9.2. The Dimensions of an iMovie PhotoOn the iMovie discussion forums of the Web, the question comes up over and over again: "What resolution should my iMovie-bound photos be?" Now, technically, images 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall ought to be perfect for standard TV, because that's the resolution of a standard TV screen. But you'll soon find out that iMovie has some funny ideas about fitting photos into its "frame." If you import a 640 x 480 photo into iMovie, you'll wind up with black bars on either side! (Figure 9-4 shows the idea.) Figure 9-4. If the dimensions of your graphic aren't in the exact width-to-height ratio that iMovie demands, you'll get letterboxed bars like these. |
Project Video Format | Screen Dimensions, in Pixels |
---|---|
MPEG-4 | 640 x 480 |
Standard DV | 720 x 528 |
DV Widescreen | 869 x 480 |
HDV (720p) | 1280 x 720 |
HDV (1080i) | 1440 x 1080 |
But you'd be wrong. You'd still wind up with black bars on two sides of the photo, thanks to iMovie's New Math.
So how do you make sure a photo fits exactly? You have two choices. First, you can magnify it slightly, using the Ken Burns effect (described next ), until it fills the frame and no longer displays black bars.
Second, you can crop the photo ahead of time, using iPhoto or another graphics program, so that it comes in with the oddball proportions iMovie expects.
The following table is a gold mine of useful information:
The Ken Burns Magnification column tells you how much to magnify (zoom into) a photo to eliminate those black bars. For example, to make a standard-size photo fit the standard DV screen, you have to drag the Ken Burns Size slider to 1.03 (!).
The iPhoto Crop column shows how to pre-crop an image so that it will fit the iMovie frame perfectly. Now, iPhoto doesn't give you any way to specify pixel dimensionsonly height-by-width proportions . (Use the Crop tool in Edit mode. From the Constrain pop-up menu, choose Custom, and type in these proportions before you do the cropping.)
The Minimum Dimensions column shows, in pixels, the lowest resolution graphic you should feed iMovie to fit the screen neatly. Use it if you plan to pre-crop the photo in, for example, Photoshop.
Project Format | Ken Burns Magnification | iPhoto Crop Proportions | Minimum Graphics Dimensions |
---|---|---|---|
MPEG-4 | 1.00 | 4:3 | 640 x 480 |
Standard DV | 1.03 | 1.364:1 | 720 x 528 |
DV Widescreen | 1.37 | 1.818:1 | 874 x 480 |
HDV (720p) | 1.33 | 16:9 | 1280 x 720 |
HDV (1080i) | 1.33 | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 |
Project Format | Ken Burns Magnification | iPhoto Crop Proportions | Minimum Graphics Dimensions |
---|---|---|---|
MPEG-4 | 1.00 | 4:3 | 640 x 480 |
Standard DV | 1.03 | 1.364:1 | 788 x 576 |
DV Widescreen | 1.37 | 1.822:1 | 1050 x 576 |
HDV (720p) | 1.33 | 16:9 | 1280 x 720 |
HDV (1080i) | 1.33 | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 |
* (If you plan to use the Ken Burns effect, of course, you'll want to use much greater resolution to avoid ugly pixellationtwice the listed resolution, for example, for a 2X zoom effect.).