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cucswiz · Dec 15, 2003, 03:02 PM

Hey guys,

I'm definitely not an iMovie expert, so I'm looking for some advice. I'm planning on making a friend a movie (of digital pictures) as a Xmas gift. However, I've noticed that when I use the photos from iPhoto, the quality is considerably worse e.g. I open up iPhoto and look at the picture, then I look at it playing in iMovie, and everything is grainy - its as if my 3.4 MP digicam has turned into a 1 MP digicam.

Does anyone have any advice on this? I'd really like it if the movie could have nice clear pictures (the same quality as were taken). Please help.

Mrjinglesusa · Dec 15, 2003, 04:51 PM

Do you have iDVD? If so, I find making a slideshow on iDVD from iPhoto albums is quick and easy and looks really good. I made a DVD slideshow to play at our wedding and everyone loved it.

KeyLimePi · Dec 15, 2003, 06:19 PM

What's your final destination for this project? I'm guessing it's headed for a TV screen? If so, don't judge the quality of the final output by iMovie's preview image. If your pictures are good quality -- say at least 3.2 megapixel snapshots or 300 dpi scans -- and you don't zoom in too much, your pictures will look fine when the final movie is produced. Try it for yourself. Output part of your iMovie back to your camera and then play it on a TV.

Also, if you're doing the Ken Burns thing, remember to move the pics very slowly. The faster they move, the worse they look.

GL

cucswiz · Dec 15, 2003, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by KeyLimePi:
What's your final destination for this project? I'm guessing it's headed for a TV screen? If so, don't judge the quality of the final output by iMovie's preview image. If your pictures are good quality -- say at least 3.2 megapixel snapshots or 300 dpi scans -- and you don't zoom in too much, your pictures will look fine when the final movie is produced. Try it for yourself. Output part of your iMovie back to your camera and then play it on a TV.

Also, if you're doing the Ken Burns thing, remember to move the pics very slowly. The faster they move, the worse they look.

GL

Actually, the final destination is going to be just a .mov file that she can watch on her computer. Thus, the quality is pretty important. Does anyone know how to solve this problem - it would seem pretty important to get good quality pictures to show up the same in iMovie.

scottiB · Dec 15, 2003, 11:59 PM

The images will look fine. Export what you have now as a QuickTime .mov, and you'll see it's A-OK.

JKT · Dec 16, 2003, 05:22 AM

Originally posted by cucswiz:
Hey guys,

I'm definitely not an iMovie expert, so I'm looking for some advice. I'm planning on making a friend a movie (of digital pictures) as a Xmas gift. However, I've noticed that when I use the photos from iPhoto, the quality is considerably worse e.g. I open up iPhoto and look at the picture, then I look at it playing in iMovie, and everything is grainy - its as if my 3.4 MP digicam has turned into a 1 MP digicam.

Does anyone have any advice on this? I'd really like it if the movie could have nice clear pictures (the same quality as were taken). Please help.

iMovie previews are purposefully of reduced image quality (the app would be incredibly slow if they weren't). Export your movie and see how it looks - the exported movie should be of a quality commensurate with the compression options you choose for the export. You can also export photos from iPhoto as a Quicktime movie, but I assume you wish to add titles etc?