best Photoshop file format for animating and compositing photos in a doc-film???

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I'm making a documentary film that will use many animated composited photos as in the doc-film "Cocaine Cowboys".

Can anyone tell me what format the stills should be in for compositing in Final Cut Pro 7??? TIF? PSD? PNG?
Or should I instead be using After Effects for animated composited still work. I just figured FCP7 because that's what I'm editing my project in.

I'm just unsure which still format to use. I just now that I'll need transparency, alpha channels, etc.

Also I'll be scanning a lot of photos for this film from the National Archives. What format is best to scan in? I'll be doing a lot of Ken Burns type animated moves on stills too.

Thanks very much in advance for any tips, help.
 
I really prefer after effects for anything like this - FCP just doesn't have the control, easing of motion is non-intuitive, and stills often just seem a little choppy. With AE you can use the 3D camera for motion - even if you don't do a lot of parallax stuff, there are subtleties to motion with the camera that are gorgeous, even if you're subtle with it.

Format is not that big a deal - use something not visibly compressed that the software likes. TIFF, PNG, Photoshop ( for AE at least)

Scan things 3, 4, 10 times the size you think you'll need. Reduce in PS to close-to the max size you'll want and keep big copies. You never know when you want to crop something. Or someone will want an image for a poster or print ad.

Tiff is a great format. PNGs seem to take forever to save, but they do transparency beautifully. Skip JPEG.
 
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