I'm creating a variety of short movies featuring photography stills in iMovie, I need the transition and Ken Burn's cropping tools. I've tried a variety of import methods (tagged tiffs), including pre-converting all files to HDTV, sRGB, GenericRGB, etc, and iMovie totally hammers near blacks with loss of continuity and bad color crossovers. I've also tried various export methods, to no avail. Problems are most obvious with B&W imagery but close inspection of color reveals the same problems. Is it simply impossible to do this well with iMovie, or are there some techniques I need to use? I've googled about this a lot, seems to be a commom problem... Thanks, Tyler
Hi Tyler, I’ve been doing some similar testing with a project I’ve been building in Final Cut Pro X. I work primarily with night photography so as you can imagine, I’m quite sensitive to the tonal degradation we typically see in the shadows in video. I’m not sure what options you have in iMovie but, FWIW, I’ve discovered that the color space is of little consequence, but the format is paramount. If I maser video in the PreRes 422HQ format (or higher) then there’s no visible degradation. PreRes 422 and lower, including the notable H264 format use compression that’s pretty terrible on the shadows and since most delivery methods require H264 (like Vimeo and YouTube) we’re really limited. I’m hoping that H265 will improve the quality here. In the meantime, I’m exploring using media players that allow playback from H265 and uncompressed formats. Again, I’m not sure if this helps you with iMovie but hopefully this sheds some light - it’s the compression format we need to focus on - not the color space. Scott Martin www.martinphoto.com On Oct 27, 2014, at 5:02 PM, Tyler Boley <tboley@tylerboley.com> wrote:
I'm creating a variety of short movies featuring photography stills in iMovie, I need the transition and Ken Burn's cropping tools. I've tried a variety of import methods (tagged tiffs), including pre-converting all files to HDTV, sRGB, GenericRGB, etc, and iMovie totally hammers near blacks with loss of continuity and bad color crossovers. I've also tried various export methods, to no avail. Problems are most obvious with B&W imagery but close inspection of color reveals the same problems. Is it simply impossible to do this well with iMovie, or are there some techniques I need to use? I've googled about this a lot, seems to be a commom problem... Thanks, Tyler _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/scott%40on-sight.com
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given the amount if vid presentations that must use still content, I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be more info about this. The codec you mention doesn't seem to be available for imovie, however I did find some posts that FCP seemed to have less of this problem. On the other hand, your attention to night images and use in FCP may undermine that conclusion. Any image approaching that kind of tonality here is getting hammered. I've tried a variety of export codecs with little difference. I found some speculation that the hammering takes place at import, but little about how to change that result, and there aren't that many options for tiff preparation anyway, a tiff is a tiff. SOme suggested placing content in the event folder manually, but imovie events don't recognixe tiffs. My conclusion is also that it's not a color management issue, given the same result no matter what space and tagging is used. I found one suggestion that old versions of imovie may not have this problem, I'll try to check that out next. This project doesn't justify an FCPX purchase... So I guess this may be OT for this forum, but I can't find much elsewhere. Thanks, T Scott Martin wrote:
Hi Tyler, I’ve been doing some similar testing with a project I’ve been building in Final Cut Pro X. I work primarily with night photography so as you can imagine, I’m quite sensitive to the tonal degradation we typically see in the shadows in video.
I’m not sure what options you have in iMovie but, FWIW, I’ve discovered that the color space is of little consequence, but the format is paramount. If I maser video in the PreRes 422HQ format (or higher) then there’s no visible degradation. PreRes 422 and lower, including the notable H264 format use compression that’s pretty terrible on the shadows and since most delivery methods require H264 (like Vimeo and YouTube) we’re really limited. I’m hoping that H265 will improve the quality here. In the meantime, I’m exploring using media players that allow playback from H265 and uncompressed formats. Again, I’m not sure if this helps you with iMovie but hopefully this sheds some light - it’s the compression format we need to focus on - not the color space.
