Best quality photos in HD?

E

ericcosh

Well-known member
I have a client who wants to do a slide show in HD. It's only going to be still images. Here is my question. How will I get my very best resolution?
1. Scan the photos at 300dpi
2. Shoot the photos with my 200 using the P2?
(would 720 24P or 1080i be best if this is the solution?)

During the editing process, should I bring in the photos (whether scanned or shot) into FCP in 1080i or 720P if I'm going to be zooming in and lots of picture movement?

I know that this sounds like a crazy request, but the client is will to pay for the deck and an HD projector.

My only question is will the HD projection vs an SD projection of photos make that much of a quality difference?

Any thoughts on this would be deeply appreciated. So far in my testing, the scanned photos look the best.

thanks in advance,

eric
 
Eric,
The scanning resolution of the photos (300 dpi or 72 dpi) is not the issue...the pixel width of the live image is what is important. DPI (dots per inch) while considered sometimes as interchangeable with pixels is really used for print only, pixels are what you should be working in. You should look at the largest scale of the subject in the photos you want placed in a picture and determine your scanning resolution on that.

Say for instance, there is a face that takes up a 1/3rd of an entire photo image you want to scan, but you want to zoom in on that face so it fills the screen...you should scan it so the width of the face itself is around 1920 pixels wide and let the depth (length) go in proportion. Most scanners will scan in a pixel measurement.

As far as 1080i or 720p...I would definitely go with a progressive mode to avoid interlace (combing/flicker) artifacts. You can go 1080p if your projector allows for it.
Otherwise stick with 720p.

You could consider avoiding the expense/hassle of a deck completely by using a good laptop (Mac or PC) with a good graphics card and push the digital image out from there to your projector either as an H264 Quicktime movie or some flavor of the DVCPROHD codec.

It is a far simpler/cheaper method of producing HD than the tape/deck method. You can also use your HVX200 camera as a deck and load your files onto the P2 cards and send it out through the camera like a P2 clip.

Here's what Evin said they did at the NYC bootcamp to produce absolutely stunning HD video there....if you weren't there, all I can say is it makes looking at what's on your Mac CinemaHD screen look like noise-laden SD footage...I mean you cannot believe the difference...

From Evin's post....

The presentation was recorded out using FCP 5.0.4s "Print to video" option over firewire.
This only works in the 100Mb over60 DVCpro mode. It was played justlike any other clip on a P2. The Projector is a Sim2 HT300 Plus, native 720x1280 DLP cinema projector with 1300:1 contrast ratio and Carl Zeiss projection optics. It throws 800 lumens but the bulb is getting old and I need to get it replaced as well as have the color wheels cleaned.
The screen is a Da-lite fast fold 10' diagonal 16x9 Cinema vision screen (1.3x gain) __________________
Always beg forgiveness, not permission! http://www.evingrant.com
http://www.evingrantdp.com
 
Hi Bob:

Thank you for your input. I'm still a bit confused though with regard to ultimate quality of the image. Here is my problem. I want to have the highest possible quality of an image when it's transfered to video, let's say HD 720P.
If scanning can and will give you the best ultimate results, then what settings should I use?

As you're aware, most scanners use the word DPI for resolution, but it's my understanding that dpi has nothing to do with resolution. That resolution is determined by PPI. If I want to have the best possible information to work with from a photograph, then I would guess that I need to find the settings that will give that to me.

This is where I'm confused. I have an Epson 4180 Photo scanner. It's an 8-1/2 by 11-1/2 scanner. If I "gang" scan say 3 photo's at a time, and the photos' are say 3-1/2 by 5, when I choose pixel dimensions ( 1920x1600) will that be for each individual photo or is that dimension for an entire 8-1/2 by 11-1/2?

I'm just trying to find a way to get the very best image for an HD presentation. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

eric
 
Eric,
Besides scanning, what other option do you have except shooting it with the camera itself.

You could do that if you had the equipment (copy stand and the camera stand that can pan and move smoothly on a level plane). Its the way we have shot magazine/newspapers in the past because it gets you nice smooth pans without the scanning problems and saves you time in post. Unfortunately those rigs are pretty expensive, but you might be able to get away with some simple zooms and perhaps a slow pan or two with some jury rigged system.

If your scanner doesn't give you a pixel measurement (check your preferences for your scanning software because it might be a setting)...scan them at 72 dpi at a large enough scale so you have room to zoom in when in FCP. That means at 72dpi you would scan it at around 18 inches in width to reach the 1280 pixels in a 720 HD screen.

You'd scan even bigger if you planned to zoom or pan across the photograph.

Gang scanning would be okay if you needed same size to fit all, but if some you wanted to zoom into and some you didn't, you'd have to scan at the largest size you needed and just scale down the images you don't need zoomed into. Does that make sense? Just remember, the width is probably your most important dimension...the height will fall where it will be in proportion to the width.

Some scanners will do a gang scan but allow you to crop/scale the photos on the platen individually and then do a batch scan. Maybe yours does that.

Anyway, good luck.

-Bob
 
Hi Bob:

I really do appreciate your advice. I am fortunate enough to own a rig for shooting with my camera, plus I have the "motion picture maker" that allows me to control the movement of the photos.

I'll post the results from both.

thanks again Bob,

eric
 
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