I'm really struggling here... Why do my graphics I bring in from Photoshop look like crap?

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/lower_third_crap.png

Now, before you tell me to check the obvious, I will give you some background:

Footage = HDV
Timeline = Apple ProRes 422
RT settings = High
Motion Filter quality = Best

My footage looks great, my motion graphics look awesome, its just when I dump a static image into the time line, it looks all wonky. This is not a canvas issue, because its still there when I render.

I am not using low quality JPGs either, only TIFF/TARGA or PSD.

When I create the graphics in Photoshop, I use 1440x1080 with a PAR of 1.333...

What am I doing wrong?

FYI... I just tried motion file (which the graphic looked perfect in motion) and then dropped the motion file in the FCP timeline and it still looked as bad as above!

Since you are using a ProRes timeline, which is full raster, have you tried making the gfx 1920x1080 square pixels? Also, red is a problematic color for video so maybe de-saturating the red a bit or using a different color might yield better results.


-A

I have tried 1920 square, but with the same results...

I have tried desaturated and its still really poor quality.

Any other suggestions?

Is the problem with the output from your computer monitor or your video monitor?

Both, the problem is present everywhere... but the end result will be computer based, the project is not intended for TV distro...

Anyone have any thoughts? I am really stuck here...

yes

inspect the clip settings via selecting the clip and hitting command 9

do they match the TL settings via Command 0 ? if not, there is the problem. are you using a TL preset, or did you go and create a new one.

also, trash FCP prefs, plist, POA and OBJ cache

there is a settings mismatch here somewhere. It looks like FCP is scaling a smaller image to fit a larger one.

Here are my sequence settings:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/seq_set_422.png

And here are the image properties:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/item_prop_hd_image.png

It looks like they are both the same... I will have to try and trash my prefs later this afternoon.

Thanks,

SA

your problem is using 1440. make the graphics 1920. the artifacts you see are from scaling the graphic up in size. if your source material is DVCpro or HDV which is 1440 _native_ pixels, the codec can still hand off 1920 to FCP or another app. since what goes on internally with FCP is not documented, this is an assumption. regardless, source video material gets handled by FCP in such a way as 1440 scales to 1920. once you place 1920 based graphics in, the problems will go away. its also possible you may need to change your TL settings to 1920.

Ok... I tried that earlier and it yields the same results. Although, I did not change my TL settings to 1920.

I will try this later tonight and see what happens.

I appreciate the help.

SA

Is that pic above the entire frame scaled down, or a section?

You might be looking at scaling artifacts for the canvas window, and not the true output.

Looks to me like you have two problems.

First the resolution on your graphics is way low as evidenced by the jaggies between composited elements. Whatever your program is SAYING, that raster looks no better than 72dpi or so - based on what I'm seeing. It's like your program is rendering the low rez PREVIEW graphic - rather than a final high-rez graphic. This can sometimes happen if you drag and drop elements instead of actually IMPORTING them to your timeline as the full rez file.

Second, you're clearly not benefiting from using Alpha Channel gradients at the graphics edges to composite them over the video raster.

Most graphics programs should do this automatically. Again, this looks like you're getting low rez pict files, not the actual high rez graphics with Alpha mattes.

To my eye, something's definitely wrong in your export/import workflow.

Make sure your Photoshop files have transparent backgrounds, then try saving them as TIFF files and when the program asks you if you want to save the Alpha Mattes information in the TIFFS definitely say YES.

But I can't tell more than that just by looking at it.

Good luck

Bill... I appreciate the response, but I don't believe what you explain is the issue. I am not working with low res files and I am not dragging an dropping.

FYI-- I trashed my FCP preferences and it still looks like crap...

Here are the to files I have been testing: (both versions give the same result)

(1440x1080 PAR=1.33 TARGA)http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/HDV_1440.tga
(1920x1080 PAR=1.0 TIF) http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/HDV_1920.tif

Can someone maybe verify if they are bad in some way? You can see my timeline settings above (1440x1080)

And here is an example of it side by side in FCP:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/side_side.png

and it looks the same after I render/export... Please, someone tell me I am missing something really stupid :P

well I thought I had the Ah-HA Moment but no. one thing is the image you are using is 16bit rather then 8bit. I saved it back out as 8bit, but got the exact same result. I can repro your problem which means your setup is probably ok. the bad news is it looks like a FCP bug.

