Making a slideshow

[keith_plechaty]

<p>I've been using FotoMagico for several months now and have discovered that when using the Ken Burns effect on slides being shown on my HDTV, the slides actually look a little better unsharpened. Images that are sharpened tend to flicker quite a bit on my tv. Has anyone else noticed this? Should I just not sharpen images for my HDTV slideshows?<br>

Thanks!</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>If you oversharpen, the anti-aliasing filters in your HDTVs digitial circuitry create the shimmer artifacts. I've noticed it also when I've burned Bluray discs from slides shows I've done in Fotomagico. I use mild sharpening at best and usually moderate size JPG or TIF files so that when I zoom in I never drop much below a 1920 pixel width.</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>If you oversharpen, the anti-aliasing filters in your HDTVs digitial circuitry create the shimmer artifacts. I've noticed it also when I've burned Bluray discs from slides shows I've done in Fotomagico. I use mild sharpening at best and usually moderate size JPG or TIF files so that when I zoom in I never drop much below a 1920 pixel width.</p>

[keith_plechaty]

<p>When you say you downsize JPGS or Tifs, does it matter how large the JPGS are if you end up outputting an HD MP4? Doesn't it downsize the image when you're rendering the MP4?</p>

[john_deerfield]

<blockquote>

<p>does it matter how large the JPGS are if you end up outputting an HD MP4? </p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>In my experience, it depends on the rendering engine and the computer. And I have never used Fotomagico. However, things usually go much smoother if you reduce the file size to something more along the lines of what you need.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Doesn't it downsize the image when you're rendering the MP4?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Well, I am splitting hairs here, but no. It renders a <em>frame</em> to a certain size, such as 1920x1080, not the asset (image) itself. There is a difference. One example might be to consider a portrait orientation photograph on a widescreen "canvas". The whole <em>frame </em>is rendered which means there will be black space on either side of the image, so it isn't the image itself that is being rendered. Same thing with more than one image on the screen, perhaps during a transition. </p>

<p>To further answer your question, any line with a small pixel width can "jitter" due to anti-aliasing. Sharpening an image increases the number of edges with a small pixel width. </p>

[keith_plechaty]

<p>So in your opinion, the best way to get rid of that annoying jitter is to downsize your images to the appropriate size and to avoid oversharpening? (Maybe even blurring some images?)</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>The thing to remember is to not downsize your image too much. As an example, if you downsize an image to roughly 2000 pixels wide, roughly the width of 1080HD and then use Fotogmagico to zoom into a section of it, say 500 pixels wide, that section of the image is going to look very soft and certainly won't look like HD quality. You almost have to determine downsizing on a frame by frame basis or simply leave the image as a full size JPG. My experience with Fotomagico is that it has no problem dealing with rendering full size JPGs. The more critical issue is to not oversharpen or even sharpen at all, if the image has already been sharpened in the camera.</p>