Scott Martin * * * *www.martinphoto.com <http://www.martinphoto.com>* * * *
On Oct 27, 2014, at 5:02 PM, Tyler Boley <tboley@tylerboley.com <mailto:tboley@tylerboley.com>> wrote:
I'm creating a variety of short movies featuring photography stills in iMovie, I need the transition and Ken Burn's cropping tools. I've tried a variety of import methods (tagged tiffs), including pre-converting all files to HDTV, sRGB, GenericRGB, etc, and iMovie totally hammers near blacks with loss of continuity and bad color crossovers. I've also tried various export methods, to no avail. Problems are most obvious with B&W imagery but close inspection of color reveals the same problems. Is it simply impossible to do this well with iMovie, or are there some techniques I need to use? I've googled about this a lot, seems to be a commom problem... Thanks, Tyler _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com <mailto:Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com>) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/scott%40on-sight.com
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Tyler, Just an idea (did not try it myself) - import picts to iPhoto - create a presentation containing pictures and crossovers (share button) Then - export the presentation as movie (share button) - or use a screen grabber to record your presentation This way you get a movie clip ready for import. The second way even might record a speaker depending on the screen grabber app. Hope this helps, Karsten
Am 28.10.2014 um 01:46 schrieb Tyler Boley <tboley@tylerboley.com>:
given the amount if vid presentations that must use still content, I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be more info about this. The codec you mention doesn't seem to be available for imovie, however I did find some posts that FCP seemed to have less of this problem. On the other hand, your attention to night images and use in FCP may undermine that conclusion. Any image approaching that kind of tonality here is getting hammered. I've tried a variety of export codecs with little difference. I found some speculation that the hammering takes place at import, but little about how to change that result, and there aren't that many options for tiff preparation anyway, a tiff is a tiff. SOme suggested placing content in the event folder manually, but imovie events don't recognixe tiffs. My conclusion is also that it's not a color management issue, given the same result no matter what space and tagging is used. I found one suggestion that old versions of imovie may not have this problem, I'll try to check that out next. This project doesn't justify an FCPX purchase... So I guess this may be OT for this forum, but I can't find much elsewhere. Thanks, T
The codec you mention doesn't seem to be available for iMovie,
I’m messing around with iMovie this morning and it’s clearly simplifying things by making certain choices for you. I suspect it uses H264 across the board.
however I did find some posts that FCP seemed to have less of this problem.
FCPX totally has the same problem, until the codec is changed to ProRes4222HQ or higher. Set it to anything less and the problem is obvious.
On the other hand, your attention to night images and use in FCP may undermine that conclusion.
Thanks. Let’s not forget iMovie is just a simplified version of FCPX. To understand FCPX is to better understand iMovie. iMovie doesn’t give the user control over certain things - like the codec!
I found some speculation that the hammering takes place at import, but little about how to change that result, and there aren't that many options for tiff preparation anyway, a tiff is a tiff.
Right, I suspect FCPX is mastering in H264 from the beginning, which would explain the shadow tonality getting hammered. I hear you on this loud and clear. I’ve used a gajillion timelapse applications and they all hammer the tonality. Cleaner tonality really is the domain of a pro level app like FCPX and After Effects, unfortunately. Scott Martin
thanks all for your replies. It's iMovie, but you know, it's free(ish). The unaltered projects, when imported into a friends FCP app, rendered out much better, even using H264 faster. There was still a little color banding, but the dramatic luminosity breaks and clips were gone. Perhaps even the banding would be gone selecting a better codec, next test. Off line advice I got about limiting the tonal endpoints in the tiffs definitely helped for iMovie, but was not required for FCP. Tyler
On Oct 27, 2014, at 5:02 PM, Tyler Boley <tboley@tylerboley.com <mailto:tboley@tylerboley.com>> wrote:
I'm creating a variety of short movies featuring photography stills in iMovie, I need the transition and Ken Burn's cropping tools. I've tried a variety of import methods (tagged tiffs), including pre-converting all files to HDTV, sRGB, GenericRGB, etc, and iMovie totally hammers near blacks with loss of continuity and bad color crossovers. I've also tried various export methods, to no avail. Problems are most obvious with B&W imagery but close inspection of color reveals the same problems. Is it simply impossible to do this well with iMovie, or are there some techniques I need to use? I've googled about this a lot, seems to be a commom problem... Thanks, Tyler _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com <mailto:Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com>) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/scott%40on-sight.com
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participants (4)
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Graeme Gill
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Karsten Krüger
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Scott Martin
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Tyler Boley