FCP is somewhere double scaling the image it seems or doing something weird with deinterlacing the image when it should not. I tried this on a G4 laptop with ATI video chip.

one other question. if you render the video, does it still look the same ? reason I ask is that FCP reduces res on some operations, and thats what may be going on here. when I rendered it, it actually got worse. FCP deinterlaced the image and it got even more jaggy.

here is a possible workaround - create a motion project, drop the straight TIF into motion, and then apply the motion project as the title and see what happens.

one other question. if you render the video, does it still look the same ?

Yes... rendering produces the same results


here is a possible workaround - create a motion project, drop the straight TIF into motion, and then apply the motion project as the title and see what happens.

Yeah... tried the motion path and I still had poor results.

I'm plumb out of ideas...

this is weird.

the problem is your TIF file. I went into PS and created some text and circles, then saved out a TGA with alpha. they looked fine in FCP. copy and pasted a chunk of your image into the same file, and back in FCP it was messed up. there is something weird about it, most likely because it started as a 16bit image. what I can suggest now is to redo the image entirely in 8bit and then all should be good.

whats odder is that the problem is only really on one side of the image and looks like a premult problem of some sort that doesn't show up in PS, but in FCP there is some color transform going on that brings it out.

Wow... I wish I was getting the same results... I still cannot get any versions, whether it be 8/16 bit, tiff/targa or whatever to import properly.

try reinstalling QT, which ever version you are on as QT is ( should be ) handling the image import. go to apple and get the stand alone installer. if you want to go back to 7.3.1 find Pacifist via google which will make it easier. if you have a 3rd party video IO card, I'd also reinstall that after doing QT. hopefully this cures it.

Well... I really appreciate your helpful advices, but... it did not work.

I was successful in downgrading to 7.3.1 and I removed all third party plug-ins to QT, but still looks all messed up.

hmmm. well this is all the standard quick painless things to try. this is coming down to the more painful.

1. reinstall the OS via Archieve and Install which will keep all your fonts and other 3rd party bits plus prefs. takes about 40 minutes and is fairly painless.

2. reinstall FCP only

3. reinstall PS

update FCP, OS, PS.

now one point here. the image you posted up also messed up for me. a new image I created here worked, and I'm posting it back. the text and circles I made look clean here, lets see if they look clean for you.


won;t let me UL..... email me & I'll send it direct

Ok... so I went through the process of reinstalling, still no luck...

I am starting to heavily lean towards bug, unless someone can prove otherwise.

is nobody overlaying graphics in FCP? I would think this would be a known issue with a workaround.

Scott,

I grabbed the examples you posted and dropped them into a ProRes 422 1920x1080 sequence (both 60i and 23.98) w/some DVCPro HD footage. There was a slight difference between looking at the source image in the viewer and looking at the rendered image in my timeline, but nothing as bad as what you seem to be seeing.

I'm running FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.3.1, and 10.4.11 on a dual 2ghz G5.


-A

Ok... I whipped up a short screen cast that shows what I am doing. Maybe I am doing something totally incorrect... which is causing my troubles.

check it out (~7mb - 1920x1200 - MOV):

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/fcp_hdv_still.mov You may want to save it off, it might hose the browser because of its size.

Andrew, is this how you did it?

Ok... I whipped up a short screen cast that shows what I am doing. Maybe I am doing something totally incorrect... which is causing my troubles.

check it out (~7mb - 1920x1200 - MOV):

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/fcp_hdv_still.mov You may want to save it off, it might hose the browser because of its size.

Andrew, is this how you did it?

After looking at your movie it looks like you and I are seeing the same results. The stills you posted looked a little worse, but that just must have been compression from making the still image. Have you tried exporting a test QT and/or looking at it on a TV/b'cast monitor to see if it still looks messed up?


-A

Yes, I have rendered it out and viewed on both computer and broadcast monitor with no difference in quality.

Ok, I can both repro and fix a related problem, sort of.

