How do I fix this?
 

Hi,

I have a high res logo that I need to slap on some video. No problem right? Wrong! I have done this many times, but this one just will not work for me. A sample is attached below, but what I'm dealing with is 720X480 anamorphic background footage and a very large 2400X1333 PSD logo image. The soft black outline on this particular rendition is just something that I thought I would try to see if it would help, obviously it didn't. Can someone please point me in a direction that will yield a nice sharp logo in a DV timeline?

you could try keying out black with a chroma key... or doing an edge feather/thinning form the matting sub menu.

First lesson about DV Codec - it is NO GOOD FOR GRAPHICS.

You will have more luck if you work with the graphics in a different Codec - and export to your end product from that - e.g use DV on a prores timeline and when you go M2V to that.

Even if your end output is DV for some bizarre reason, working in a non DV timeline and then encoding to DV will improve graphics somewhat.

Can you not just resize the image in photoshop first?

Working in DV bizarre? You must be one of the lucky ones. Most of us toil every day in DV and are able to get great results. Not the best possible, of course, but more than acceptable for normal video needs.

Hi-res graphics do not always down-res that well. You seem to be combining a 16:9 graphic into a 720x480 anamorphic project so the program is trying to horizontally compress the graphic to compensate. The fine curves in your graphic are the first to show the results of this compression. Here are some suggestions.

1) As suggested, save a version of the graphic in the resolution of your project. 720 x 480 Anamorphic. This might require some work with the transform settings in PhotoShop.

2) Put a small glow around the graphic in PhotoShop. Change the color of the glow to whatever works best. A black glow can soften the harshness of a digital graphic.

3) Composite the graphic in a program that is better suited for tough compositing work like After Effects. Motion might work as well but I am not familiar enough to say.

4) Last and the least worthy suggestion. Perhaps the design of the graphic needs to be adjusted. The way it is now, it's going to present a lot of problems with a lot of different live footage. The black/dark gray letters are a big problem. I was once presented with a graphic like this that would disappear depending of the clothing of the subject on the screen. The solution was to put a solid color block behind it (artistically). The graphic suddenly worked with all situations.

Thank you for all of your suggestions. I have tried them all with no luck. The only one that gave me even a somewhat descent image was to put a solid color behind it. I decided that a solid color will not work with this particular project, so I converted the logo to a white image and then tossed a shine effect on it in AE and voila! Looks pretty cool and it gave me a reason to animate their logo.

Thanks again,
Ryan