Resizing images for MediaStudio Pro

VelcroFace · Post by **VelcroFace** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:14 am

Whenever I create a slideshow on MediaStudio Pro in which I pan and zoom on the images, I've found that I must resize the images to stretch them slightly. This distortion is equal to the way a 640 x 480 image gets stretched to fit the 720 x 480 frame on an MPEG 2 file for a DVD.

I've been using Paint Shop Pro to do this, but I'd like to switch over to PhotoImpact because it has features uniquely suited to making graphics for the Web and DVD's. However, I've been unable to find an easy way to resize images to create just the right amount of stretching. In PSP it's a simple matter of selecting an aspect ratio of 1.5:1, but I've been able to find no such setting in PI.

It's not a simple matter of changing a 640 x 480 image to 720 x 480 dimensions, as the original image must be much larger than 640 x 480 to accomodate the panning and zooming without any apparent degradation. I understand that it's possible to write scripts in PI. Would I be able to accomplish the resizing easily with a script?

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Michael

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:28 am

I'm not 100% certain if I understand your problem because I have never panned and zoomed on my images in MSP.

What I think you might have to do is this: crop your source image to an aspect ratio of 4:3. That's easily enough done in PI and can even be automated to do a batch of them if you can find a common starting point for each of the images.

When you select the crop tool in PI you are given a list of standard presets, TV monitor 4:3 is one of them. Ensure that the padlock icon next to the preset window is locked. If you now click and hold anywhere on your image and drag the mouse over, the resultant selection is always going to be the fixed ratio setting.

On the other hand, the stretchng effect you get may also have to do with the "non square pixel rendering" feature of MSP.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:33 am

After re-reading your post I have one question: are your images in fact 640 x 480 pixels?

If yes, then you can forget my previous post because this image size is in fact 4:3 aspect ratio.

VelcroFace · Post by **VelcroFace** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:17 am

heinz-oz wrote:After re-reading your post I have one question: are your images in fact 640 x 480 pixels?

To give you an example: I have a 4:3 aspect ratio image measuring 2272 x 1704 on which I want to perform a pan and zoom. I must stretch that image to 2545 x 1704 or it will appear squeezed when rendered out as an MPEG 2 file. This is simple to do in PSP by selecting a 1.5:1 aspect ratio, but I can't find a way to do it easily in PI. Any ideas?

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Michael

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:36 am

sorry, that doesn't make sense to me. Did you check the non square pixel rendering setting?

I never noticed that my images are squashed or stretched, although I don't pan and zoom, hmmm, I must admit, I'm stumped.

I'll ponder it a bit more and give it try on my video machine tonight.

VelcroFace · Post by **VelcroFace** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:18 pm

heinz-oz wrote:I never noticed that my images are squashed or stretched, although I don't pan and zoom, hmmm, I must admit, I'm stumped.

If you don't apply the pan and zoom filter, you can use a standard 640 x 480 image, and it won't get squeezed. Once you try anything fancy, you must use a stretched image. MSP's filters apparently assume you're working with a 720 x 480 frame.

So... any ideas how to achieve this easily in PI?

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Michael

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:19 pm

I'm still not sure why you would have to do that? Never mind, you know that you have to do that.

I would resize my image using PI 10 (I'm sure PI 11 would do the same but unable to give you detailed instructions because I have not used it that much yet and have no time now to try it) by selecting "Adjust" on the menu bar > Resize > Un-tick "Keep aspect ratio" > Size in pixels.

If you resize the image with the "Keep Aspect ratio" unticked and only change the width, the image will be stretched. Since file size does not matter all that much if you go to DVD later, I would use either "No Resampling" or "Closest Neighbor" because it gives you the best image quality, though at slightly bigger file size.

VelcroFace · Post by **VelcroFace** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:49 pm

Ask the MSP developers. It threw me when I first found out about the resizing quirk.

Yes, I know I can type in the number of pixels, but I'd rather not have to whip out my calculator every time I have to resize an image (and on a long slideshow with lots of pans and zooms, that's quite a few times, with the chance I may copy the figures wrong). If there were a way to stretch the horizontal dimension by a factor of 1.125, then that would solve it, but the dialogue in PI allows only one number after the decimal point!

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Michael

VelcroFace · Post by **VelcroFace** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:37 am

Your question about non-square pixel rendering started me experimenting. Turns out there's no need to stretch the images if you check the box to use non-square pixel rendering. This seems counterintuitive to me, as an image file uses square pixels, which is why I never tried it in the first place. Perhaps I should have addressed this question to the MSP user group.

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Michael

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:54 am

There you go

some of these terms don't seem to be very descriptive of what they actually do. The way I understood "non square pixel rendering" is that it renders out pixels that are not square

Be that as it may, seems it helped your problem. I'm happy for you.

Good luck.