. I wish it weren't so, but it seems to be that way. I'd like to know that what I'm seeing in my preview monitor while editing is what will be onscreen for my audience, but I'll have to go on faith.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!

[Glenn Chan]

You should hook up a TV to your editing system. Your camera should be able to convert from DV<-->analog. You have to set which way the conversion goes.