I placed the TGA file into a ProRes 1440X1080 project. TGA was 1920X1080

when I placed Generators->Color Solid (FXplug) under the TGA in V1, I got an FCP error "Your graphics card can not render this in a sequence of this size" and I had what looked like low res render. what the $#@#$!!!!! I removed the Color Solid and replaced it with Generators->Color (AE api) and everything was good.

what graphics card is in the machine ? do you have another card to swap out ? apple never says exactly what its rendering on the graphics card, but maybe this is the problem - GPU vs CPU rendering. wouldn't be the first time. the laptop is 128mb Vram, what about your card ? now I want to try this on my X800 256mb in the G5. I'll email you the project file

This article might help you in some ways:
http://www.rippletraining.com/engine/index.php?action=docs&doc=418

I only do this stuff in after effects, but I do struggle with final cut and graphics once and a while. Is your video interlaced? If you check your sequence settings try your fields set to none. Export it to h264 or whatever and don't bother looking at it in the canvas at all. And I guess setting motion quality to best could help...

Have you tried switching effects handling off?

I always have some problem or other like this on every project. Sometime I'll try to get to the bottom of it. It's always something different however.

Have you tried rendering to a self contained quicktime in motion and use that in FCP?

Good Luck.

PS I never use tiffs, always PSD or tga

what graphics card is in the machine?

I have the Geforce 7600 GT (iMac version)... Hopefully my new MacPro arrives soon, which will have the 8800 card.

I will try what you suggest later tonight, my real job is getting in the way! :P

still no luck with all the suggestions... I even tried making a motion template, which imports beautifully in the viewer (and looks perfect in motion), but as soon I drop it in the time line, it turns to garbage...

I render, export and it looks the same.

I tried all the suggestion from the ripple training article... no luck.

Now, when I import other motion templates (Tech Blue- Lower Third), it works fine... maybe slightly blurry, but more than acceptable.

What else?

Did you try rendering in Motion and adding the finished quicktime into FCP?

yeah, I rendered in motion using the animation settings... the outputted mov looked perfect... that is, until I dumped it in my timeline. :)

I am really at a loss now...

So only the red graphic looks bad, and the blue one looks ok?

funny you mention... I tried rendering in blue, thinking it was having a hard time dealing with red (which isn't uncommon)... wrong... looks just as bad.

Interesting... I changed to uncompressed 8 bit (in the sequence settings) and it looks MUCH, MUCH better!

But, this kind of hoses my work flow, as I have to re-render footage. Not a show stopper, but a BIG thorn in the side.

***EDIT*** Once I rendered, it looked like POO!

As I said above, I have been working this issue in multiple forums... and someone pointed out something interesting... He was drawing to the conclusion that the renders are high quality images (4:4:4) and the prores is lower (4:2:2) and they will never match. I am a confused by this as its a bit over my technical head.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

this thread has kind of dried up on me... anyone have any other suggestions?

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/motion_text_in_fcp_spencer.html

As I said above, I have been working this issue in multiple forums... and someone pointed out something interesting... He was drawing to the conclusion that the renders are high quality images (4:4:4) and the prores is lower (4:2:2) and they will never match. I am a confused by this as its a bit over my technical head.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

it should not cause the problem.... BTW, is what you are seeing going out to the NTSC or HD monitor the same way ? or only the canvas ?

I think its kind of a dead end issue... here is what I have determined.

If I edit in a ProRes timeline and dump in an alpha channel graphic, it looks bad... but when I am done editing and change the sequence to "Animation", it looks perfect... I then export to quicktime using the sequence settings (animation) and the output still looks perfect, although huge in size.

But then, I run it through compressor and get results no better than I had with using ProRes.

See the difference here:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/diff.jpg

I think it is what it is... I can't seem to get razor sharp graphics no matter what I do...

well... knowing what I know now, when dealing with HDV or DV and other compressed codecs, you have to be careful with the way you create your graphics. High contrast, organic shaped stuff probably isn't the best choice...

so, I switched my graphic and got it to an acceptable level:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/better.png

I really appreciate everyone's input...

Nice. Even though that wasn't what you original envisioned for the gfx, at least you know it's not a bug in your system and just a limitation the video world has that the gfx world does not.


-A

you know maybe its the curve radius of the graphic was the problem. it was in just the right spot to be 1/2 pixels for the codec. animation being 4:4:4 of course doesn't have the limitation of of 4:2:2, but even still it should of worked.


maybe just one last thing. if you took that graphic and made it 5-10% larger or smaller, did it work ? and maybe try nudging it a 1/2 pixel over in the motion tab. seems like your new graphic looks ok.

Steve... that's a good point, I may just have been at a level where with degradation was very apparent.

I will have to do a few more tests in the near future... right now I am refreshing the FedEx tracking page awaiting my new Mac Pro - YAY!